Real User Monitoring (RUM) is a technology that allows you to track and monitor performance data for your website through the real users on your website. The data presented in the system is derived directly from the browser of your real users, giving you a real word view of the performance experienced by the users of your website.
Armed with this useful data you are able to keep a check on the experience your site is providing from a users perspective and be able to make any changes required to further increase the performance of your website.
Once configured, when real users visit your site, four performance metrics are recorded. These are the Network, Server, Browser and Page Load times. These metrics are taken directly from the browser and show how long each part of the page load process is taking.
These timings are based on the standard W3C Navigation Timings API and are fully supported in all major browsers.
In addition to these performance metrics, we also provide a further level of benefit to our users by providing page load speed information and the number of page views broken down into the following categories: Pages, Countries, Browsers, Device Types.
This allows you to further drill down into your performance data to analyse the performance per country from where your visitors are or the performance of each page that is being visited on your website etc..
How to configure RUM
To configure Real User Monitoring you have to place a Javascript code snippet on your webpage similar to when enabling Google Analytics or other tracking software.
Real User Monitoring is released as a premium feature available in our Pro Plan and above. When signing up to the Pro Plan you gain the ability to create a Real User Monitor for all of the websites configured in your account, there is no limit on this. The only limit is a maximum aggregate total of 500,000 page views across all of your configured Real User Monitors. If you need more page views you can contact us to work out a bespoke package that fits your requirements.
In order to start the Real User Monitoring service, browse to the website that you wish to configure and then select the option to Install R.U.M. This will present you with the screen as shown below:
As RUM is not already configured on this website, you are presented with the required Javascript and instructions of how to install this into your website. As soon as you install the Javascript on your website you should see results coming through to this same screen within a few minutes.
If you use Public Status Pages, you can now also add your RUM data to the Public Status Pages you have configured.
As with other monitor views, you can view your data over the past 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days or 2 years. Detailed PDF reports and also threshold alerts are coming soon to this feature.
