A technique for monitoring software which efficiently communicates transaction trace data, including static and dynamic data, from an agent to a manager is disclosed. A tree data structure describes transactions as a sequence of transaction elements. Each branch may correspond to one type of transaction. The nodes along a branch may be associated with components of monitored software that are invoked to perform the transaction. A provisional branch may be constructed when an agent is unable to initially identify the transaction. Transaction data may be stored in association with the nodes in the provisional branch during the monitoring. After information needed to identify the transaction becomes available to the agent, the provisional branch is updated. The transaction data is reported in response to determining the branch in the tree data structure that matches the provisional branch.