<%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 depend more and more on cloud hosts, this sensor type is an important pillar for unified monitoring. With this sensor you can get alarms if your cloud services are not reachable anymore.
This sensor shows 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
Click here to enlarge: http://media.paessler.com/prtg-screenshots/common_saas.png
Remarks
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 will not see all setting fields in this dialog. You can change (nearly) all settings in the sensor's Settings tab later.
Select which SaaS providers you want to monitor. The sensor will create one channel for each service you choose in the Add Sensor dialog.
The following settings for this sensor differ in the Add Sensor dialog in comparison to the sensor's settings page.
Sensor Settings
On the details page of a sensor, click the Settings tab to change its settings.
Usually, a sensor connects to the IP Address or DNS Name of the parent device where you created this sensor. See the Device Settings for details. For some sensor types, you can define the monitoring target explicitly in the sensor settings. Please see below for details on available settings.
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Sensor Name
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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.
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Parent Tags
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Shows Tags that this sensor inherits from its parent device, group, and probe. This setting is shown for your information only and cannot be changed here.
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Tags
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Enter one or more Tags, separated by spaces or commas. You can use tags to group sensors and use tag–filtered views later on. Tags are not case sensitive. We recommend that you use the default value.
You can add additional tags to the sensor if you like. Other tags are automatically inherited from objects further up in the device tree. These are visible above as Parent Tags.
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Priority
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Select a priority for the sensor. This setting determines where the sensor is placed in sensor lists. Top priority is at the top of a list. Choose from one star (low priority) to five stars (top priority).
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Sensor Result
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Define what PRTG will do with the sensor results. Choose between:
- Discard sensor result: Do not store the sensor result.
- Write sensor result to disk (Filename: "Result of Sensor [ID].txt"): Store the last result received from the sensor to the Logs (Sensor) directory in the PRTG data folder on the probe system the sensor is running on (on the 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 overrides these files with each scanning interval.
For more information on how to find the folder used for storage, see section Data Storage.
This option is not available on cloud probes in PRTG in the cloud.
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Primary Channel
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Overview
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Graph Type
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Define how different channels will be shown for this sensor.
- Show channels independently (default): Show an own 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 will generate an easy-to-read graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
This option cannot be used in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the Sensor Channels Settings settings).
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Stack Unit
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This setting is only available if stacked graphs are selected above. Choose a unit from the list. All channels with this unit will be 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.
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Inherited Settings
By default, all following settings are inherited from objects higher in the hierarchy and should be changed there, if necessary. Often, best practice is to change them centrally in the Root group's settings. To change a setting only for this object, disable inheritance by clicking the check mark in front of the corresponding setting name. You will then see the options described below.
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Inheritance for schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows cannot be interrupted. The corresponding settings from the parent objects will always be active. However, you can define additional settings here. They will be active at the same time as the parent objects' settings.
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Schedule
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Select a schedule from the list. Schedules can be used to monitor for a certain time span (days, hours) every week. With the period list option it is also possible to pause monitoring for a specific time span. You can create new schedules and edit existing ones in the account settings.
Schedules are generally inherited. New schedules will be added to existing ones, so all schedules are active at the same time.
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Maintenance Window
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- Not set (monitor continuously): No maintenance window will be set and monitoring will always be active.
- Set up a one-time maintenance window: Pause monitoring within a maintenance window. You can define a time span for a monitoring pause below and change it even for a currently running maintenance window.
To terminate a current maintenance window before the defined end date, change the time entry in Maintenance Ends field to a date in the past.
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Maintenance Begins
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This field is only visible if you enabled the maintenance window above. Use the date time picker to enter the start date and time of the maintenance window.
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Maintenance Ends
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This field is only visible if you enabled the maintenance window above. Use the date time picker to enter the end date and time of the maintenance window.
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Dependency Type
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Define a dependency type. Dependencies can be used to pause monitoring for an object depending on the status of another. You can choose between:
- Use parent: Pause the current sensor if the device, where it is created on, is in Down status, or is paused by another dependency.
- Select object: Pause the current sensor if the device, where it is created on, is in Down status, or is paused by another dependency. Additionally, pause the current sensor if a specific other object in the device tree is in Down status, or is paused by another dependency. Select below.
- Master object for parent: Make this sensor the master object for its parent device. The sensor will influence the behavior of the device, where it is created on: If the sensor is in Down status, the device will be paused. For example, it is a good idea to make a Ping sensor the master object for its parent device to pause monitoring for all other sensors on the device in case the device cannot even be pinged. Additionally, the sensor will be paused if the parent group of its parent device is in Down status, or if it is paused by another dependency.
Testing your dependencies is easy! Simply choose Simulate Error Status from the context menu of an object that other objects depend on. A few seconds later all dependent objects should be paused. You can check all dependencies in your PRTG installation by selecting Devices | Dependencies from the main menu bar.
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Dependency
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This field is only visible if the Select object option is enabled above. Click on the reading-glasses and use the object selector to choose an object on which the current sensor will depend.
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Dependency Delay (Sec.)
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Define a time span in seconds for a dependency delay. After the master object for this dependency goes back to Up status, PRTG will start monitoring the depending objects after this extra delayed. This can help to avoid false alarms, for example, after a server restart, by giving systems more time for all services to start up. Please enter an integer value.
This setting is not available if you choose this sensor to Use parent or to be the Master object for parent. In this case, please define delays in the parent Device Settings or in the superior Group Settings.
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User Group Access
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Define which user group(s) will have access to the object you're editing. A table with user groups and types of access rights is shown: It contains all user groups from your setup. For each user group you can choose from the following access rights:
- Inherited: Use the access rights settings of the parent object.
- None: Users in this group cannot see or edit the object. The object neither shows up in lists nor in the device tree. Exception: If a child object is visible to the user, the object is visible in the device tree, though not accessible.
- Read: Users in this group can see the object and review its monitoring results.
- Write: Users in this group can see the object, review its monitoring results, and edit the object's settings. They cannot edit access rights settings.
- Full: Users in this group can see the object, review its monitoring results, edit the object's settings, and edit access rights settings.
You can create new user groups in the System Administration—User Groups settings. To automatically set all objects further down in the hierarchy to inherit this object's access rights, set a check mark for the Revert children's access rights to inherited option.
For more details on access rights, please see the section User Access Rights.
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Edit Sensor Channels
To change display settings, spike filter, and limits, switch to the sensor's Overview tab and click the gear icon of a specific channel. For detailed information, please see the Sensor Channels Settings section.
Notifications
Click the Notifications tab to change notification triggers. For detailed information, please see the Sensor Notifications Settings section.
Others
For more general information about settings, please see the Object Settings section.
Sensor Settings Overview
For information about sensor settings, please see the following sections: