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# Service Ping metric lifecycle
The following guidelines explain the steps to follow at each stage of a metric's lifecycle.
Currently, the [Metrics Dictionary](https://metrics.gitlab.com/) is built automatically once a day. When a change to a metric is made in a YAML file, you can see the change in the dictionary within 24 hours.
and persists all Service Ping reports. To verify Service Ping processing in your local development environment, follow this [guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS5emplabRU).
Alternatively, you can modify [fixtures](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-services/version-gitlab-com/-/blob/master/spec/support/usage_data_helpers.rb#L540)
used to test the [`UsageDataController#create`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-services/version-gitlab-com/-/blob/3760ef28/spec/controllers/usage_data_controller_spec.rb#L75)
For [Ordinary Redis](implement.md#ordinary-redis-counters) counters remove data stored in Redis.
- Add a migration to remove the data from Redis for the related Redis keys. For more details, see [this MR example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/82604/diffs).
[GitLab Data Team project](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-data/analytics/-/issues).
Ask for confirmation that the metric is not referred to in any SiSense dashboards and
can be safely removed from Service Ping. Use this
[example issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-data/analytics/-/issues/7539) for guidance.
1. After you verify the metric can be safely removed,
update the attributes of the metric's YAML definition:
- Set the `status:` to `removed`.
- Set `milestone_removed:` to the number of the
milestone in which the metric was removed.
Do not remove the metric's YAML definition altogether. Some self-managed
instances might not immediately update to the latest version of GitLab, and
therefore continue to report the removed metric. The Product Intelligence team
requires a record of all removed metrics in order to identify and filter them.
For example please take a look at this [merge request](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/60149/diffs#b01f429a54843feb22265100c0e4fec1b7da1240_10_10).
1. After you verify the metric can be safely removed,
For example please take a look at this [merge request](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/60149/diffs#6335dc533bd21df26db9de90a02dd66278c2390d_167_167).
1. Remove any other records related to the metric:
- The feature flag YAML file at [`config/feature_flags/*/*.yaml`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/tree/master/config/feature_flags).
- The entry in the known events YAML file at [`lib/gitlab/usage_data_counters/known_events/*.yaml`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/tree/master/lib/gitlab/usage_data_counters/known_events).