To give DEXTER instructions on what to report, you create a job parameter file in simple JSON format.

DEXTER comes with DefaultJob.json job file in the folder with the binaries. Make a copy and edit that to produce job file suitable for your needs.

You can also use visual creator tool called DEXTER-UI to create job files.

Here are some Job File Examples for reference.

You can also watch this training video:

AppDynamics DEXTER job input file contains 3 sections:

Target parameter is a JSON array of custom JSON object pointing at Controller and specifying types and names of Applications to process.

Here is an example pointing at 2 Controllers to extract all APM Applications:

    "Target": [
        {
            "Controller": "http:https://demo1.appdynamics.com",
            "UserName": "username@customer1",
            "UserPassword": "",
            "Application": ".*",
            "NameRegex": true,
            "Type": "APM"
        },
        {
            "Controller": "http:https://demo2.appdynamics.com",
            "UserName": "username@customer1",
            "UserPassword": "",
            "Application": ".*",
            "NameRegex": true,
            "Type": "APM"
        }
    ]

Here is an example extracting only SIM Application information:

    "Target": [
        {
            "Controller": "http:https://demo1.appdynamics.com",
            "UserName": "username@customer1",
            "UserPassword": "",
            "Application": "DOES NOT MATTER",
            "NameRegex": false,
            "Type": "SIM"
        }
    ]

Here is an example extracting only DB Collector for "MyDatabaseCollector" collector:

    "Target": [
        {
            "Controller": "http:https://demo1.appdynamics.com",
            "UserName": "username@customer1",
            "UserPassword": "",
            "Application": "MyDatabaseCollector",
            "NameRegex": false,
            "Type": "DB"
        }
    ]

URL of the controller, like https://yourcontroller.saas.appdynamics.com.

If your controller is using port number, append it after : like that: http:https://yourcontroller.yourdomain.com:8090.

Do not put /controller after the host portion https://yourcontroller.saas.appdynamics.com ~~/controller~~.

Username of of the user to use to connect to Controller in <username>@<tenant> format.

Only AppDynamics authentication is supported. LDAP or SAML credentials can not be used.

appddexter@customer1 for user named appddexter and for single-tenant on-premises Controller.

appddexter@saastenant for user named appddexter in SaaS Controller saastenant.saas.appdynamics.com.

Client API tokens (https://docs.appdynamics.comdisplay/latest/API+Clients) are supported.

You must issue a token first through either API or UI.

To use token, set UserName to BEARER value (all UPPERCASE).

Password of the user to connect to Controller

Leave blank to be prompted for password when extraction begins.

Specify access token here.

Application or Applications to query in the Controller

If NameRegex is false, interpreted as text.

If NameRegex is true, interpreted as Regular Expression.

• MyAwesomeProduction == Matches just that MyAwesomeProduction application
• ECommerce|Movie.* == Matches ECommerce, ECommerce-Fulfillment and Movie Tickets Online Applications
• SOMETHING-NAM-S(G|B)69*|SOMETHING-NAM-SW == Matches SOMETHING-NAM-SW, SOMETHING-NAM-SB690 and SOMETHING-NAM-SG690 Applications
• .* or * == Matches all applications in Controller

If true, the value in Application should be interpreted as Regular Expression.

If false, the value in Application is treated as literal string.

Specifies type of Application. Can be one of these:

• APM
• SIM
• WEB
• MOBILE
• DB
• BIQ

If empty, "APM" is assumed.

If type is "SIM" or "BIQ", values in ApplicationName and NameRegex are ignored.

Input section is a JSON object specifying what to extract (Logical Model - Entities, Configuration rules, Metrics, Events, Snapshots, Flame Graphs) and what time range to operate on:

