Create a Mobile monitoring profile for Android or iOS apps
Overview
A Mobile monitoring profile runs a scheduled end-to-end check of a native or hybrid Android or iOS app through Appium, on Core Agents. It answers the same question as any monitoring profile, "does the app work for a user right now, and how fast", but drives the app on an emulator, an attached device, or a device on another machine.
Two things differ from other monitoring profiles:
- A Mobile profile runs on Core Agents only. Full Agents are not offered.
- It always uses the Direct connection mode. Platform (Cloud) mode is not available for Mobile.
Before you begin
- Your appliance is licensed for End-to-End Monitoring; the Profiles page is part of it.
- At least one Core Agent is registered and online, with the Android tooling and the emulator image or the attached device it will use. For iOS, a Mac runs Appium with its XCUITest driver and holds the simulator or device; iOS always uses the Remote device mode.
- You know the workload the profile should run, and which datasource, schedule and alerting it should use.
Steps
Step 1
Open End-to-End Monitoring > Profiles and select New Profile (or Create Profile when the list is still empty). The wizard has ten steps: Name, Target, Agents, Type, Workload, Datasource, Schedule, SUT, Alerting and Summary.
Step 2
On Name, give the profile a name. If you choose the Platform (Cloud) connection mode here and then pick Mobile on the next step, the wizard switches it back to Direct and tells you so: "The connection mode chosen on step 1 was Platform (Cloud); it has been set to Direct."
Step 3
On Target, choose the Mobile card ("Native and hybrid Android/iOS apps through Appium on Core Agents"). The info panel Core Agents in Direct mode confirms the two rules above. Then fill in the device settings:
- Which device: Platform (Android or iOS), Device mode (Emulator, Real device or Remote), and optionally Device profile (AVD name or simulator type) and Device serial (adb serial or UDID). Leave the optional fields empty and the engine decides.
- Which app (optional): App package (apk/ipa path or URL), Android package, Android activity or iOS bundle id, only when the agent must install or launch the app before the workload runs.
- Session behaviour (advanced): Appium URL (required for a Remote device, for example
http://APPIUM_HOST:4723/), Headless, Keep warm, Boot timeout (seconds) and Extra capabilities (JSON).
For a scheduled profile, consider Keep warm: it keeps the device booted between sessions, so a scheduled run does not cold-boot it every cycle.
Step 4
On Agents, choose the Core Agents that run the profile. The step shows "Mobile runs on Core Agents only. Full Agents are not available."
Step 5
Complete Type, Workload, Datasource, Schedule, SUT and Alerting as for any monitoring profile, check the Summary, and select Create Profile (or Save Changes when editing).
If the API refuses the profile, the wizard lists every reason under "The API did not save this profile:", or shows a single reason in the Save failed banner. The device rules are the same as for a Mobile load profile: a platform and device mode are required, iOS needs the Remote mode with an Appium URL, and extra capabilities must be one JSON object.
Verify the result
The profile card on End-to-End Monitoring: Profiles carries a Mobile badge. Let the first scheduled run complete, or start one, and check that it produces a result for the profile before you rely on its alerting.