I’ve been exploring the new and "awesome" Experience Vitals app lately. While the UI is sleek and the focus on modern web metrics is great, I’m finding myself a bit lost trying to replicate the 100% visibility I had in the "classic" views. Specifically, I’m struggling with two things:
1. Where is the Service Flow in the new app?
In the old world, jumping from a User Action to the Service Flow was a one-click journey. In Experience Vitals, I can only see a fraction of what I used to.
Am I missing a hidden button or an "Intent" to see the backend services called by the app?
What is the fastest way to get from a frontend "Experience" metric to the actual Service Flow in this new ecosystem?
2. The OTel vs. OneAgent Backtrace Dilemma
I’ve started instrumenting some services with OpenTelemetry, but I’ve hit a wall: I can’t seem to get a proper Backtrace for traceability. It feels like I'm losing that "Smartscape magic" where everything is automatically stitched together.
To help the discussion, I’ve put together this quick comparison of what we might be "trading off" when moving from OneAgent to OTel in the new apps: somethin like this
| Feature | Dynatrace OneAgent (Auto) | OpenTelemetry (Manual) |
| Setup | Zero-code, automatic injection. | Manual SDK instrumentation & context propagation. |
| Traceability | Automatic Backtrace and Service Flow. | Context gaps if propagators aren't perfect. |
| Code-Level Depth | Deep (Method-level, CPU/Memory profiling). | Limited to manually created Spans/Attributes. |
| Maintenance | Auto-updates via OneAgent. | Manual dependency management & SDK updates. |
| Integration | Native "out-of-the-box" in all apps. | Requires Grail/DQL knowledge for full visibility. |
Has anyone found a way to bridge this gap? Is there a specific configuration in the OTel Collector or a shortcut in the new UI that makes this "awesome" app as powerful as the classic one for deep-dive analysis?
Looking forward to your insights!
fuelled by coffee and curiosity. ☕ searching for a job,
