Cachet/docs/metrics/create-metric.md

Create a metric

This documentation will guide you through the metric creation. You need to know what is a metric.

Filling the form

Creating a metric is as simple as filling a form. You just need to know what do the fields mean.

To access to the metrics creation, follow these steps:

• Log into your Cachet instance.
• Once on the Dashboard click Metrics in the sidebar.
• Click the Create a metric button.

And you are there! You should be able to see the metric form. Let's explain the fields:

• Name: The name of the metric as it will be shown on the status page. Example: "API response time".
• Suffix: The suffix that will be added in the tooltip when you put your mouse over the point on the metric. Usually it's the unit of the raw data. Example: "ms". If you send "42" to the metric, then "42ms" would be show in the tooltip.
• Description: A description of the metric. What is the usage of the metric? What does it measure? Example: "The average response time of our API".
• Calculation of metrics: What computation should be done on your data before displaying them in the metric? It may be either Sum or Average. Example: Average to compute the average reponse time for a given time.
• Default view: The default view of the metric. Viewing the datas of 1 year ago is not useful, but it's about your preference to see datas of the last hour, 12 hours, week or month. Example: Last 12 hours because you want to see the last 12 hours of data by default. It's only the default view, this can be changed in a select box.
• Decimal places The number of decimal of the point that is displayed. If you are computing the average of something it's almost sure that you'll get an average with a coma, line 42,424242. Example: 2 to get 42,42 instead of a long number.
• How many minutes of threshold between metric points?: The number of minutes between the points in the metric. According to your needs it may be 1, 5 or even 30. It's really up to you. Example: 60 to get one point every hour.
• Display chart on the status page?: If checked, this chart will be displayed on the status page. But it's possible to create the metric and not showing it.
• Visibility: Who should be able to see the chart? You have three choices:
  • Visible to authenticated users: It means that people won't be able to see it except if they are authenticated. Useful if it's an internal metric.
  • Visible to everybody: It means that every user, even not authenticated, will be able to see the chart.
  • Always hidden: It means that nobody will be able to see the chart.