Level 0 - Synthetic coverage scorecard rule

The Level 0 synthetic coverage scorecard rule measures the percentage of your APM entities that are monitored by synthetic tests. Synthetic monitoring is essential for proactive service availability testing, preventing blind spots in your telemetry coverage, and ensuring consistent service delivery from your users' perspective.

What this rule measures

This scorecard rule evaluates whether your APM services that handle web transactions are covered by New Relic synthetic monitoring. The rule succeeds when it detects an APM service with web transactions that has corresponding synthetic tests monitoring endpoint availability.

Synthetic monitoring helps you:

• Test service availability from external perspectives before users encounter issues
• Monitor critical user journeys and business workflows
• Establish baseline performance expectations for key endpoints
• Detect outages and performance degradation proactively

How to interpret your score

Your synthetic coverage score represents the percentage of APM entities with web transactions that are monitored by synthetic tests. Here's how to understand your results:

• High score (80-100%): Most web-facing services have synthetic monitoring, indicating comprehensive proactive monitoring
• Medium score (50-79%): Moderate coverage with opportunities to expand synthetic testing to more services
• Low score (0-49%): Limited synthetic monitoring that may leave critical services unmonitored

This score helps you identify which APM entities with web-facing endpoints need synthetic monitoring coverage. If an APM service exposes URIs to users, it should be considered for synthetic testing to ensure consistent service delivery and early detection of availability issues.

Recommended actions

Use these strategies to improve your synthetic coverage score:

1. Assess service criticality and user impact

Prioritize services for synthetic monitoring based on business importance:

• Identify customer-facing services that directly impact user experience
• Focus on revenue-generating endpoints and critical business workflows
• Consider services that support essential business operations
• Evaluate services based on downtime cost and user impact

2. Identify endpoints for synthetic testing

Determine which services would benefit most from proactive monitoring:

• Map user journeys and identify key touchpoints
• Focus on login, checkout, search, and other critical user flows
• Include API endpoints that support mobile applications or third-party integrations
• Consider testing from multiple geographic locations for global services

3. Implement strategic synthetic monitoring

Design effective synthetic tests for your prioritized services:

• Create simple availability checks for basic uptime monitoring
• Build complex scripted tests for multi-step user workflows
• Set up API tests for backend services and microservices
• Configure appropriate test frequencies based on service criticality

4. Customize the rule for your environment

Tailor the scorecard to match your specific monitoring needs:

• Apply tags to group services that require synthetic monitoring
• Modify the scorecard rule to focus on your tagged service cohort
• Exclude internal or development services that don't need external monitoring
• Set up different rules for different service tiers or environments

Important considerations

Keep these factors in mind when working with your synthetic coverage score:

Focus on business impact: Not every service needs synthetic monitoring. Prioritize customer-facing services and critical business workflows that directly impact revenue or user experience.

Balance coverage with cost: Synthetic tests consume resources and have associated costs. Focus on high-value monitoring rather than trying to achieve 100% coverage across all services.

Consider test complexity: Start with simple availability checks and gradually add more complex scripted tests for critical user journeys. Complex tests provide more value but require more maintenance.

Plan for maintenance: Synthetic tests need ongoing maintenance as your applications evolve. Factor in the operational overhead when planning your synthetic monitoring strategy.

Next steps

To improve your synthetic coverage:

1. Start with critical services: Begin by implementing synthetic monitoring for your most business-critical, customer-facing services
2. Design meaningful tests: Create tests that reflect real user behavior and business workflows
3. Monitor and iterate: Use the scorecard to track progress and adjust your strategy based on results
4. Expand gradually: Once core services are covered, extend monitoring to additional services based on business value

Effective synthetic monitoring creates a safety net that detects issues before they impact users, enabling faster response times and better service reliability.