- 6 minutes to read

What is a Log View?

Get started now: How to Add or Manage Log View user guide

A Nodinite Log View provides the business users self-service access to selected data. Data logs to Nodinite either using one of the Nodinite Log Agents or the Nodinite Asynchronous Logging pattern. If the user downloads and peeks the payload, the user operation is audited.

Use the Log View to find business transactions

The Nodinite Administrator creates Log Views for selected Roles. Let's look at an excellent example of usage where we give the business user the power to find orders by OrderId.
Orders by OrderId

First, the authenticated user selects a Log View and then specifies the following scoping properties:

  1. Enter the start and end date (quick select options exist, and also, a pre-defined Time Interval Configuration can be applied)
  2. Enter the OrderId Search Field (Different mathematical operators exist depending on the data type)
  3. Search for the Log Events

The result presents on a paged list. In addition, there are many options to visualize the content; For example, you can re-order the columns using the Display Field Configuration.

Search Result

Interact with Log Events

With the result at hand, there are many features to explore and work further with. Click the Actions button to open the sub-menu. Depending on the permissions, different options appear.

Actions menu items
Example with a list of menu items in the Actions button.

View details

Click the 'View details' menu item to open a new tab in the browser with additional advanced features.

This option is available to members of the built-in Administrators Role.

View Message Body

Click the View message body menu item to open a modal with the message's payload in the format on the wire. As with many popular file editors, on the modal, you can see the size, position and selection.

The view message body option is available to role members with the allowance to view the message body.

View message body
Example of a logged message in its raw format.

On the modal, additional advanced options are available to the end-user. Depending on the permissions and role membership, different options appear.

  • Download - Download the message.
  • Open in a new window - Open the message in its own window.
  • Word wrap - Present the message with or without the word-wrap option.
  • Pretty print - Try to style the message using the pretty print option.
  • Show hidden characters - When checked, hidden characters render with special markings (e.g. whitespace, tab, ...) New 6.0
  • Linebreak marker - Enter any text and press the Enter key to apply a line break on the given content. You can always reload the payload to roll back to the original content. This feature is of great help in reading EDIFACT/X12 messages. New 6.0
  • Encoding - Re-render the message with the selected encoding.
    Encoding options

The following encoding options are available:

Encoding option Comment
ASCII Render the message in the ASCII format
Base64 Decode Decode a base64 encoded message
Base64 Encode Encode the message
EBCDIC (IBM307) Render the message in the EBCDIC format
ISO-8859-1 Render the message in the ISO-8859-1 format
Mime Mail to Text Convert a Mime encoded message
None (Binary)
UTF-16 Render the message in the UTF-16 format
UTF-8 (Default) Render the message in the UTF-8 format
Windows-1251 Render the message in the Windows-1252 format

NOTE: There is a potential data loss rendering the message with the encoding option.

  • Search Field Wizard - Click on this button to create or manage existing Search Fields.

Mime Mail to Text

With the Mime encoding option, you can change the presentation of the message. For example, given the sample MIME-encoded message below, Select the Mime encoding option to view the base64encoded part in a decoded format.

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Base64
Content-ID: {749803BA-3A65-4A8F-1337-65125988BBF3}
Content-Description: body

Tm9kaW5pdGUgaGFzIGl0IGFsbCE=

The result looks like this:

Nodinite has it all!

View message formatted as 'Name of the Stylesheet'

Click the View message formatted as... menu item to open a modal with the message's payload in the styled format.

This option is available to role members with the allowance to view the message using a stylesheet.

Resend

Click the Resend menu item to immediately resend the message to the Endpoint. The information to control the resend operation is detailed in the Context Options user guide.

This option is available to role members with the allowance to resend messages.

Download

Click the Resend menu item to immediately resend the message to the Endpoint.

This option is available to all users with the right to view the message body.


Q/A

# Topic
What is the origin of logged events?
What data is available to the end-user?

What is the origin of logged events?

The Nodinite logging and archiving features are designed and built to replace BAM in BizTalk. Today, Nodinite is a feature-rich product and supports a vast array of system integrations platforms. The ones with built-in tracking, like BizTalk Server and IBM Integration Bus, have plug and play Log Agents. Other platforms and custom-built logging is achieved using the Asynchronous Logging pattern. The latter does not yield vendor lock-in and is a well-defined part of your logging strategy.

graph LR subgraph "Integration platforms" roB(fal:fa-atom Boomi) roA(fal:fa-clouds Azure
Logic Apps
Functions
API Management Services) roBT(fal:fa-sitemap BizTalk Server) roOther(+ WSO2, MuleSoft, ApacheCamel,
IBM IIB, Ghostnodes, WCF, ... ) end subgraph "Nodinite" roLogAPI(fal:fa-cloud-download Log API) roLA(fal:fa-archive Log Agents) end roBT ----> roLA roB ---->roLogAPI roA ----> roLA roA ----> roLogAPI

What data is available to the end-user?

As the Nodinite Administrator, you can set filter rules on what data to display in the Log Views. Further, the payloads may be transformed using either XSLT or Liquid using the Nodinite feature Stylesheets.

Hiding values for search fields that are not defined in the Log View: New 5.4
Hidden Search Field values
Values are hidden for Search Fields that are not part of the Log View.

What Integration does the logged message belong to?

A Nodinite Log Event can be tied to a Service which belongs to a System. An Integration is defined as a set of linked Services. This connection can be set either manually or as part of your logging strategy; review the Repository Binding for the details.

Repository Model

When the Log Event is tied to a log point (Transport Contract), use the Landscape button to view where in the flow the event belongs. When you open the Landscape the associated Service blink for a few seconds.

With Selected

Use the With selected button to perform operations on multiple messages at a time.

  • Save as .zip with original filenames
  • Save as .zip (files in zip package get unique names)
  • Resend
  • Export events
  • Diff message body New 6.0

The Diff message body is available if exactly two Log Events have been selected.

Diff message body
An example of the difference between two selected Log Events in a Log View.


Manage Log Views

A Nodinite Administrator can manage a Log View by:

Review the Log Views - Overview user guide for the list of manageable Log Views.


Next Step

Administration
How to Add or manage Search Fields
How to Add or manage Log Views

Expression Type Plugins are used in Search Fields
What are Search Fields?
What are Search Field Expressions?
What are Message Types?