Concepts of Pega

Understand Pega Alert Logs in detail

Mar 18, 2023

This is to inform you that the video above was recorded Live Class, understanding Pega Alert logs, conducted on 2nd of May as part of free course “Concepts of Pega”.


What are Pega Alert Logs?

Whenever during the execution of rules, Pega identifies a performance-related issue, Pega logs it as an event in a Text file known as Pega Alert Log.


How to Access Pega Alert Logs?

How to maintain and access the log depends upon, what tool the project administration team decided to use. But it s can be accessed using multiple ways. Some of these are:

Access within Pega Platform

  • Go to Top Menu Configure > System > Operations > Logs
  • Click on Log to view logs
  • Click of Text to download logs as text file
  • Click Zip to download logs as Zip file
  • Go to Developer toolbar in footer
  • Click on My Issues

When you download the log file, you can use below tools to read it

  • Pega Log Analyser
  • Microsoft Excel or similar tool

Access Outside Pega Platform

  • AES – Autonomic Event Services
  • PDC – Predictive Diagnostic Cloud

Parsing Pega Alert log in Excel

Pega alert logs in form of excel file are difficult to read so tools like Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice helps to simply the reading by parsing the logs into spreadsheet columns. Below are the steps for parsing the logs in excel but similar steps can be used in LibreOffice too.

  • Open Microsoft Excel. Click on File, then click on open
  • Click on Browse and Select Pega alert log file to parse
  • A window will open. Click Delimited in the Original data type group.
  • Click Next
  • Select Other and Enter a single asterisk as the delimiter
  • Click Next and Click finish
  • Excel will parse your file

Alert Format

Each line contains multiple fields about the log event separated by *. Microsoft Excel helps to parse this file based on * delimited and places values in columns. So below are the list of field in an alert format and which column of excel contains it.

Note and Credits: Below table is copy and pasted from Pega Help 8.5 Documentation. Please refer https://community.pega.com/sites/default/files/help_v85/engine/alerts/alert-format-ref.htm for updates.



ColumnFieldDescription
ATime stampDate and time of the alert event in UTC format.
BVersionDisplays the header version for the alert. For example, “8”.
CMessage IDIdentifier of alert type, for example PEGA0011.
DKPI ValueObserved duration in milliseconds or count of value, known as the key performance indicator.
EKPI ThresholdThreshold value for this alert type, in milliseconds or count.
FServerIDNode ID for the node that is the source of the alert event.
IRequestor IDSession identifier; the first letter (A, B, H, or P) identifies the requestor type. A – requestor is being used by an application B – batch requestor used by agent processing H – requestor is being used by a user (HTTP interaction) P – requestor is used for portlet support
JUser IDOperator ID of requestor, or none.
KWork poolWork pool that the requestor uses, or none.
LRule application name versionRule application and version used at the time of the alert.
MEncoded RulesetHash code identifying the requestors ruleset list.
NCheckout EnabledY indicates that the activity in the Activity field is in a personal ruleset; that a developer has checked out the activity.
OInteraction numberFor alerts from browser sessions, the interaction number (as it appears on the Performance tool display).
PCorrelation IDID used to filter messages arriving on the request queue. By default, the requestor ID.
QSequenceSequence number for this alert in the log; unique within this log.
RThreadInternal name of the PRThread instance, or NA if this alert is not from a Thread.
SPega Thread NameThe name of the Pega thread on which the alert happened.
TLoggerJava class that produced the alert instance.
UStackAn indicator in the engine process that shows the processing state when the message occurred. (Not available for all alerts.)
VLast InputFor alerts from interactive requestors, a portion of the URL received in the most recent interaction. Typically the text Stream= or Activity= and the name of an activity or stream rule run by the URL.
WFirst ActivityFor alerts from interactive requestors, the first activity or stream run by this requestor in the current interaction. (This activity or stream may or may not have caused the alert.)
XLast StepIf the First Activity field identifies an activity, this field identifies the step number last completed, when available.
YReservedReserved.
ZReservedReserved.
AAReservedReserved.
ABReservedReserved.
ACTrace ListColon-delimited string containing the most recent 50 operations of this requestor before the event. Each operation consists of two subfields in the format number:value:.
ADPAL dataFor some Message ID types, a set of selected of Performance tool statistics at the time of the alert. A colon delimited string in the format propertyname:value:. Values are in milliseconds, bytes, or counts.
AEPrimary page classThe class of the primary page at the time of the alert.
AFPrimary page nameThe name of the primary page at the time of the event.
AGStep page classThe class of the step page at the time of the event.
AHStep page nameThe name of the step page at the time of the event.
AIPega stackThe Pega stack at the time of the event.
AJParameter pageThe clipboard page data found on the parameter page at the time of the event.
AKLineA text description of the alert.


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