    "Input": {
        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "TODAY",
            "MarkTime": "PREVIOUS_HOUR",
            "Duration": "1:00:00"
        },
        "UsersGroupsRolesPermissions": true,
        "Dashboards": true,
        "Licenses": true,
        "Events": true,
        "EventsSelectionCriteria": [ "All" ],
        "Configuration": true,
        "ConfigurationComparisonReferenceAPM": { "Controller": "", "Application": "" },
        "ConfigurationComparisonReferenceWEB": { "Controller": "", "Application": "" },
        "ConfigurationComparisonReferenceMOBILE": { "Controller": "", "Application": "" },
        "ConfigurationComparisonReferenceDB": { "Controller": "", "Application": "" },
        "DetectedEntities": true,
        "Metrics": true,
        "MetricsSelectionCriteria": {
            "MetricSets": [ "TransactionApplication", "TransactionTier", "TransactionNode", "TransactionBackend", "TransactionBT", "TransactionSEP", "TransactionError", "TransactionIP", "AgentStats", "OSHardware", "CLRStats", "IISStats", "IISReqCounts", "IISReqPerf", "JVMStats", "JMXDBConnStats", "JMXWebContainerStats", "BusinessTransactionPercentiles", 
            "BIQMetric", "BIQBizJourney",
            "DBKPI", "DBServerStats", "DBIO", "DBEngineStats",
            "WEBTransactionApplication", "WEBTransactionPage", "WEBTransactionAJAX", "WEBTransactionVirtualPage",
            "MOBILETransactionApplication", "MOBILETransactionNetworkRequest",
            "SIMHardware" ],
            "IncludeHourAndMinuteDetail": true
        },
        "MetricsList": true,
        "Flowmaps": true,
        "Snapshots": true,
        "EntityDashboards": true,
        "EntityDashboardSelectionCriteria": {
            "Tiers": [],
            "TierTypes": [ " All" ],
            "BusinessTransactions": [],
            "BusinessTransactionTypes": [ " All" ],
            "Nodes": [],
            "NodeTypes": [ " All" ],
            "Backends": [],
            "BackendTypes": [ " All" ]
        },
        "SnapshotSelectionCriteria": {
            "Tiers": [],
            "TierTypes": [ " All" ],
            "BusinessTransactions": [],
            "BusinessTransactionTypes": [ " All" ],
            "UserExperience": {
                "Normal": true, 
                "Slow": true, 
                "VerySlow": true, 
                "Stall": true, 
                "Error": true 
            },
            "SnapshotType": { 
                "Full": true, 
                "Partial": true, 
                "None": true
            }
        }
    }

This is a new time range specifier supporting explicit and relative ranges.

When combined, MarkDate and MarkTime provide a point in time from which to count, and use Duration to specify the length of time period.

Duration can be either positive (start at the specified time and go forward) or negative (start at the specified time and count backwards).

MarkDate and MarkTime can be local or GMT, and support relative offset tokens, allowing queries like "Last 1 hour", "15 minutes in Previous hour" or "1 hour last Monday".

Specifies the Date component of DateTime indicating from which point to begin measuring.

Supports any standard .NET DateTime string https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-date-and-time-format-strings for date format as well as some relative tokens:

Specifies the Time component of DateTime indicating from which point to begin measuring.

Supports any standard .NET DateTime string https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-date-and-time-format-strings for time format as well as some relative tokens:

Specifies the Duration of time period before or after the DateTime indicating from which point to begin measuring.

Can be positive or negative and can be specified in either .NET TimeSpan or ISO 8601 Duration form.

Value of Duration must be at least 60 seconds long.

Duration supports standard .NET TimeSpan specifier https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-timespan-format-strings?view=netcore-3.1#the-constant-c-format-specifier:

[-][d.]hh:mm:ss[.fffffff]

Elements in square brackets ([ and ]) are optional. The period (.) and colon (:) are literal symbols. The following table describes the remaining elements.

Supports positive or negative standard ISO 8601 Duration specifiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601:

P[n]Y[n]M[n]DT[n]H[n]M[n]S

• P is the duration designator (for period) placed at the start of the duration representation.
• Y is the year designator that follows the value for the number of years.
• M is the month designator that follows the value for the number of months.
• W is the week designator that follows the value for the number of weeks.
• D is the day designator that follows the value for the number of days.
• T is the time designator that precedes the time components of the representation.
• H is the hour designator that follows the value for the number of hours.
• M is the minute designator that follows the value for the number of minutes.
• S is the second designator that follows the value for the number of seconds.

1 hour time range starting at specified time.

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "2020-05-05",
            "MarkTime": "14:00:00",
            "Duration": "1:00:00"
        },

This is equivalent to:

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "2020-05-05",
            "MarkTime": "14:00:00",
            "Duration": "PT1H"
        },

1 hour time range ending at specified time.

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "2020-05-05",
            "MarkTime": "00:00:00",
            "Duration": "-1.00:00:00"
        },

This is equivalent to:

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "2020-05-05",
            "MarkTime": "00:00:00",
            "Duration": "-P1D"
        },

1 hour time range starting at specified time in GMT.

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "2020-05-05Z",
            "MarkTime": "14:00:00Z",
            "Duration": "1:00:00"
        },

Last 15 minutes.

If NOW is 15:32, the time range that will be extracted is 15:17-15:32.

