Website Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Onboarding Quick Start Guide
This guide covers the basics of our monitoring platform's functionality, and offers specifics for testing website performance.
See our support articles or contact us directly with questions.
Table of Contents
1. What is a Check?
2. Welcome to the Launchpad
3. Use Advanced Checks
4. Configure Performance Alerts
5. Add Contacts and Contact Groups
6. Add New Monitoring Users
7. Understand Check Failures
8. Use Web Monitoring Reports
9. Visit Our Support Center
What is a Check?
A Check monitors a URL or IP address at intervals as low as 1-minute from various locations across six continents. When the URL or IP address fails, checks issue alerts that contain details of the downtime incident(s) to designated contacts.
This overview covers the various check types available to you. See below for all monitoring checks available on Uptime.com:
Web
Let's Get Started:
Welcome to the Launchpad
Upon first logging in, you are greeted with the Uptime.com Launchpad. Here you will find the full list of check types available to every Uptime.com customer, along with other features that are important when setting up your account. To get started, click any check type and enter its required details.
Manually create checks from the list shown in the first section or scroll down to use Monitor Entire Site, which runs Web Server, Email, and Network checks you can add individually, or in bulk:
Users can also click Monitoring > Checks followed by Add New to add a new check. We recommend you begin with an HTTP(S) check, but also explore each monitoring check type based on your needs. Change the check type via the Check Type dropdown menu to any of our available check types.
Tip: When creating or editing a check, select a location from the dropdown and then click Run Test to verify settings are correct.
Different Check Types will require different information and settings. Hover over each field to see a short explanation, or read our Check Field Explanation on required and optional parameters.
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The support article on Advanced Check Options can help further customize checks to utilize:
- Maintenance windows : Prevent a check from issuing an alert while the maintenance window is active. More information on how alerts work in maintenance state.
- Escalations : Send an additional alert once a pre-configured amount of time has passed (such as 5-min or 1-hr).
- Sensitivity : The number of probe servers that must go to CRITICAL status before a check issues an alert.
- Number of retries : The number of times a probe server will retry a check before it goes to CRITICAL status.
...and other options dependent on the check.
See our Check Field Explanation article for a full breakdown of each parameter.
Use Advanced Monitoring Checks
These features provide advanced monitoring functionality to simulate website user experiencesand observe real-time performance:
- Real User Monitoring : Monitors the performance experience of visitors to your site.
- Transaction Checks : Monitors web transactions on your site (e.g. login, registration etc.).
- Page Speed Checks : Monitors and audits the performance and metrics of your site.
- API Checks : Monitors API using multiple HTTP(S) requests.
- Group Checks : Organize multiple checks to monitor systems, report on performance, and manage incident response.
- Custom Checks : Monitors periodic jobs and processes, issuing alerts according to whether an action occurs or a heartbeat is not detected.
Configure Performance Alerts
Email, SMS, and voice call notifications are part of New User Setup, and are created for the primary account holder upon first login. These details form the Default contact. When creating your first check, it will be automatically assigned to this Default contact to receive alert notifications.
Along with email, SMS, and voice calls, we support most major third-party push notification providers that can receive incident alerts. The Uptime.com app on the iOS App Store and Google Play supports push notifications for alerts too.
With this list of Push Notification Integrations, send alerts and metrics to the tools you’re already using to monitor uptime and resolve incidents.
Here are some ideas for creating responsive escalations.
Subscribe to Uptime.com's status page to be notified in advance of changes to our probe server locations.
Add Contacts and Contact Groups
The Contact Screen is used to add new contacts or edit existing ones. Depending on how the contact is configured, individuals or contact groups associated with each contact will be notified of a downtime incident via:
- SMS message and/or phone call
- Push notifications through a third-party provider
- Uptime.com’s Mobile Application ( iOS and Android Available)
Along with a contact’s Name, Email/Phone, and/or Integrations assigned, you can set on-call scheduling and see the number of Checks and Escalations configured. Access it via Notifications > Contacts.
Add New Monitoring Users
Users generally have access to reports, and can log into the platform to: view checks (those with higher permission levels can edit/create new checks), receive emailed invoices, and reports.
Click New User from the Users Page. Add the user’s first name, last name, and email. Then, choose that user’s account Access Level, and opt in/out of Two-Factor Authentication and hit Save.
Uptime.com will then send a verification email to the user to create a password.
Understand Check Failures
When a check fails, an alert is delivered to designated contact groups along with other integrated systems via push notification. The alert contains the date, time, and location relevant to the outage.
Depending on the check type and notification provider, other technical data may be included such as server information, unexpected strings,links to real-time analysis, and any configured notes.
Amongst other tools that Uptime.com offers for diagnosing incidents, Real-Time Analysis provides a comprehensive timeline of events and alerts associated with a check. This can aid in viewing technical details at each point in the timeline, obtaining information about points of failure, and taking precautions to avoid future incidents.
Please note: Group Check alerts will not contain locations relevant to the outage, only the configured down condition.
Use Web Monitoring Reports
Use the Alert History Screen for a quick or detailed view of alerts issued when a monitoring check fails.
You can build status pages (see example), or create and schedule an SLA report for any number of checks.
If you have added a Real User Monitoring (RUM) check, you can view RUM reports as well. NOTE: RUM Checks do require adding HTML code to your website. See instructions here.
Finally, showcase uptime monitoring performance to visitors by adding the Uptime.com widget to your website.
Once checks have been added to your account, you will notice check cards appearing on your dashboard.
Customize your dashboard to filter which check cards appear, in what order, and other settings tailored to your preference.
These check cards offer detailed statistics on current state, response time, and uptime as a percentage:
Users can configure SLA Reports or Schedule Reports to send at set intervals (ie: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly).
Create your first SLA report by clicking Reports > SLA Reports, then select New SLA Report. Edit any SLA report to add or remove checks (either by tag or individually), or change the logic that determines how the report is rendered.
Download a PDF or XLS SLA report copy by clicking Reports > SLA Reports, locate the report and then select Actions > Download PDF, or Download XLS.
Schedule a Report by clicking Reports > Scheduled Reports.
It is also possible to view an Uptime Report for a specific check, which provides a continuous granular view of domain uptime.
Visit Our Support Center
Our Support Documentation covers Uptime.com’s functionality in greater detail. Search our Support Center for fast answers, and Submit a Ticket if you're unable to find them. We're available 24/7 to help.