Custom links in the Applications UI

Elastic’s custom link feature allows you to easily create up to 500 dynamic links based on your specific APM data. Custom links can be filtered to only appear in the Applications UI for relevant services, environments, transaction types, or transaction names.

Ready to dive in? Jump straight to the examples.

Each custom link consists of a label, URL, and optional filter. The easiest way to create a custom link is from within the actions dropdown in the transaction detail page. This method will automatically apply filters, scoping the link to that specific service, environment, transaction type, and transaction name.

Alternatively, you can create a custom link in the Applications UI by navigating to Settings > Customize UI, and selecting Create custom link.

The name of your custom link. The actions context menu displays this text, so keep it as short as possible.

Tip

Custom links are displayed alphabetically in the actions menu.

The URL your link points to. URLs support dynamic field name variables, encapsulated in double curly brackets: {{field.name}}. These variables will be replaced with transaction metadata when the link is clicked.

Because everyone’s data is different, you’ll need to examine your traces to see what metadata is available for use. To do this, select a trace in the Applications UI, and click Metadata in the Trace Sample table.

Example metadata

Filter each link to only appear for specific services or transactions. You can filter on the following fields:

  • service.name
  • service.env
  • transaction.type
  • transaction.name

Multiple values are allowed when comma-separated.

Not sure where to start with custom links? Take a look at the examples below and customize them to your liking!

Email the owner of a service.
Label Email <SERVICE_NAME> engineer
Link mailto:<TEAM_OR_ENGINEER>@<COMPANY_NAME>.com
Filters service.name:<SERVICE_NAME>

Example

This link opens an email addressed to the team or owner of python-backend. It will only appear on services with the name python-backend.
Label Email python-backend engineers
Link mailto:python_team@elastic.co
Filters service.name:python-backend

Open a GitHub issue with pre-populated metadata from the selected trace sample.
Label Open an issue in <REPO_NAME>
Link https://github.com/<ORG>/<REPO>/issues/new?title=<TITLE>&body=<BODY>
Filters service.name:client

Example

This link opens a new GitHub issue in the apm-agent-rum repository. It populates the issue body with relevant metadata from the currently active trace. Clicking this link results in the following issue being created:

Example github issue
Label Open an issue in apm-rum-js
Link https://github.com/elastic/apm-agent-rum-js/issues/new?title=Investigate+APM+trace&body=Investigate+the+following+APM+trace%3A%0D%0A%0D%0Aservice.name%3A+{{service.name}}%0D%0Atransaction.id%3A+{{transaction.id}}%0D%0Acontainer.id%3A+{{container.id}}%0D%0Aurl.full%3A+{{url.full}}
Filters service.name:client

See the GitHub automation documentation for a full list of supported query parameters.

Create a Jira task with pre-populated metadata from the selected trace sample.
Label Open an issue in Jira
Link https://<JIRA_BASE_URL>/secure/CreateIssueDetails!init.jspa?<ARGUMENTS>

Example

This link creates a new task on the Engineering board in Jira. It populates the issue body with relevant metadata from the currently active trace. Clicking this link results in the following task being created in Jira:

Example jira issue
Label Open a task in Jira
Link https://test-site-33.atlassian.net/secure/CreateIssueDetails!init.jspa?pid=10000&issuetype=10001&summary=Created+via+APM&description=Investigate+the+following+APM+trace%3A%0D%0A%0D%0Aservice.name%3A+{{service.name}}%0D%0Atransaction.id%3A+{{transaction.id}}%0D%0Acontainer.id%3A+{{container.id}}%0D%0Aurl.full%3A+{{url.full}}

See the Jira application administration knowledge base for a full list of supported query parameters.

Link to a custom dashboard in Kibana.
Label Open transaction in custom visualization
Link https://kibana-instance/app/kibana#/dashboard?_g=query:(language:kuery,query:'transaction.id:{{transaction.id}}'...

Example

This link opens the current transaction.id in a custom kibana dashboard. There are no filters set.
Label Open transaction in Python drilldown viz
URL https://kibana-instance/app/kibana#/dashboard?_g=(filters:!(),refreshInterval:(pause:!t,value:0),time:(from:now-24h,to:now))&_a=(description:'',filters:!(),fullScreenMode:!f,options:(hidePanelTitles:!f,useMargins:!t),panels:!((embeddableConfig:(),gridData:(h:15,i:cb79c1c0-1af8-472c-aaf7-d158a76946fb,w:24,x:0,y:0),id:c8c74b20-6a30-11ea-92ab-b5d3feff11df,panelIndex:cb79c1c0-1af8-472c-aaf7-d158a76946fb,type:visualization,version:'7.7')),query:(language:kuery,query:'transaction.id:{{transaction.id}}'),timeRestore:!f,title:'',viewMode:edit)

Open a specified slack channel.
Label Open SLACK_CHANNEL
Link https://COMPANY_SLACK.slack.com/archives/SLACK_CHANNEL
Filters service.name : SERVICE_NAME

Example

This link opens a company slack channel, #apm-support. It only appears when transaction.name is GET user/login.
Label Open #apm-user-support
Link https://microsoft.slack.com/archives/efk52kt23k
Filters transaction.name:GET user/login

Open an internal or external website.
Label Open <WEBSITE>
Link https://<COMPANY_SLACK>.slack.com/archives/<SLACK_CHANNEL>
Filters service.name:<SERVICE_NAME>

Example

This link opens more data on a specific user.email. It only appears on front-end transactions.
Label View user internally
Link https://internal-site.company.com/user/{{user.email}}
Filters service.name:client