A method of monitoring a computer application executed on a computer system. The method includes the steps of (1) without predefining events describing potential stages of a transaction executed by the computer application, using an application program interface to add software code to the computer application for assigning a single general reference to characteristic transactional information associated with the transaction, (2) using the single general reference to identify transaction events performed by the computer application in executing the transaction, and (3) measuring transaction events.