Client Connectivity Metrics

The Client Connectivity Metrics feature provides a comprehensive view of how clients connect to the network, showing the success rate and a step-by-step breakdown of the connectivity process. It helps identify where clients fail during association, authentication, IP assignment, or DNS resolution.

Figure 1: Client Connectivity Metrics - By Client Sample Image

Figure 2: Client Connectivity Metrics - By Attempt Sample Image

Time Range Filter

The Time Range filter helps you control the time period for which data is displayed on the dashboard. The filter allows you to focus on recent activity or analyze past trends. The data is displayed based on the browser’s time zone.

To access the time range filter, complete the following steps:

  1. Click the time range filter from the top-right corner. The Time Range window is displayed.

    Figure 3: Time Range Filter Sample Image

  2. Select one of the options below:

    • Select a predefined time range:

      • Last 30 minutes

      • Last 1 hour

      • Last 3 hours

      • Last 1 day

      • Last 7 days

      • Last 30 days

    • Set a custom time range: Use the custom time range when you need a specific time window. Select the start date and time in the From field and select the end date and time in the To field.

  3. Click Apply.

Note:

  • The default time range is 3 hours. After selecting a time range, if you navigate to any other page and return to the Client Onboarding dashboard, the filter will be reset to 3 hours.

  • Client Connectivity Metrics is supported on devices running IAP 8.11 or AOS 10.5 and later.

In the Client Onboarding card, you can view the following metrics:

  • By Client View—The By Client tab focuses on unique clients and their overall connection success. This view helps evaluate actual user experience rather than retry behavior.

  • By Attempt View —The By Attempt tab analyzes connectivity based on total connection attempts rather than unique clients. This view is useful for identifying repeated failures and retry patterns in the network.

    You can view the following information in the By Client and By Attempt tabs:

    • Summary Indicator—At the top of the widget, the summary percentage (for example, Successful Attempts Rate or Clients Connected) displays the overall connection success ratio for the selected time range. The value in brackets represents successful connections versus total observed clients or attempts.

    • Connectivity Steps—Each step represents a phase in the client onboarding process:

      • Association—Indicates whether the client successfully associated with the access point.

      • Authentication—Displays whether the client successfully authenticated.

      • DHCP—Displays whether the client successfully obtained an IP address.

      • DNS— Indicates whether the client resolved domain names after connecting.

        For each step, you can view the following columns:

      • Failed—Number of failures at that stage.

      • Delayed—Number of clients or attempts that experienced delay.

      • Success—Successful completions of the step

      • Connected (%)—Percentage of clients connected successfully at that stage.

      • Top Failure Reason—The column highlights the most frequent cause of connectivity failure, enabling quick identification of issues such as association rejects, authentication failures, MIC failures, or RADIUS rejections.

Using the Expanded Detailed View

Click the expand icon on the widget to open the full-screen analytics dashboard for deeper analysis. In the expanded page, you can switch between, Association, Authentication, DHCP, and DNS tabs.

In the expanded view, you can view the following information:

  • Failed (Attempts or Clients)—Displays failures grouped by connectivity step (Association, Authentication, DHCP, DNS), helping pinpoint the exact stage causing issues.

  • Delayed (Attempts or Clients)—Displays attempts or clients that experienced delays during the connection process, indicating possible latency in authentication, DHCP, or DNS services.

  • Successful (Attempts or Clients)—Displays successful completions of each connectivity stage over time, helping validate network stability and onboarding performance.

  • Total (Attempts or Clients)—Provides the overall baseline count of total attempts or clients, enabling comparison with successful and failed trends.

  • Grouping Options—You can adjust how data is grouped and displayed using the View and Grouped By dropdown menus.

    • View—Select Grouping to enable data categorization.

    • Grouped By—Choose from the available options to focus analysis:

      • Step—Groups data by onboarding phase (Association, Authentication, DHCP, and DNS).

      • Top 5 Clients—Highlights the top five clients generating the highest number of attempts or failures.

      • Top 5 Access Devices—Groups metrics by the top five access points handling client connections.

      • Band—Displays onboarding trends by Wi-Fi band (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz).

      • Top 5 WLANs—Groups data by the most active SSIDs.

