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Create custom links

Required role

The Editor role or higher is required to create and manage custom links. To learn more, refer to Assign user roles and privileges.

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 for relevant services, environments, transaction types, or transaction names.

Ready to dive in? Jump straight to the examples.

Create a linkedit

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 by navigating to any page within Applications and selecting Settings → Custom Links → Create custom link.

Labeledit

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

Custom links are displayed alphabetically in the actions menu.

URLedit

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 and click Metadata in the Trace Sample table.

Filtersedit

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.

Custom link examplesedit

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

Emailedit

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:[email protected]`
Filters	`service.name:python-backend`

GitHub issueedit

Open a GitHub issue with prepopulated 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:


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.

Jira taskedit

Create a Jira task with prepopulated 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:


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.

Dashboardsedit

Link to a custom dashboard.


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 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)

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)

Slack channeledit

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-user-support. It only appears when transaction.name is GET user/login.


Label	`Open #apm-user-support`
Link	`https://COMPANY_SLACK.slack.com/archives/efk52kt23k`
Filters	`transaction.name:GET user/login`

Websiteedit

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`

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