Transaction Detection Rule Priorities

Splunk AppDynamics app agents apply transaction detection rules of the same type in the following order of precedence:

  1. Rule priority from highest to lowest. A priority of 0 is the lowest priority possible.
  2. Creation date from oldest to newest. This is applicable to custom rules only.

For example, consider an HTTP request that matches a priority 2 custom match rule and a priority 6 custom match rule. The agent applies the priority 6 rule.

When an incoming request matches more than one type of detection rule, Splunk AppDynamics applies the detection rules in the following order of precedence:

  1. Custom match include rules according to the include rule priority. If the request matches an include rule, the agent names the business transaction based on the rule.

  2. Custom match exclude rules according to the exclude rule priority. If the request matches an exclude rule, the app agent excludes the transaction from discovery.

  3. Default automatic detection rules. If the request matches a default automatic detection rule, it names the transaction according to the auto-detection naming scheme.

If two entry point types have the same priority where either can be used to define or register an entry point, then there is some precedence between them.

For example: If in Java just the Java Automatic Discovery Rule with all types is enabled, and there are entry points which can be considered as Web Services or Servlets - then the Servlets will take priority - a higher priority rule is needed if Web Services are the desired default.

To view the default order of transaction detection rules for a tier:

  1. Navigate to Configuration > Instrumentation > Transaction Detection > Tiers.
  2. Click a tier to see the rules ordered by precedence and priority.

For Java and .NET, you can set the check-bt-excludes-early node property to "true" toconfigure the app agent to evaluate custom match exclude rules before custom match include rules. This is a node-based configuration and does not affect the display order of rules in the Controller UI.