      • Top 5 Servers—Displays metrics based on backend servers.

      • Top 5 Reasons—Groups failures by the most common root causes.

Viewing Client Onboarding Classification

The Client Onboarding Classification page displays a detailed breakdown of initial onboarding attempts for both wired and wireless clients. This dashboard provides a visual summary of client onboarding activity categorized by success, failure, and delay. It enables quick analysis of onboarding behavior and performance across the network infrastructure.

To access the Client Onboarding Classification page, click the Classification filters button.

You can select one of the following tabs for analysis:

  • By Client—Classification based on unique clients.

  • By Attempt—Classification based on total onboarding attempts.

Figure 4: Client Onboarding Classification - By Client Sample Image

Figure 5: Client Onboarding Classification - By Attempt Sample Image

In the Client Onboarding Classification page, you can view the following sections:

  • Client Onboarding—Displays the overall onboarding status:

    • Succeeded—Clients successfully connected without any issues.

    • Failed—Clients that failed during any onboarding stage.

    • Successful with Delays—Clients that completed onboarding but experienced delays.

    Each status bar shows the total number of clients or attempts corresponding to that category.

    In the By Client tab, counts represent unique clients.

    In the By Attempt tab, counts represent total onboarding attempts.

  • Connectivity Step—Provides detailed insight into which stage clients or attempts succeeded or failed. This helps pinpoint where issues occur in the onboarding process.

  • Client Type—Indicates the type of clients attempting onboarding.

  • Client Model/OS—Lists the operating systems or device types observed during onboarding, such as: Windows, Debian Linux, and Mac OS.

  • Site—Displays the onboarding distribution across different sites. In By Client, it displays impacted users per site and in By Attempt, it shows retry-heavy sites.

  • Network Segment—The Network Segment panel groups onboarding data by SSID or network segment.

  • Radio Band—Displays the number of clients connected over 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands. This helps assess the network’s radio usage and balance.

  • Signal Quality—Classifies clients based on observed signal strength such as Good, Poor, and Excellent. This allows correlation between onboarding failures and poor signal conditions.

  • Upstream Service—Lists network services used by clients during the onboarding process, such as DNS Server and DHCP Server, and displays the number of clients relied on each service.

Check Box Functionality

Each section contains checkboxes next to individual items. These checkboxes allow you to:

  • Select and filter specific data for focused analysis.

  • Compare multiple parameters.

  • Highlight particular result sets within the dashboard visualizations.

By selecting one or more checkboxes, the dashboard dynamically updates the visual data to reflect only the chosen parameters. This helps you to quickly drill down into problem areas or verify targeted onboarding performance.

Client Connectivity Metrics– List View

The Client Connectivity Metrics list view displays onboarding metrics for connected clients and access devices. It helps in troubleshooting onboarding delays, failed authentication attempts, and connectivity issues.

To access the Client Connectivity Metrics – List View page, click the List View icon on the Expanded Detailed View page.

Figure 6: Client Connectivity Metrics – List View Sample Image

You can view the following information in the Client Connectivity Metrics – List View page:

  • Access DevicesTab—The Access Devices tab lists all access points (APs) that handled client onboarding attempts during the selected period.

    In the Access Devices tab, you can view the following information:

    • Name—Unique identifier of the access device.

    • Model—Model number of the access point.

    • Firmware Version—Current firmware version running on the access point.

    • Delayed Attempts—Number of onboarding attempts that experienced delays beyond the expected time.

    • Failed Attempts—Number of client onboarding attempts that failed at this access point.

  • Clients Tab—The Clients tab lists all client devices that attempted onboarding within the selected time frame.

    In the Clients tab, you can view the following information:

    • Name—MAC address of the client device.

    • Delayed Attempts—Number of delayed onboarding attempts for the client.

    • Failed Attempts—Number of failed onboarding attempts for the client.

Filtering and Sorting

You can use the following filtering and sorting options:

  • Use the Search box to quickly find a specific client or AP by name or partial MAC address.

  • Sort the columns (for example, Delayed Attempts and Failed Attempts) to identify devices with the highest onboarding issues.

  • The Time Range drop-down lets you adjust the monitoring window. For more information, see Time Range Filter.