<%NUMBERING1%>.<%NUMBERING2%>.<%NUMBERING3%> PRTG Manual: Common SaaS Sensor

The Common SaaS sensor monitors the availability of several software as a service (SaaS) providers. Because your business processes are more and more depending on cloud hosts, this sensor is important for unified monitoring. With this sensor, you can get alarms if your cloud services are not reachable anymore.

The sensor can show the following:

  • Available services in percent
  • Response times of the following SaaS providers:
    • Bing
    • Dropbox
    • Facebook
    • GitHub
    • Google Apps
    • Office 365
    • Salesforce
    • Twitter
    • Youtube
Common SaaS Sensor

Common SaaS Sensor

Sensor in Other Languages

  • Dutch: Algemene SaaS
  • French: SaaS courants
  • German: Verbreitete SaaS-Dienste
  • Japanese: Common SaaS
  • Portuguese: Provedores SaaS Comuns
  • Russian: Общий для SaaS
  • Simplified Chinese: 常用 SaaS
  • Spanish: SaaS común

Remarks

  • The probe system must have access to the internet.
  • This sensor has a fixed scanning interval of 15 minutes. You cannot change it.
  • PRTG automatically creates this sensor on every probe device. If the probe system has no connection to the internet, manually pause or delete this sensor to avoid error messages.
  • This sensor inherits proxy settings for HTTP sensors from the parent device.
  • This sensor has predefined limits for several metrics. You can individually change these limits in the channel settings. For detailed information about channel limits, see section Sensor Channel Settings.
  • This sensor supports the IPv6 protocol.

Add Sensor

The Add Sensor dialog appears when you manually add a new sensor to a device. It only shows the setting fields that are required for creating the sensor. Therefore, you do not see all setting fields in this dialog. You can change (nearly) all settings in the sensor's Settings tab later.

Select the SaaS checklists that you want to monitor. The sensor creates one channel for each service that you select in the Add Sensor dialog.

The following settings in the Add Sensor dialog differ in comparison to the sensor's Settings tab.

Common SaaS Specific

Setting

Description

SaaS Checklists

Select the services that you want to monitor with this sensor. You see a list with the names of all available items. Select the items by adding check marks. The sensor creates one channel for each selection. You can also select all items or cancel the selection by using the check box in the table header.

Basic Sensor Settings

Click the Settings tab of a sensor to change its settings.

icon-i-round-blueUsually, a sensor connects to the IP Address or DNS Name of the parent device on which you created the sensor. See the device settings for details. For some sensors, you can explicitly define the monitoring target in the sensor settings. See below for details on available settings.

Setting

Description

Sensor Name

Enter a meaningful name to identify the sensor. By default, PRTG shows this name in the device tree, as well as in alarms, logs, notifications, reports, maps, libraries, and tickets.

Parent Tags

Shows tags that the sensor inherits from its parent device, group, and probe. This setting is shown for your information only and cannot be changed here.

Tags

Enter one or more tags. Confirm each tag with the Spacebar key, a comma, or the Enter key. You can use tags to group objects and use tag-filtered views later on. Tags are not case-sensitive. Tags are automatically inherited.

icon-i-round-blueIt is not possible to enter tags with a leading plus (+) or minus (-) sign, nor tags with parentheses (()) or angle brackets (<>).

The sensor has the following default tags that are automatically predefined in the sensor's settings when you add the sensor:

  • commonsaas
  • saas

Priority

Select a priority for the sensor. This setting determines where the sensor is placed in sensor lists. A sensor with a top priority is at the top of a list. Choose from one star (low priority) to five stars (top priority).Enter topic text here.

Debug Options

Setting

Description

Sensor Result

Define what PRTG does with the sensor results:

  • Discard sensor result: Do not store the sensor result.
  • Write sensor result to disk (file name: Result of Sensor [ID].txt): Store the last result received from the sensor to the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system (master node, if in a cluster). File names: Result of Sensor [ID].txt and Result of Sensor [ID].Data.txt. This is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites these files with each scanning interval.

icon-prtg-on-demandThis option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG hosted by Paessler instance.

Sensor Display

Setting

Description

Primary Channel

Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel is always displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.

icon-i-round-blueYou can set a different primary channel later by clicking the pin symbol of a channel on the sensor's Overview tab.

Graph Type

Define how different channels are shown for this sensor:

  • Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.
  • Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
    icon-i-round-redYou cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).

Stack Unit

This field is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

Inherited Settings

By default, all of the following settings are inherited from objects that are higher in the hierarchy. You should change them centrally in the root group settings if necessary. To change a setting for this object only, disable the inheritance by clicking the button next to inherit from under the corresponding setting name. You then see the options described below.

icon-square-cyanFor more information, see section Inheritance of Settings.

Scanning Interval

Click inherited_settings_button to interrupt the inheritance.

Setting

Description

Scanning Interval

Select a scanning interval (seconds, minutes, or hours). The scanning interval determines the amount of time that the sensor waits between two scans. You can change the available intervals in the system administration on PRTG on premises installations.

If a Sensor Query Fails

Define the number of scanning intervals that the sensor has time to reach and check a device again in case a sensor query fails. Depending on the option that you select, the sensor can try to reach and check a device again several times before the sensor shows the Down status. This can avoid false alarms if the monitored device only has temporary issues. For previous scanning intervals with failed requests, the sensor shows the Warning status. Choose from:

  • Set sensor to down immediately: Set the sensor to the Down status immediately after the first failed request.
  • Set sensor to warning for 1 interval, then set to down (recommended): Set the sensor to the Warning status after the first failed request. If the following request also fails, the sensor shows an error.
  • Set sensor to warning for 2 intervals, then set to down: Set the sensor to the Down status only after three consecutively failed requests.
  • Set sensor to warning for 3 intervals, then set to down: Set the sensor to the Down status only after four consecutively failed requests.
  • Set sensor to warning for 4 intervals, then set to down: Set the sensor to the Down status only after five consecutively failed requests.
  • Set sensor to warning for 5 intervals, then set to down: Set the sensor to the Down status only after six consecutively failed requests.

icon-i-round-blueSensors that monitor via Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) always wait at least one scanning interval before they show the Down status. It is not possible to immediately set a WMI sensor to the Down status, so the first option does not apply to these sensors. All other options can apply.

icon-i-round-blueIf you define error limits for a sensor's channels, the sensor immediately shows the Down status. No "wait" option applies.

icon-i-round-blueIf a channel uses lookup values, the sensor immediately shows the Down status. No "wait" options apply.

Access Rights

Click inherited_settings_button to interrupt the inheritance.

Setting

Description

User Group Access

Define the user groups that have access to the sensor. You see a table with user groups and group access rights. The table contains all user groups in your setup. For each user group, you can choose from the following group access rights:

  • Inherited: Inherit the access rights settings of the parent object.
  • No access: Users in this user group cannot see or edit the sensor. The sensor neither shows up in lists nor in the device tree.
  • Read access: Users in this group can see the sensor and view its monitoring results. They cannot edit any settings.
  • Write access: Users in this group can see the sensor, view its monitoring results, and edit its settings. They cannot edit its access rights settings.
  • Full access: Users in this group can see the sensor, view its monitoring results, edit its settings, and edit its access rights settings.

icon-square-cyanFor more details on access rights, see section Access Rights Management.

Sensor Settings Overview

For more information about sensor settings, see the following sections: