Introducing BizTalk360 Advisor: Gain Insights, Optimize Performance, and Simplify BizTalk Operations

Published on : Jun 18, 2024

Category : BizTalk360 Update

Mekala

Author

Introduction

In today’s world of technology, businesses use many different outside tools to improve their work and reach goals. While these tools can be very helpful, getting most out of them can be tricky. This is where built-in recommendation features become game-changers.

Imagine having a personal consultant embedded within your chosen software, analysing how you work and suggesting ways to optimize your usage. This is exactly the power of BizTalk360 Advisor, a feature that unlocks the full potential of BizTalk360 for your business. Let’s look into how BizTalk360 Advisor leverages data to deliver insightful recommendations and empowers you to get the most out of your integration platform, BizTalk Server.

BizTalk360 Advisor: Your Built-in Business Integration Superhero

Imagine BizTalk360 Advisor as your personal BizTalk360 consultant. It looks at how you use BizTalk360 and finds ways for you to use its features better.

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How Does BizTalk360 Advisor Work its Magic?

BizTalk360 Advisor works quietly in the background. Let’s see how it makes things work so well:

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Tracks feature usage: BizTalk360 Advisor keeps an eye on how you are using different features for your business needs.

Generate helpful reports: Based on this information, it creates report that show areas of improvement.

These reports highlight:

  • Underutilized features
  • Unconfigured settings

Provides actionable Recommendations: You just don’t get reports, get results! BizTalk360 Advisor goes a step further than just reports. It gives you clear suggestions on how to use BizTalk360 more effectively.

These Recommendations help you:

  • Optimize BizTalk360 usage
  • Leverage untapped functionalities

Benefits of Utilizing BizTalk360 Advisor

Here’s how BizTalk360 Advisor empowers your business:

Benefits Description
Boosted Efficiency Speed up tasks by pinpointing underutilized features for smoother workflows
Enhanced ROI Ensure maximum returns on your BizTalk360 investment through optimal feature utilization.
Increased Visibility Gain valuable insights into usage patterns within your BizTalk360 platform.

Getting Started with BizTalk360 Advisor

The good news? BizTalk360 Advisor is already enabled by default! It automatically runs every 7 days, collecting data and generating reports. You have the option to configure settings like sending reports to the BizTalk360 team for further analysis.

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BizTalk360 Advisor Score Card: Take Your Optimization a Step Further

The BizTalk360 Advisor Score Card offers a data-driven roadmap to optimize your BizTalk360 usage. Let us understand the Score Card and see how we can leverage it for improvement.

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What does the score represent?

The BizTalk360 Advisor Score is a single number (Usually a percentage) that shows the overall effectiveness of your BizTalk360 utilization compared to your license tier. A higher score means you are getting the most out of the features and maximizing the value you get from the platform.

Understanding the score breakdown

The Advisor score is combination of two sub-scores:

Health score: This score (Represented as a percentage) focuses on the health of your BizTalk360 environment. It contains factors like:

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  • The Operational status of monitoring and analytics services
  • Any outstanding violations in configured alarms
  • Usage of database maintenance and optimization
  • The health of email notification templates
  • Potential errors in data purging sub-services

This means; by prioritizing your Health Score, you are actively safeguarding the health of your entire monitoring and analytics capabilities.

Imagine: During daily operations, it has been found that the sub-services within Monitoring Services are having errors. These errors could disrupt the business flow, causing delays in creating alerts and sending them to the right people. By following the tips in the Advisor, you can take a proactive approach to avoid business disruptions.

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A high health score translates to well-maintained databases and services, leading to efficient BizTalk Server administration, monitoring and Analytics. Think of a well-oiled machine – a healthy system ensures all components functions smoothly, delivering optimal performance.

Usage Score: This score (also represented as a percentage) assesses how well you are utilizing BizTalk360 features based on your license. It looks at:

  • Whether features are enabled at the environment level
  • Configuration of features within your BizTalk Server
  • How often specific features are being used
  • Interpreting your score and taking actions

A low BizTalk360 Advisor score (below 40%) indicates areas for improvement. Here is how to use the Score Card to take action:

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Review the Action items: The Score Card provides a color-coded list of actionable items (blue, yellow, red) that shows you which improvement are most important to make first. These items prioritize improvements based on importance and link directly to relevant documentation and features within BizTalk360.

Address Unresolved Health Issues: Focus on fixing any outstanding issues identified in the Health Score. This could involve fixing monitoring service errors, configuring alerts, or optimizing database maintenance.

Optimize Feature Usage: Look at the usage score and action items. Consider turning on or setting up features that match your license plan but are not used much right now. BizTalk360 might suggest features you haven’t tried yet that could make your integration process smoother.

Handle Features You Don’t Need: The Score Card might find features you don’t need. You can ignore these items (which are saved for later reference) and still boost your overall score.

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BizTalk360 Advisor Recommendations: Personalized Guidance at Your Fingertips

BizTalk360 Advisor does more than just reports and scores. It gives helpful suggestions organized into different categories by area (Administration, Monitoring, Analytics, General) to help you:

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Unmask Hidden Gems:

BizTalk360 has many features, but you might not have tried all of them yet. Advisor looks at how you use it and finds features you haven’t explored yet. These hidden gems could be functionalities that fit your integration needs, making processes smoother and improving your BizTalk360 experience.

Imagine: You mainly use BizTalk360 for basic Monitoring and you have a silver license. Advisor might recommend powerful features like Advanced monitoring capabilities such as Message Box, Tracking and Process Monitoring. This recommendation could be a game-changer for tracking your messages and service instances. It would make it much easier to track your messages and services, saving you time and effort.

Actionable Insights at Your Fingertips:

Skip the long reports! BizTalk360 Advisor suggestions are clear, actionable steps sorted by area (Administration, Monitoring, Analytics, General). Each suggestions includes:

  • A short description: Understand the purpose and potential benefits of the recommended feature.
  • A clear call to action: One click takes you directly to the relevant feature within BizTalk360 for immediate exploration.
  • Linked Documentation: Learn more with access to detailed documentation for the suggested feature.
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This user-friendly approach empowers you to quickly grasp the recommendation’s value and take immediate action to leverage it.

Optimized by License Tier:

BizTalk360 offers different subscription levels (Called license tiers) with varying sets of features. BizTalk360 Advisor makes sure you are not missing out on functionalities you have access to based on your plan. Recommendations are filtered based on your specific license tier, so you only see suggestions relevant to your subscription.

For example: With a Basic plan, Advisor might recommend turning on health monitoring features you haven’t used yet. For a Gold license plan holder, it might suggest using advanced data monitoring capabilities to get more information about how your integrations are working.

Become a Data-Driven Monitoring Pro:

To ensure a well-functioning integration system, it’s important to have good monitoring in place. BizTalk360 Advisor can help you check your current monitoring setup and recommend ways to make it more complete.

Missing artifact mappings? It can identify important components (like Applications, Orchestrations, Send Ports, Receive Ports, Servers, etc.) that are not being monitored and suggest that you start monitoring them. This will give you a better overall view of how your integration system is working.

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BizTalk360 Advisor prioritizes the configuration of health check alarms. These alarms provide administrators with a daily snapshot of the BizTalk environment’s health, allowing for proactive problem identification and resolution.

By following the data-driven recommendations, you can optimize your monitoring strategy and ensure the health and stability of your BizTalk environment.

Share the knowledge, Empower Your Team:

Collaboration is key in any IT environment. BizTalk360 Advisor recommendations can be easily exported and shared via email. This allows you to:

Get your team involved! Talk to your colleagues about the recommendations and benefit from their knowledge to put them into action. When welcoming new team members, share these valuable recommendations, focusing on the most important aspects, to help them get up to speed quickly.

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In-Depth Reports

Forget generic advice! BizTalk360 Advisor dives deep into your BizTalk360 usage data, delivering comprehensive reports that go for beyond simple data visualization. These reports give you clear, actionable insights you can use right away to optimize your BizTalk360 experience.

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Detailed Time Stamps: Reports always show you exactly when the data was collected, so you’re sure you’re seeing the latest picture of your BizTalk360 usage.

Transmission success Indicators: You’ll know if your usage information has been sent to BizTalk360 team for analysis. This helps ensure your valuable insights contribute to making BizTalk360 even better.

JSON for Deep Dives: For those who love technical analysis, the reports let you view the collected data in JSON format. This makes it easier to explore and understand your BizTalk360 usage patterns.

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By using these reports, you gain a full understanding of your BizTalk360 setup, find areas to improve, and discover hidden features to make your integration processes better.

Embrace a Data-Driven Approach to Optimization

BizTalk360 Advisor reports provide a holistic view of your BizTalk360 environment, encompassing data and usage metrics across all modules:

Administration: Gain insights into daily administrative tasks, and how you are utilizing the other tools like BAM, EDI, ESB, Business Rules and other capabilities in administration side.

Monitoring: Identify potential monitoring gaps and ensure comprehensive oversights of your integrations.

Analytics: Uncover valuable usage patterns to optimize your BizTalk360 setup for maximum efficiency and to know the performance of your BizTalk environments.

General Settings: Review and fine-tune overall BizTalk360 configurations for optimal performance.

Knowledge Base: Track usage patterns of the BizTalk360 knowledge base, allowing you to identify areas where employee training or knowledge sharing might be beneficial.

With this data-driven approach, you can make informed decisions about BizTalk360 configuration and utilization, maximizing the return on your investment.

Conclusion

BizTalk360 Advisor is a powerful tool waiting to be explored. By leveraging its insights and recommendations, you can unlock the full potential of BizTalk360 and elevate your integration processes. Take control of your BizTalk environment today by signing up for 30days free trial.