Touchpoints are the most granular entities within the New Relic PathPoint model and behave similarly to a specific browser application or an APM-monitored app. Each step of a Pathpoint is connected to one or more touchpoints, and the status of every stage is determined by the culmination of its respective touchpoints.
Because the touchpoint concept is the pulse of each Pathpoint, it's crucial to test, tune, and work with touchpoint queries to obtain the desired data accurately.
You'll learn to:
- Test a touchpoint
- Tune touchpoint thresholds
- Run touchpoint queries
- Turn off touchpoint
Test a touchpoint
Pathpoint offers the functionality to test the validity and health of a specific touchpoint.
To test a touchpoint:
Select a touchpoint to test. Right click on it and click Queries.
It opens a window. Click Test.
The window will show you the results of the test. For example, if you see Successfully validated, it means your touchpoint is healthy.
If the validation fails, find out why, and fix it. Then, test it again until you get the Successfully validated message.
Important
When testing a touchpoint, if you get an Incorrectly validated error, it might be caused by the query being ran on the wrong account ID.
Verify you're running the query on the intended account by checking the account dropdown.
Tune touchpoint thresholds
One way to get better data from your touchpoints is to tweak their tuning configuration. Note that the initial values you see during the tuning process are defined by the JSON file uploaded to your Pathpoint. However, you can manually adjust these values later as well.
To tune a touchpoint:
Select a touchpoint to test. Right click on it and select Tune.
It opens a window showing the threshold values for the selected touchpoint.
Enter new Min and Max threshold values and click Save/Update.
Your touchpoint is now tuned with new threshold values.
Run touchpoint queries
Touchpoint queries are written in NRQL, our SQL-like query language. NRQL enables you to retrieve detailed New Relic data and gain insights into your applications, hosts, and business-critical activities. Although touchpoint queries are programmed using the JSON file uploaded to your Pathpoint, you can also manually modify them, as long as you don't change the main query variable that the touchpoint is looking to get.
To run a touchpoint query:
Right click on the particular touchpoint you want to work with and click Queries.
It opens a window.
In the window, you see the NRQL query associated with the touchpoint.
Now, you can modify the query to get different results from the selected touchpoint.
Turn off a touchpoint
If you need to work on or troubleshoot a specific touchpoint in Pathpoint, you can disable it manually. Once you've resolved any issues, you can reactivate the touchpoint to resume monitoring.
To turn off a touchpoint:
Select a touchpoint to turn off. Right click on it to open a pop-up window with options.
If the touchpoint is on, click the On toggle to switch off the touchpoint.
The touchpoint is now off.
Later on, you can follow the same steps to enable the touchpoint again.