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "TODAY",
            "MarkTime": "NOW",
            "Duration": "-0:15:00"
        },

Last full hour.

If NOW is 15:32, the time range that will be extracted is 14:00-15:00.

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "TODAY",
            "MarkTime": "PREVIOUS_HOUR",
            "Duration": "1:00:00"
        },

This can also be specified this way:

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "TODAY",
            "MarkTime": "CURRENT_HOUR",
            "Duration": "-1:00:00"
        },

Go to the last Monday and pull 9-5 duration:

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "MONDAY",
            "MarkTime": "09:00:00",
            "Duration": "8:00:00"
        },

Go to the last Monday and pull 9-5 duration:

        "TimeFrame": {
            "MarkDate": "MONDAY_Z",
            "MarkTime": "09:00:00Z",
            "Duration": "8:00:00"
        },

Usage of TimeRange specifier is discouraged in favor of using TimeFrame specifier.

If TimeFrame is not provided, this setting is used as fallback.

Specifies beginning and end of the time range to retrieve data for.

The values in From and To must conform to any standard .NET DateTime string https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-date-and-time-format-strings

Both local or GMT times are supported. For example:

Using local time:

        "TimeRange": {
            "From": "2020-04-22T16:00:00",
            "To": "2020-04-22T17:00:00"
        },

Using UTC time:

        "TimeRange": {
            "From": "2020-04-22T16:00:00Z",
            "To": "2020-04-22T17:00:00Z"
        },

Specifies whether to extract and index Users, Groups, Roles and Permissions for the Controller.

Specifies whether to extract and index Dashboards, Widgets and Time Series used by Widgets for the Controller.

Specifies whether to extract and index informaiton about global account and license rule configuration and consumption for Controller.

Specifies whether to extract and index Events and Health Rule Violations for All Applications, Controller Notifications and Controller Audit Events.

Selects which event types to extract.

Empty array [] means no events will be extracted.

Value of [ "All" ] means all known event types will be extracted. All other members of array will be ignored.

Event Types are defined in EVENT_TYPES

For example, to extract just a few event types, specify this array:

    "EventsSelectionCriteria": [
      "APPLICATION_CONFIG_CHANGE",
      "APPLICATION_ERROR",
      "APP_SERVER_RESTART",
      "POLICY_OPEN_WARNING"
    ]

Health Rule violations, Controller Audit and Controller Notifications events are always be extracted.

Specifies whether to extract and index configuration (BT rules, Backend rules, Data Collectors for APM, Web Page Rules for Web, and so on).

Specifies which APM Application to use as reference during configuration comparison. This Application must also be specified as a valid Target.

If Controller and Application are blank, then configuration comparison is performed against a blank template application.

Specifies which WEB Application to use as reference during configuration comparison. This Application must also be specified as a valid Target.

If Controller and Application are blank, then configuration comparison is performed against a blank template application.

Specifies which MOBILE Application to use as reference during configuration comparison. This Application must also specified as a valid Target.

If Controller and Application are blank, then configuration comparison is performed against a blank template application.

Specifies which DB Application to use as reference during configuration comparison. This Application must also be specified as a valid Target.

If Controller and Application are blank, then configuration comparison is performed against a blank template application.

Specifies whether to extract and index list of detected entities (Business Transactions, Tiers, Nodes for APM, Web pages for EUM and so on).

Specified whether to extract and index summary and detail metrics for all APM Entities, which are used in Entity Metrics, Entity Metric Graphs and Entity Details report

Used in conjunction with MetricsSelectionCriteria.

Provides filtering abilities for the metric extraction.

Selects which sets of metrics export for APM Entities.

Empty array [] means no metrics will be extracted.

Metric sets are defined in EntityMetricsExtractMapping.csv, column "MetricSet". See Metric Sets for details on how to add your own metrics and customize graphs.

Specifies whether to extract granular metric detail.

Specifies whether to extract and index list of registered and reporting metrics for APM Applications.

Specifies whether to extract and index flow maps for APM Entities (Application, Tier, Node, Business Transaction and Backend).

Specifies whether to take screenshots of the main screen for APM Entities (Application, Tier, Node, Business Transaction and Backend).

Provides filtering abilities for the taking screenshots of dashboards.

Filters screenshot taking to only ones these Tiers.

Regular expressions are supported.

Selects which Tier types to include for screnshots.

Empty array [] means no Tiers will be processed.

Value of [ "All" ] means all types of Tiers will be processed. All other members of array will be ignored.

