Creating reliable and functional apps is a lot harder than most people think. In the highly competitive world of mobile apps, finding a way to set your program apart can be extremely challenging.
One of the best ways to get a leg up on the competition is by ensuring your app is reliable and glitch-free. According to a recent study, something as simple as a slow-loading app can lead to a business losing nearly 29 percent of their online audience. Rather than experiencing these massive losses, you need to find a way to adequately monitor your app’s performance.
When working with a team of developers, you need to find a way to limit their access to core elements of the app and your business. This is why utilizing the power of an access rights management system is so important.
Monitoring key performance indicators (KPI) is a great way to find out how healthy your app is. Read below to find out about some of the best KPIs you need to be monitoring.
Monitoring Apdex Scores
For years, app developers and tech entrepreneurs have sued application performance index (Apdex) scores to track how well their app is performing for consumers. These scores are generated by setting an average of how long a certain request or transaction should take. Your app will be compared to this average and will be given a score based on the results.
As soon as you start to notice your Apdex score falling, you need to find out why. Issues like a slow server or even coding problems can lead to your app slowing down. The longer you wait to fix these problems, the harder you will find it to keep consumers interested in your app. All it takes is one bad review to affect the popularity of your app.
Assessing Error Rates
If your app is constantly crashing or producing errors for users, it will usually lead to a higher number of uninstalls. Tracking app errors is the best way to figure out how to stop them in their tracks.
Generally, there are three types of app errors you need to look out for. The first one is an HTTP error percentage, which is an average of how many web requests ended in an error. The logged exceptions are the number of logged errors that your application has produced. The last error is known as a thrown exception. This refers to the number of exceptions your app has produced in a set amount of time.
You need to also look for any hidden application exceptions that are occurring. These hidden exceptions can cause performance issues, which is why you need to monitor them closely.
Getting to Know Your Request Rate
When trying to monetize your app, you will need to know important things like how much traffic your app is getting. Most of the other performance metrics you monitor will be affected by increases and decreases in app traffic. By looking at your app’s request rate, you can pinpoint serious functionality issues in a hurry.
If you notice your app’s traffic go from high to basically non-existent, chances are crashes are occurring. Finding out what is causing these crashes will take some time and research. In some cases, this issue will be caused by coding errors embedded in the framework of the app. If you are unable to track down the source of your problem, consulting with an experienced app developer or programmer is a good idea.
App and Server CPU Usage
One of the most critical and basic metrics you need to monitor is your apps CPU usage. If you start to notice that your CPU usage is extremely high, then there are definitely performance issues that need to be ironed out.
There are a variety of tools on the market that can monitor CPU usage and send you alerts when problems are detected. Consistent CPU usage problems can be caused by a bad server. When this occurs, be sure to contact your hosting provider to find out how they can help.
Is Your App Available to Users?
Another vital metric you need to keep an eye on is your app’s availability. If your app is offline and unavailable, you will have a hard time growing your user base. For web-based apps, running a scheduled HTTP check is the best way to ensure the program is available. Most monitoring programs allow you to ping your app on an hourly basis to ensure it is up and running.
Often times, serious app errors occur as a result of a hurried development process. Instead of trying to rush the release of your app, you need to test it adequately first. Beta testing your app will provide you with a lot of useful information on how to optimize it.
Leave a Comment