Tools let ecommerce sites gain visibility into failings

Application management vendor Wily releases package of tools aimed at resolving web problems

Firms with an online presence could benefit from new application management tools designed to monitor customer transactions in real time and help them diagnose and resolve problems before they escalate.

Enterprise application management specialist Wily's new Customer Experience Manager (CEM) product, version 3.0, alerts IT staff when errors occur in the transactions of packaged or custom applications, whether they are built on Java, .Net, mainframe or legacy technology, according to the firm.

CEM 3.0 defines a transaction as any unit of work a customer does on a site, whether it is to log on, complete an account summary or log off, explained general manager of Wily's Customer Experience Business Unit, Dave Chapman.

The product is also integrated with the vendor's application performance management solution, Introscope, which can analyse data on transaction performance, quality, success rates and volume and isolate the cause of the defect faster than before, he added.

"CEM allows web managers to [see] not just if the site is up or down, but what the customer is experiencing on these sites," said Chapman. "It specifically understands who's executing a transaction, where there is a problem and what the business impact will be – it has the ability to take action before it's too late and the customer leaves the business."

Common problems for ecommerce sites that could be caught early on are transactions being too slow and timing out, explained Chapman, and often IT help monitors do not detect such defects.

"The biggest challenge is that if customers don't complain [and alert the web mangers attention to faults] they will stop working [and] customers will go to another [site]," he said.