Objective 3.4

Core Certified Power User

Search with transactions

Objective 3.4 sits in Correlating Events, which carries 15% of the Core Certified Power User exam. The questions below are original, written from the official objective title above, and each explanation cites the Splunk page it rests on.

Objective title verbatim from the official objectives. Splunk exam page

A worked example

Shown solved, with the whole explanation open: this is what every question here carries.

3-4Correlating Events

An analyst wants the first event of each transaction to be the one containing a given word. Which argument does Splunk document?

maxeventsThe maxevents option caps how many events a transaction contains.
endswithThe endswith argument marks the closing event instead.
startswithCorrect · your answerCorrect.
keeporphansOrphan handling decides what happens to events that join no group.

Correct.

Checked against help.splunk.com, August 2026

Concept

Some transactions are marked by a message rather than by a clock. Naming the opening text is how you group by what the system said rather than by how long it waited.

Why C

Splunk's example defines the first event in the transaction as events that include a given string, using the startswith argument, and notes that endswith does the same for the last event.

Source

The search defines the first event in the transaction as events that include the string, "view", using the startswith="view" argument. The endswith="purchase" argument does the same for the last event in the transaction.

Splunk Docs: About transactions, checked August 2026
#transactions#startswith

Now you: objective 3.4 questions

No account needed. The explanation opens when you answer.

Sample question 1 of 2

3-4Correlating Events

A user tries to filter on duration before the transaction command and it fails. Why does Splunk say the filter has to come after?

Sample question 2 of 2

3-4Correlating Events

An engineer calls a saved transaction type but also passes maxpause in the search. What does Splunk say wins?

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Read the sources

These are the official pages the questions above cite. Reading them is studying the objective from the primary source, which is what the explanations point you toward anyway.

More objectives in Correlating Events