Custom Correlations

What are custom correlations?

A custom correlation allows you to do two different things:

• Create a new relationship between two objects in your Map.
  Usually, relationships between objects are automatically indexed with their data source, but you can add new custom links. This is especially useful if you want to connect data from two different data sources, for example connecting objects from the GitHub data source to objects from the Azure DevOps data source.
• Merge objects from different data sources into one object.

How does creating a Relationship work?

Custom correlation rules can be added from Settings > Advanced > Correlations

You can create a relationship based on the value of properties. If the properties of two different objects have the exact same value, a link between them can be established.

Since a relationship between objects always has a direction, it matters which one is the From and which one is the To object. You describe the kind of relationship with the Association Label field, for example monitors, hosts, is owned by, etc. This way, you create a custom correlation in the format
From object --Association Label--> To object

To create useful connections you have to ask yourself "Is there are good reason the values of those two properties are identical?" If that's the case, it probably makes sense to base a custom correlation on those values to make the connection visible in the map.

How to create a relationship

In this example a relationship is created between projects and their owners. If the value of a person's property email-address matches a project's property owner-email-address there will be a connection in the map that looks like this:
person--manages-->project.

To create the custom correlation:

1. In SquaredUp browse to Settings > Advanced > Correlations.
2. Click Add correlation rule.
3. Add your relationship by entering the following settings:
   1. In the From section, select a Type and Property to be used as the source for the rule. For example:
      Type: person
      Property: email-address
   2. In the To section, select a Type and Property to be used as the target for thus rule. For example,
      Type: project
      Property: owner-email-address
   3. Enter an Association label to describe the association. For example, manages.
   4. Once all settings are entered, the Preview displays.
4. Click Save and run.

How does merging work?

Automatic merge

If different data sources index the same object, the different objects get automatically merged into one object in SquaredUp. For example a server that runs as server in Azure, is monitored by Pingdom, and is part of an app in NewRelic gets indexed from each of those data sources, but ends up being just one object in SquaredUp, with all the properties it gets from all the different data sources.

Manual merge

You can merge objects yourself by using custom correlations. To merge objects from different data sources, their type and at least one other property must be identical. While links between two objects can be created just based on the value of a property, for merging objects the name of the property and its value must be identical.

After selecting the same type and property, enter "is" as the Association Label. The "is" label tells SquaredUp not to create a link between those objects but instead to merge them into one object if the values of the property match.

Example:

Let's say you indexed person objects from two different data sources. Both data sources use the type person and both types have a property called name. Instead of seeing two separate objects for the same person, you can merge them by creating this correlation (as long as the name is spelled exactly the same in the name property):

From:
Type: person
Property: name

To:
Type: person
Property: name

Association label: is