Create and manage flows

This page covers the updated version of Pathpoint. For the generally available version, see Introduction to New Relic Pathpoint.

A flow is the unit you build in Pathpoint: one business journey, broken into stages, levels, steps, and the signals that report their health. This page covers how to build a flow in the UI, manage it once it exists, and plan its design.

Build a flow

Create a flow

To create a new flow, click + Add a flow in the top right of the Flows page. In the Create a flow dialog, choose Blank flow to build a new flow from scratch, or Import a flow to create one from an existing JSON configuration.

Blank flow

The Pathpoint flow dialog creates the flow in the account you currently have selected. Fill in the following fields:

• Flow name (required): The name displayed on the flow and on the Flows page.
• Category (optional): A business category to help organize your flows, such as E-commerce or Onboarding.
• Description (optional): A short description of the flow, such as "Purchase flow for mobile app."
• Refresh data every: How frequently the flow refreshes its health data. Choose 1, 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes. Defaults to 1 minute.

Click Save to create the flow. This opens it in draft mode, where you'll build out the structure of your journey.

Import a flow

If you already have a flow configuration as JSON, you can create a flow from it instead of building one by hand. This is useful for moving a flow between accounts, restoring one from version control, or starting from a configuration a colleague exported.

Drag a JSON file into the input field, click Upload JSON, or paste the JSON directly, and edit it in place if you need to.

Under Select what to import, choose how much of the configuration to bring across:

• Structure only: Imports the stages, levels, and steps, without signals or KPIs. Use this to reuse a flow's shape without inheriting its signals.
• Everything: Imports the structure along with its signals and KPIs.

Click Save to create the flow.

To get the JSON for a flow you've already built, open it and select View as code from the ... menu. See View as code.

Add and configure stages

Draft mode opens with a stage, level, and step already scaffolded. Click on the stage name to rename it.

To add a new stage, click the + icon on a stage header and select Add a stage.

To add a KPI directly to a stage, click the + icon and select Add a KPI. See KPIs for more details.

To configure a stage, click the gear icon on the stage header and select Adjust settings. Stage settings include:

• Stage link (optional): Add a URL to provide additional context for the stage, such as a dashboard or document.
• Stage shape: Set the visual shape of the stage to reflect its role in the journey: None, Start, Connect, or Stop.
• Health setup: Choose how the stage health is determined:
  • Rollup of all levels: The stage status reflects the most severe status across all its levels. Use this when you want the stage to react as soon as any level has trouble.
  • Alert policy and conditions: Set up custom alert policies and conditions to determine the health status of the stage. This method lets you define specific conditions that trigger stage health status changes based on alert states. Use this when you want the stage to turn critical based on a stage KPI breaching a threshold.

To delete a stage, click the gear icon and select Delete.

Add and configure levels and steps

To add a level, click + Add a level at the bottom of a stage. Levels are automatically numbered based on their position in the stage.

To add a step to a level, click the + icon inside the level. To rename a step, click on the step name and type directly.

To configure a step, click the ... menu on the step and select Settings. Step settings include:

• Step link (optional): Add a URL to provide additional context for the step, such as a dashboard or document.
• Status configuration: Choose how the step health is determined:
  • Exclude step from level status: When checked, the step still displays its own health but doesn't contribute to the level's health rollup.
  • Rollup the worst status: The step health reflects the most severe status of any signal. Optionally enable Apply only when to set a threshold before the status change takes effect.
  • Rollup the best status: The step health reflects the best status of any signal.
  • Included signals: Select which signals are included in step status determination. Defaults to all signals. Signals defined via queries are not included if queries are present.

To add signals to a step, click + Add signals inside the step. This opens the Select signals overlay, where you can browse and select the signals that determine the health of the step.

Select signals manually

Use the Entities or Alerts tab depending on the type of signal you're looking for, then browse or search for signals by name. Check the box next to a signal to add it to the step. To remove a signal, uncheck it in the table or click the x next to it in the Selected signals list.

Use dynamic filters

Instead of selecting signals one by one, you can use filters to dynamically target a set of signals. Dynamic filters determine the signals in scope each time the flow loads. This is useful when your signal set may change over time.

