Filtering the Message Viewer by Time Stamp

[katehollowayconfluent]

Users

• [ Secondary ] Development manager tasked with ensuring a team is successful in using streaming data
• [Secondary] Developer on a team tasked with building new features using streaming data
• [Primary] Developer at an org who manages a streaming platform while building new features that use streaming data
• [Primary] Developer tasked with building pipelines for use in business analytics
• Other: [User type] tasked with [primary goal in the realm of streaming data]

Problems

Users currently aren't able to select the time period or granularity of the histogram.
It's currently less straightforward to find messages sent in a specific window and a primary use case of the message viewer is to find test, poison pill, etc messages.

Allowing them to see specific weeks, months, etc will also allow users to compare message volume depending on set dates or when they know their project was released into a specific environment. This would be helpful for a quick check on technical performance testing or analyzing project goal/KPI metrics.

Solutions

1. Developers will be able to look at & compare specific intervals of time
2. Developers will be able to set the specific granularity that matters to them
3. It will be easier for developers to do quick checks on test messages and basic performance measures.

Additionally, features like this can be a good intro to basic stream processing, allowing users to get comfortable by answering a few questions. Once they start to do analyze their messages with more control and ease, they will be primed to ask harder questions through more advanced stream processing features.

Goals

1. Allow users to set a display (not working view) of a set period of time for the histogram with smart granularity default
2. Allow users to change the granularity default
3. Reflect the filter on the table to show that the table and visualization are linked

Non-Goals

1. This does not replace brushing on the histogram. The users should still be able to brush the histogram to filter the displayed data
2. While this is priming the user for stream processing, actually adding links or jump off features to enable stream processing is not included here

Background

A survey respondent specifically requested this and it addresses the usability heuristic "User Control & Freedom."

Proposal

Proposal would be to add a date time & granularity filter to the chart and date time table column that are tied together.