Custom Grouping

Docs > APM > Error Tracking for Backend Services > Custom Grouping

Overview

Error Tracking intelligently groups similar errors into issues with a default strategy. By using custom fingerprinting, you can gain full control over the grouping decision and customize the grouping behavior for your error spans.

You can customize grouping by providing an error.fingerprint for the error. The fingerprint is provided in an attribute or tag, depending on the error source (see Setup for details). While the value of error.fingerprint does not have any particular format or requirement, the content must be a string.

If error.fingerprint is provided, the grouping behavior follows these rules:

Custom grouping takes precedence over the default strategy.
Custom grouping can be applied only to a subset of your errors and can coexist with the default strategy.
The content of error.fingerprint is used as-is without any modification.
Errors from the same service and with the same error.fingerprint attribute are grouped into the same issue.
Errors with different service attributes are grouped into different issues.

Setup

APM

Custom grouping only needs an error span and an error.fingerprint string span tag.

If you aren’t already collecting APM traces with Datadog, see the APM documentation to set up APM.

Example

If you’re already sending APM spans, add a new error.fingerprint tag to your error span.

Here’s an example in Python:

with tracer.trace("throws.an.error") as span:
  span.set_tag('error.fingerprint', 'my-custom-grouping-material')
  raise Exception("Something went wrong")

Exception information is captured and attached to a span if there is one active when the exception is raised. In this case, my-custom-grouping-material is used to group these error spans into a single issue in Error Tracking.

Log Management

Custom grouping only needs an error log and an error.fingerprint string attribute.

If you aren’t already collecting logs with Datadog, see the Log Management documentation to set up logs.

Ensure that the source tag (specifying language) is properly configured.

Example

If you’re already logging in JSON format, add a new error.fingerprint attribute to your error log.

Here’s an example in Python for a JSON-formatted logger:

import logging
import json_log_formatter

formatter = json_log_formatter.JSONFormatter()

json_handler = logging.FileHandler(filename='/var/log/my-log.json')
json_handler.setFormatter(formatter)

logger = logging.getLogger('my_json')
logger.addHandler(json_handler)
logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)

logger.error('Error processing request', extra={'error.fingerprint': 'my-custom-grouping-material'})

In this case, my-custom-grouping-material is used to group these error logs into a single issue in Error Tracking.

Mobile Example

In Datadog’s mobile SDKs, you can add a custom error fingerprint when logging an error by adding a predefined attribute to the log call:

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog iOS SDK 2.8.1 or higher.

let errorFingerprint = "my-custom-grouping-material"
logger.error(
  "My error message",
  error: error,
  attributes: [
    Logs.Attributes.errorFingerprint: errorFingerprint
  ]
)

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog Android SDK 2.7.0 or higher.

val errorFingerprint = "my-custom-grouping-material"
val attributes = mapOf(LogAttributes.ERROR_FINGERPRINT to errorFingerprint)
logger.e("My error message", error, attributes)

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog Flutter SDK 2.4.0 or higher.

final errorFingerprint = "my-custom-grouping-material";
logger.error(
  'My error message',
  errorStackTrace: st,
  attributes {
    DatadogAttributes.errorFingerprint: "my-custom-grouping-material",
  }
);

Or, you can add or adjust the fingerprint in the log mapper:

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog iOS SDK 2.8.1 or higher.

let logsConfiguration = Logs.Configuration(
  eventMapper: { log in
      var log = log
      log.error?.fingerprint = "my-custom-grouping-material"
      return log
  }
)
Logs.enable(
  with: logsConfiguration
)

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog Android SDK 2.7.0 or higher.

val mapper = object : EventMapper<LogEvent> {
    override fun map(event: LogEvent): LogEvent {
        event.fingerprint = "my-custom-grouping-material"
        return event
    }
}
val logsConfiguration = LogsConfiguration.Builder()
    .setEventMapper(mapper)
    .build()
Logs.enable(logsConfiguration)

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog Flutter SDK 2.4.0 or higher.

LogEvent? mapLogEvent(LogEvent event) {
  event.error?.fingerprint = "my-custom-grouping-material";
  return event;
}

final loggingConfiguration = DatadogLoggingConfiguration(
  eventMapper: mapLogEvent,
);

final configuration = DatadogConfiguration(
    // ...
    loggingConfiguration: loggingConfiguration,
);

RUM

Example

If you aren’t already collecting Browser RUM events with Datadog, see the RUM Browser Monitoring setup documentation or the RUM Mobile and TV Monitoring setup documentation.

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog Browser SDK v4.42.0 or later, a browser RUM error, and an additional string attribute.

If you’re already collecting browser errors, it’s possible to add the attribute by either:

Adding a dd_fingerprint attribute to the error object:

import { datadogRum } from '@datadog/browser-rum';
// Send a custom error with context
const error = new Error('Something went wrong');
error.dd_fingerprint = 'my-custom-grouping-fingerprint'
datadogRum.addError(error);

Or, using the beforeSend callback with an error.fingerprint attribute:

DD_RUM.init({
  ...
  beforeSend: () => {
    if (event.type === 'error') {
      event.error.fingerprint = 'my-custom-grouping-fingerprint'
    }
  },
})

In both cases, my-custom-grouping-material is used to group the Browser RUM errors into a single issue in Error Tracking.

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog iOS SDK 2.8.1 or higher.

To add a custom fingerprint when manually reporting errors, you can add a predefined attribute when calling addError:

RUMMonitor.shared().addError(
  message: "My error message",
  source: .source,
  attributes: [
    RUM.Attributes.errorFingerprint: "my-custom-grouping-fingerprint"
  ]
)

Or, you can use the errorEventMapper:

var config = RUM.Configuration(applicationID: "rum-application-id")
config.errorEventMapper = { errorEvent in
  var errorEvent = errorEvent
  errorEvent.error.fingerprint = "my-custom-grouping-fingerprint"
  return errorEvent
}
RUM.enable(with: config)

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog Android SDK 2.7.0 or higher.

To add a custom fingerprint when manually reporting errors, you can add a predefined attribute when calling addError:

GlobalRumMonitor.get().addError(
  "My error message",
  RumErrorSource.SOURCE,
  exception,
  mapOf(
    RumAttributes.ERROR_CUSTOM_FINGERPRINT to "my-custom-grouping-fingerprint"
  )
)

Or, you can use the errorEventMapper:

val rumConfiguration = RumConfiguration.Builder("rum-application-id")
  .setErrorEventMapper(object : EventMapper<ErrorEvent> {
    override fun map(event: ErrorEvent): ErrorEvent {
        event.error.fingerprint = "my-custom-grouping-fingerprint"
        return event
    }
  }).build()
RUM.enable(rumConfiguration)

To use custom grouping, you need the Datadog Flutter SDK 2.4.0 or higher.

To add a custom fingerprint when manually reporting errors, you can add a predefined attribute when calling addError:

final rum = DatadogSdk.instance.rum;
rum?.addErrorInfo("My error message",
  RumErrorSource.source,
  attributes: {
    DatadogAttributes.errorFingerprint: 'my-custom-grouping-fingerprint',
  },
);

Or, you can use the errorEventMapper:

RumErrorEvent? mapRumErrorEvent(RumErrorEvent event) {
  event.error.fingerprint = "my-custom-grouping-fingerprint";
  return event;
}

final rumConfiguration = DatadogRumConfiguration(
  // ...
  errorEventMapper: mapRumErrorEvent,
);

final configuration = DatadogConfiguration(
    // ...
    rumConfiguration: rumConfiguration,
);