To use a dynamic filter, apply your desired filter criteria and click Add this filter. The filter definition is added to the Selected signals list along with any signals currently matching it.

To remove a dynamic filter, click the x next to the filter definition in the Selected signals list.

To delete a step, click the ... menu and select Delete. To delete a level, click the x icon next to the level.

Save and edit a flow

When you're done building, click Save in the top right to save your changes and exit draft mode. To abandon your changes instead, click Discard changes.

To come back to a saved flow, click Edit in the top right of the Flow view. Your changes stay in draft until you save them.

In draft mode you can update the flow's stages, levels, steps, and signals using the same actions described in Add and configure stages and Add and configure levels and steps above.

To manage noise when editing a large flow, use the Collapse all toggle in the top right to hide all signals and show only the flow structure. This makes it easier to focus on stages, levels, and steps without the distraction of individual signals.

When you're ready, click Save in the top right to save your changes and return to the Flow view.

Resolve editing conflicts

More than one person can edit a flow at the same time. If someone else saves while you're still editing, a You're editing an older version dialog appears when you try to save. It names the person who saved and gives you two options:

• Preview changes: Shows you their version so you can decide how to proceed.
• Cancel: Returns you to draft mode with your changes intact.

In preview, a banner gives you three ways forward:

• Exit preview: Returns you to draft mode with your changes intact.
• Overwrite changes: Saves your version, replacing theirs.
• Accept changes and refresh: Discards your changes and loads their version.

Create and manage flows programmatically

As well as building flows in the UI, you can create and manage them as code:

• NerdGraph: Create, read, update, duplicate, and delete flows through the API. See NerdGraph tutorial: Create and manage Pathpoint flows.
• Terraform: Manage flows as infrastructure-as-code, so your Pathpoint setup lives in version control alongside the rest of your configuration. See the newrelic_pathpoint_flow resource.

To get the code for a flow you've already built, open it and select View as code from the ... menu. That gives you the Terraform configuration for the flow, along with the NerdGraph mutations and query that create, update, and read it. See View as code.

Duplicate a flow

To duplicate a flow, click the ... menu on any row of the Flows page and select Duplicate.

This opens the Duplicate a flow dialog. You can update the following before saving:

• Flow name (required): Defaults to the original name with "Copy" appended.
• Select an account: The account to create the duplicate in. Defaults to the current account, so use this to copy a flow into a different account.
• Category: Inherited from the original flow.
• Description: Inherited from the original flow.
• Refresh data every: Inherited from the original flow.

Choose what to duplicate:

• Add Structure (stages, levels, steps): Copies the stages, levels, and steps only, without signals or KPIs.
• Everything (structure, signals, flow KPIs): Copies the structure along with its signals and KPIs.

Click Save to create the duplicate.

Manage a flow

In the General settings tab you can update a flow's core properties, keep your team connected to it, and delete it.

Update flow settings

Click Edit to update the following properties:

• Flow name: The name displayed on the flow and on the Flows page.
• Category: The business category associated with the flow.
• Description: A short description of the flow.
• Refresh data every: How frequently the flow refreshes its health data.

This tab also shows who created the flow and when, and who last edited it.

Contacts

Add emails or Slack channels to keep your team connected to this flow. Click Add contact to add a contact.

Links

Add runbooks, repositories, and other relevant documents to provide additional context for the flow. Click Add links to add a link.

Delete a flow

To delete a flow, click Delete flow in the bottom right of General Settings. You can also click the ... menu on any row of the Flows page and select Delete flow.

Plan a flow

Before you build a flow, it helps to plan its design, work through some examples, and think about which signals to use.

Access permissions

What you can do in Pathpoint depends on three things: your user type, the permissions your role grants you, and the accounts you have access to.

Role-based access control

Pathpoint has its own capability in the permissions list, under New Relic One. It's account-scoped, so a user's Pathpoint access applies to the accounts their role covers.

The Pathpoint capability has three permissions:

To grant these permissions, an organization admin adds them to a custom role and assigns that role to a group. To find the roles UI, go to one.newrelic.com, click the user menu, then go to Administration > Access management > Roles.