Valid values:

• All
• APP_AGENT
• DOT_NET_APP_AGENT
• NATIVE_APP_AGENT
• NATIVE_DYNAMIC
• NATIVE_SDK
• NATIVE_WEB_SERVER
• NODEJS_APP_AGENT
• PHP_APP_AGENT
• PYTHON_APP_AGENT
• RUBY_APP_AGENT

For example, to extract just a few types of Tiers, specify this array:

    "TierTypes": [
      "APP_AGENT",
      "NODEJS_APP_AGENT"
    ]

Filters screenshot taking to only ones these Business Transactions.

Regular expressions are supported.

• [] - Empty array means all Business Transactions will be matched
• ["Web-Main"] - specifies that only "Web-Main" Business Transaction will match
• ["Web-.*"] – specified that any Business Transactions that match specified Regex will match
• ["Web.*", "SomeService", "XYX.*"] – array of settings mixing exact match and Regex match

Selects which Business Transaction types to include for screnshots.

Empty array [] means no Business Transactions will be processed.

Value of [ "All" ] means all types of Business Transactions will be processed. All other members of array will be ignored.

Valid values:

• All
• SERVLET
• HTTP
• WEB_SERVICE
• POJO
• JMS
• EJB
• SPRING_BEAN
• STRUTS_ACTION
• ASP_DOTNET
• ASP_DOTNET_WEB_SERVICE
• DOTNET_REMOTING
• WCF
• DOTNET_JMS
• POCO
• PHP_WEB
• PHP_MVC
• PHP_DRUPAL
• PHP_WORDPRESS
• PHP_CLI
• PHP_WEB_SERVICE
• NODEJS_WEB
• NATIVE
• WEB
• PYTHON_WEB
• RUBY_WEB
• RUBY_RAILS
• BINARY_REMOTING

For example, to extract just a few types of Business Transactions, specify this array:

    "BusinessTransactionTypes": [
      "SERVLET",
      "ASP_DOTNET"
    ]

Filters screenshot taking to only ones these Nodes.

Regular expressions are supported.

Selects which Node types to include for screnshots.

Empty array [] means no Nodes will be processed.

Value of [ "All" ] means all types of Nodes will be processed. All other members of array will be ignored.

Valid values:

• All
• APP_AGENT
• DOT_NET_APP_AGENT
• NATIVE_APP_AGENT
• NATIVE_DYNAMIC
• NATIVE_SDK
• NATIVE_WEB_SERVER
• NODEJS_APP_AGENT
• PHP_APP_AGENT
• PYTHON_APP_AGENT
• RUBY_APP_AGENT

For example, to extract just a few types of Nodes, specify this array:

    "NodeTypes": [
      "APP_AGENT",
      "NODEJS_APP_AGENT"
    ]

Filters screenshot taking to only ones these Backends.

Regular expressions are supported.

Selects which Backend types to include for screnshots.

Empty array [] means no Backends will be processed.

Value of [ "All" ] means all types of Backends will be processed. All other members of array will be ignored.

Valid values:

• All
• SOCKET
• HTTP
• CUSTOM
• CUSTOM_ASYNC
• FILE_SERVER
• MAIL_SERVER
• WEB_SERVICE
• ERP
• CACHE
• WEBSPHERE_MQ
• MAINFRAME
• TIBCO_ASYNC
• TIBCO
• ESB
• SAP
• AVRO
• THRIFT
• CASSANDRA
• MQ
• JMS
• WEBSOCKET
• JDBC
• RMI
• LDAP
• CORBA
• RABBITMQ
• ADODOTNET
• DOTNETDirectoryServices
• DOTNETRemoting
• DOTNETMessaging
• WCF
• MSMQ
• DB
• NETWORK

For example, to extract just a few types of Backends, specify this array:

    "BackendTypes": [
      "HTTP",
      "WEB_SERVICE"
    ]

Specifies whether to retrieve Snapshots for APM aplications.

Used in conjunction with all settings in SnapshotSelectionCriteria.

Provides filtering abilities for the snapshot extraction.

Filters Snapshots to be extracted to only ones originating from these Tiers.

Regular expressions are supported.

• [] - Empty array means all Tiers will be matched
• ["ECommerce"] - specifies that ECommerce Tier will match
• ["ECommerce.*"] - specifies that any Tiers that match specified Regex will match, such as ECommerce and ECommerce-Inventory
• ["Web", "App", "Middle.*"] – array of settings mixing exact match and Regex match, such as Web, App and Middleware

Selects which Tier types to include for snapshot extraction.

Empty array [] means no Tiers will be processed.

