---
title: Manage your policies
source: https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/organize-alerts/create-edit-or-find-alert-policy
---

A [policy](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/overview/#concepts-terms) is a group of one or more conditions. This document explains how to create a policy and how to view existing policies. You can also use the [NerdGraph API](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/apis/nerdgraph/examples/nerdgraph-api-alerts-policies/) (our GraphQL) or the [REST API](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/rest-api-alerts/new-relic-alerts-rest-api/rest-api-calls-new-relic-alerts).

For an explanation of how policies interact and relate to alert conditions, workflows, and other components, see [concepts](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/overview/#concepts-terms) and [workflows](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/get-notified/alert-event-workflows/).

## Best practices for naming and organising policies [#best-practices-policies]

New Relic alerts policies help organize alert conditions into coherent and manageable units. Beyond just categorization, they give some control over alert event correlation and the dissemination of notifications about potential issues.

We recommend three common organizational patterns for structuring alert policies and conditions:

| **Policies organized by...** | **Comments**                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| ---------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Architecture                 | Targets or resources in your organization may have different people responsible for their well-being. Common segments may include the **environment** type (production, staging, integration, development) or the **target or resource** type (app server code, client-side code, databases, hosts, etc.). To make these types of policies easier to identify, you can give them names based on your architecture. For example: - Product A website (production) - Product B website (staging) - Mobile product app (iOS) - Hosts (production) - Databases (production) |
| Teams                        | Specific teams may be responsible for parts of your architecture. For example, you may want to name their policy `Team: Site engineering`, `Team: Website development`, etc.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| Individuals                  | Policies set up for specific individuals may be useful when they want to personally keep an eye on a particular resource or metric. This provides them the freedom to add and remove conditions as well as adjust thresholds whenever they want, without having to communicate those changes to others. To make these policies easier to identify, you can include the person's name; for example, `User: John Doe's metrics`, `User: Jane Doe (production)`, etc.                                                                                                      |

## Create an alert policy [#alert-policy-name]

Alert policies only apply to one account. If your New Relic organization has multiple accounts, you must create alert policies for each account.

1.  Go to [one.newrelic.com > Alerts > Alert Policies](https://one.newrelic.com/alerts-ai/condition-builder/policy-list).
2.  On the policy list page, click 
    **New alert policy**.
3.  Type a [meaningful name](#best-practices-policies) for the policy (maximum 64 characters).
4.  Select the [issue preference](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/organize-alerts/specify-when-alerts-create-events).
5.  Select **Create & close** to create your policy or **Set up notifications** to connect your policy to a [workflow](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/get-notified/alert-event-workflows). When there is a new issue or an update of an issue, you'll receive notifications in services such as _PagerDuty_ or _Slack_.

You can continue from here to [define the conditions](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/create-alert/create-alert-condition/alert-conditions) and [setup notifications using workflows](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/get-notified/alert-event-workflows). If you decide to continue later, select the policy name from the **Alert policies** index.

## Change a policy name [#rename-policy]

For your convenience, we allow you to use the same name for different policies, conditions, and notification channels. If you want to use unique names, review or search the index before adding or changing a name.

To rename an existing policy:

1.  Go to [one.newrelic.com > Alerts > Alert Policies](https://one.newrelic.com/alerts-ai/condition-builder/policy-list), and then click on a policy in the list.
2.  Click the policy **settings** tab to edit it, type a [meaningful name](#best-practices-policies) for the policy (maximum 64 characters), and click **Save**.

Alerts automatically updates any of the policy's conditions.

## View existing policies [#alert-policy-view]

The policies index lists policies in alphabetical order. To view or search for existing policies:

1.  Go to [one.newrelic.com > Alerts > Alert Policies](https://one.newrelic.com/alerts-ai/condition-builder/policy-list).
2.  Use the search box, sort any column, or scroll the list.
3.  To view detailed information, click a policy name.

> #### 💡 TIP
>
> To view [policy and condition information for a specific entity](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/new-relic-alerts-beta/configuring-alert-policies/view-policy-conditions-new-relic-products), select the **Settings > Alert conditions** page from the entity's product UI.

## Policy maintenance quick reference [#quick-reference-policies]

After you create a policy, you can:

-   Add more conditions to the policy.
-   Edit the conditions' names, targets, or thresholds.
-   Disable conditions.
-   Connect to notifications using workflows.
-   Rename or delete the policy.

Here is a quick reference which also includes links to more detailed information and procedures for maintaining your policies.

**Change a policy name**

To [rename](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/organize-alerts/create-edit-or-find-alert-policy/#rename-policy) a policy:

1.  Go to **[one.newrelic.com](https://one.newrelic.com) > Alerts > Alert Policies**, then select a policy.
2.  Click the policy **settings** tab to edit it, type a [meaningful name](#best-practices-policies) for the policy (maximum 64 characters), and hit **Save**.

**Create a new policy**

To create a [new alert policy](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/organize-alerts/create-edit-or-find-alert-policy/):

1.  Go to **[one.newrelic.com > All capabilities](https://one.newrelic.com/all-capabilities) > Alerts > Alert Policies**.
2.  Click **New alert policy**.
3.  Click on newly created policy and click **New Alert Condition** to setup your Alerts.

**Disable a policy**

You can't disable a policy directly. However, you can [disable all of the policy's conditions](#).

When you disable all of the conditions, the policy remains the **Alert policies** index. The policy itself isn't disabled, and you can re-enable any or all of its conditions at any time.

**Delete a policy**

If you delete a policy, we'll continue to apply any other policies assigned to the product entity (target). If you remove **all** policies for the entity, its [color-coded health status](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/new-relic-alerts/configuring-alert-policies/identify-entities-without-alert-policies) indicator will appear light green with an icon.

If you delete any of your account's policies, you can't restore them. Instead, you must re-create them if necessary.

To delete a policy completely:

1.  Go to **[one.newrelic.com > All capabilities](https://one.newrelic.com/all-capabilities) > Alerts > Alert Policies**.
2.  From the policy row, click the ellipses (...) dropdown menu and select **Delete**.

    In a deleted policy, [issues](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/alert-event-management/view-alert-event-details) and [alert events](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/alert-event-management/view-alert-event-details) are provided as a read only resource.

**Check for entities (targets) assigned to a policy**

To check whether [an entity (target) has any policies assigned](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/new-relic-alerts-beta/configuring-alert-policies/identify-entities-without-alert-policies):

1.  Go to the product (APM, browser, etc.).
2.  From the selected product's index, check whether the entity's color-coded health status is light green with an icon. ![icon-alerts-q-green.png](https://docs.newrelic.com/images/accounts_icon_green-question-mark.webp "Alerts v3: alert icons")

    > #### 💡 TIP
    >
    > **Exception:** Infrastructure does not use this feature.

**Change how alert events roll up into issues**

To select how [alert events](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/organize-alerts/specify-when-alerts-create-events/) are grouped into issues (by policy, by condition, or by target and condition):

1.  Go to **[one.newrelic.com](https://one.newrelic.com/all-capabilities) > Alerts > Alert Policies**, then select a policy.
2.  Click the **Settings** tab.
3.  Modify your **Issue Creation Preference** and click **Save**.

**Get context for alert events**

If you use New Relic alerts, you can connect your conditions to [alert event intelligence](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/overview/).

1.  From **[one.newrelic.com > All capabilities](https://one.newrelic.com/all-capabilities) > Alerts**.
2.  On the left under **Correlate > Sources**, then click **Alerts**.
3.  Select the policies you want to connect to alerts, and click **Connect**.

    You can add additional alerts policies or remove policies you've already connected in **Sources > Alerts**.