Datadog has introduced two new capabilities, Journey Monitoring and Bits Testing, aimed at helping organisations track and test critical user journeys as applications change. The features are part of the company’s Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) suite.
The capabilities address two questions that teams face when managing digital experiences: whether users successfully complete important journeys and whether those journeys continue to work consistently after an application changes.
Journey Monitoring brings user activity into one view
Journey Monitoring combines conversion, traffic, and availability data for individual user journeys. It brings information from Real User Monitoring, Synthetic Monitoring, and Product Analytics into a single view.
This allows engineering and product teams to examine the same set of journey data. The system also analyses real user traffic to identify high-volume paths that lead users to the same outcome.
The journey view includes color-coded health indicators and Service Level Objective (SLO) breach badges. It also maps connections between journeys, helping teams see how an issue in one flow can affect related journeys.
According to Datadog, the capability can help teams identify problems in important flows before they result in support requests.
Bits Testing adapts as applications change
Bits Testing focuses on testing user journeys before and during application changes. It uses goal-based testing, which verifies whether a desired outcome occurs rather than simply replaying a predefined script.
The approach is intended to identify high-value paths from a plain-language goal and flag where a flow breaks. Because the paths are rediscovered during runtime, the tests can adapt when an application changes.
Datadog also says Bits Testing can create tests from plain-language prompts across browser, Application Programming Interface (API), network, and goal-based testing. This allows teams to build test coverage without writing code.
The company said this approach can also be applied to Artificial Intelligence (AI) features where outputs can vary between runs.
AI applied across the user journey
Yanbing Li, Chief Product Officer at Datadog, said the company views AI as an underlying capability rather than a feature added to an individual product.
“We don’t think of AI as a feature you add to a product. We think of it as what should be running underneath everything — infrastructure, security and now the user journey,” Li said.
Li said Journey Monitoring and Bits Testing apply this approach across the user journey, from identifying important paths to continuously testing them as applications change.
Datadog is showcasing the capabilities ahead of Datadog Summit San Francisco on September 23 and Tech Week Singapore on September 29–30. Company executives are scheduled to be available for media briefings at the events.