Value of [ "All" ] means all types of Tiers will be processed. All other members of array will be ignored.

Valid values:

• All
• APP_AGENT
• DOT_NET_APP_AGENT
• NATIVE_APP_AGENT
• NATIVE_DYNAMIC
• NATIVE_SDK
• NATIVE_WEB_SERVER
• NODEJS_APP_AGENT
• PHP_APP_AGENT
• PYTHON_APP_AGENT
• RUBY_APP_AGENT

For example, to extract just a few types of Tiers, specify this array:

    "TierTypes": [
      "APP_AGENT",
      "NODEJS_APP_AGENT"
    ]

Filters Snapshots to be extracted to only ones originating from these Business Transactions.

Regular expressions are supported.

• [] - Empty array means all Business Transactions will be matched
• ["Web-Main"] - specifies that only "Web-Main" Business Transaction will match
• ["Web-.*"] – specified that any Business Transactions that match specified Regex will match
• ["Web.*", "SomeService", "XYX.*"] – array of settings mixing exact match and Regex match

Selects which Business Transaction types to include for snapshot extraction.

Empty array [] means no Business Transactions will be processed.

Value of [ "All" ] means all types of Business Transactions will be processed. All other members of array will be ignored.

Valid values:

• All
• SERVLET
• HTTP
• WEB_SERVICE
• POJO
• JMS
• EJB
• SPRING_BEAN
• STRUTS_ACTION
• ASP_DOTNET
• ASP_DOTNET_WEB_SERVICE
• DOTNET_REMOTING
• WCF
• DOTNET_JMS
• POCO
• PHP_WEB
• PHP_MVC
• PHP_DRUPAL
• PHP_WORDPRESS
• PHP_CLI
• PHP_WEB_SERVICE
• NODEJS_WEB
• NATIVE
• WEB
• PYTHON_WEB
• RUBY_WEB
• RUBY_RAILS
• BINARY_REMOTING

For example, to extract just a few types of Business Transactions, specify this array:

    "BusinessTransactionTypes": [
      "SERVLET",
      "ASP_DOTNET"
    ]

Selects which Business Transaction snapshots identified by the RequestID GUID to extract.

Empty array [] means all Business Transactions will be processed.

Contains settings for filtering by Snapshot User Experience:

• Normal
• Slow
• VerySlow
• Stall
• Error

Contains settings for filtering by Snapshot Type:

• Full
• Partial
• None

Output section is a JSON object specifying what reports to render (logical model, Configuration rules, Metrics, Events, Snapshots, Flame Graphs).

    "Output": {
        "UsersGroupsRolesPermissions": true,
        "Dashboards": true,
        "Licenses": false,
        "Events": true,
        "Configuration": true,
        "DetectedEntities": true,
        "EntityMetrics": true,
        "EntityMetricGraphs": true,
        "MetricsList": true,
        "Flowmaps": true,
        "EntityDashboards": true,
        "EntityDetails": true,
        "Snapshots": true,
        "FlameGraphs": true,
        "HealthCheck": false,
        "ApplicationSummary": false
    }

Specifies whether to render Users and Permissions report for Users, Groups, Roles and Permissions in Controller

Specifies whether to render Dashboards Report report for Controller Dashboards, Widgets and Time Series used by Widgets.

Specifies whether to render Licenses Report report for global account and license rule configuration and consumption for Controller.

Specifies whether to render Events and Health Rule Violations report.

Specifies whether to render Configuration report.

Specifies whether to render:

• Detected APM Entities report for APM applications
• Detected SIM Entities report for SIM applications
• Detected DB Entities report for DB Collectors
• Detected WEB Entities report for WEB applications
• Detected MOBILE Entities report for MOBILE applications
• Detected BIQ Entities report for BIQ applications

Specifies whether to render Entity Metrics report.

Specifies whether to render Entity Metrics Graphs report.

Specifies whether to render Registered APM Metrics report for APM Applications.

Specifies whether to render Entity Flowmaps report.

Specifies whether to render Entity Dashboards report.

Specifies whether to render Entity Details report for Entities that have some metric or snapshot activity.

Specifies whether to render Snapshots and Snapshots Method Calls reports.

Specifies whether to render Individual Snapshot report.

Works on the SnapshotSelectionCriteria\RequestIDs or on list of requests specified in --request-ids and --report-folder command line.

Specifies whether to render Flame Graphs and Flame Charts reports for APM Applications, Tiers, Nodes and Business Transactions.

Specifies whether to render Health Check reports for Platform health and APM Applications.

Specifies whether to render Application Summary report for APM Applications.