---
title: Introduction to business observability
source: https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/new-relic-solutions/business-observability/introduction-business-observability
---

Business observability is the art of capturing, measuring, and managing the live interaction between IT telemetry and business analytics.

Often, observability strategy is implemented in silos, which means connecting the dots back to the business can be reactive, an afterthought, and extremely difficult. Business observability is about actively aligning key initiatives to the performance of systems, applications, and processes.

By implementing business observability practices, organizations can make informed decisions that impact their entire operations and achieve significant financial gains.

## Want to get started? [#get-started]

If you haven't already, [sign up for a free New Relic account](https://newrelic.com/signup) to start your business observability journey today.

## Next steps [#next-steps]

We provide many solutions to help you with your business observability practice. Here are some of the main strategies used by our larger customers.

### Reporting custom data [#custom-data]

We report a lot of helpful data by default, but to get the most out of using New Relic, you'll want to report custom data that contains information that's unique and meaningful to your business.

Before adding any custom data, you should come up with a plan of how it will work, to make sure it will be an efficient, organized implementation (and won't create too much "noisy" data).

Methods of adding custom data include:

-   Configuring your existing agents and integrations
-   Using agent APIs
-   Using our Metric, Event, Log, and Trace APIs to bring in any data

For tips for adding custom data, see [Custom data](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/data-apis/custom-data/get-custom-data-from-any-source).

### Custom UI visualizations [#visualizations]

Just as you can customize the data you bring in, you can customize your visualizations of that data to match your business structure. Examples of this:

-   Create [custom dashboards](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/query-your-data/explore-query-data/dashboards/introduction-dashboards) that are aimed at solving specific business problems
-   Create [workloads](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/new-relic-solutions/new-relic-one/workloads/use-workloads), which are business-important groupings of your monitored entities

### Pathpoint [#pathpoint]

New Relic Pathpoint helps you understand your entire system. [Get started with PathPoint](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/business-observability/pathpoint).