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Analytics dashboards (Experiment) (ULTIMATE ALL)

Introduced in GitLab 15.9 as an Experiment feature with a flag named combined_analytics_dashboards. Disabled by default.

FLAG: On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is not available. To make it available per project or for your entire instance, an administrator can enable the feature flag named combined_analytics_dashboards. On GitLab.com, this feature is not available. This feature is not ready for production use.

Analytics dashboards help you visualize the collected data. You can use built-in dashboards or create your own with custom visualizations.

Data sources

A data source is a connection to a database or collection of data which can be used by your dashboard filters and visualizations to query and retrieve results.

The following data sources are configured for analytics dashboards:

Built-in dashboards

To help you get started with analytics, GitLab provides built-in dashboards with predefined visualizations.

Product analytics

  • Audience displays metrics related to traffic, such as the number of users and sessions.
  • Behavior displays metrics related to user activity, such as the number of page views and events.

These dashboards are labeled By GitLab, and you cannot edit them. Instead, you can create a custom dashboard with a similar style.

Value Stream Management

Custom dashboards

With custom dashboards, you can design and create visualizations for the metrics that are most relevant to your use case. You can create custom dashboards with the dashboard designer.

  • Each project can have an unlimited number of dashboards. The only limitation might be the repository size limit.
  • Each dashboard can reference one or more visualizations.
  • Visualizations are shared across dashboards.

Project maintainers can enforce approval rules on dashboard changes with features such as code owners and approval rules. Your dashboard files are versioned in source control with the rest of a project's code.

Dashboard designer

Introduced in GitLab 16.1 with a flag named combined_analytics_dashboards_editor. Disabled by default.

FLAG: On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is not available. To make it available per project or for your entire instance, an administrator can enable the feature flag named combined_analytics_dashboards_editor. On GitLab.com, this feature is not available. This feature is not ready for production use.

NOTE: This feature does not work in conjunction with the product_analytics_snowplow_support feature flag.

You can use the dashboard designer to:

  • Create custom dashboards.
  • Rename custom dashboards.
  • Add visualizations to new and existing custom dashboards.
  • Resize or move panels in custom dashboards.

View project dashboards

Prerequisite:

  • You must have at least the Developer role for the project.

To view a list of dashboards (both built-in and custom) for a project:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the top, select Search GitLab ({search}) to find your project.
  2. Select Analyze > Analytics dashboards.
  3. From the list of available dashboards, select the dashboard you want to view.

Change the location of dashboards

You can change the location of your project or group dashboards.

Group dashboards

NOTE: This feature will be connected to group-level dashboards as part of issue #411572.

To change the location of a group's dashboards:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the top, select Search GitLab ({search}) to find the project you want to store your dashboard files in. The project must belong to the group for which you create the dashboards.
  2. On the left sidebar, at the top, select Search GitLab ({search}) to find your group.
  3. Select Settings > General.
  4. Expand Analytics.
  5. In the Analytics Dashboards section, select your dashboard files project.
  6. Select Save changes.

Project dashboards

Dashboards are usually defined in the project where the analytics data is being retrieved from. However, you can also have a separate project for dashboards. This is recommended if you want to enforce specific access rules to the dashboard definitions or share dashboards across multiple projects.

NOTE: You can share dashboards only between projects that are located in the same group.

To change the location of project dashboards:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the top, select Search GitLab ({search}) to find your project, or select Create new... ({plus}) and New project/repository to create the project to store your dashboard files.
  2. On the left sidebar, at the top, select Search GitLab ({search}) and find the analytics project.
  3. Select Settings > General.
  4. Expand Analytics.
  5. In the Analytics Dashboards section, select your dashboard files project.
  6. Select Save changes.

Define a dashboard

To define a dashboard:

  1. In .gitlab/analytics/dashboards/, create a directory named like the dashboard.

    Each dashboard should have its own directory.

  2. In the new directory, create a .yaml file with the same name as the directory, for example .gitlab/analytics/dashboards/my_dashboard/my_dashboard.yaml.

    This file contains the dashboard definition. It must conform to the JSON schema defined in ee/app/validators/json_schemas/analytics_dashboard.json.

  3. Optional. To create new visualizations to add to your dashboard see defining a chart visualization.

For example, if you want to create three dashboards (Conversion funnels, Demographic breakdown, and North star metrics) and one visualization (line chart) that applies to all dashboards, the file structure would be:

.gitlab/analytics/dashboards
├── conversion_funnels
│  └── conversion_funnels.yaml
├── demographic_breakdown
│  └── demographic_breakdown.yaml
├── north_star_metrics
|  └── north_star_metrics.yaml
├── visualizations
│  └── example_line_chart.yaml

Define a chart visualization

You can define different charts, and add visualization options to some of them:

  • Line chart, with the options listed in the ECharts documentation.
  • Column chart, with the options listed in the ECharts documentation.
  • Data table, with the only option to render links (array of objects, each with text and href properties to specify the dimensions to be used in links). See example).
  • Single stat, with the only option to set decimalPlaces (number, default value is 0).

To define a chart for your dashboards:

  1. In the .gitlab/analytics/dashboards/visualizations/ directory, create a .yaml file. The filename should be descriptive of the visualization it defines.
  2. In the .yaml file, define the visualization configuration, according to the schema in ee/app/validators/json_schemas/analytics_visualization.json.

For example, to create a line chart that illustrates event count over time, in the visualizations folder create a line_chart.yaml file with the following required fields:

  • version
  • type
  • data
  • options

Create a custom dashboard

To create a custom dashboard:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the top, select Search GitLab ({search}) to find your project.
  2. Select Analyze > Analytics dashboards.
  3. Select New dashboard.
  4. In the New dashboard input, enter the name of the dashboard.
  5. From the Add visualizations list on the right, select the visualizations to add to the dashboard.
  6. Optional. Drag or resize the selected panel how you prefer.
  7. Select Save.

Edit a custom dashboard

You can edit your custom dashboard's title and add or resize visualizations in the dashboard designer.

To edit an existing custom dashboard:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the top, select Search GitLab ({search}) to find your project.
  2. Select Analyze > Analytics dashboards.
  3. From the list of available dashboards, select a custom dashboard (one without the By GitLab label) you want to edit.
  4. Select Edit.
  5. Optional. Change the title of the dashboard.
  6. Optional. From the Add visualizations list on the right, select other visualizations to add to the dashboard.
  7. Optional. In the dashboard, select a panel and drag or resize it how you prefer.
  8. Select Save.

Troubleshooting

Something went wrong while loading the dashboard.

If the dashboard displays a global error message that data could not be loaded, first try reloading the page. If the error persists:

  • Check that your configurations match the JSON schema defined in ee/app/validators/json_schemas/analytics_dashboard.json.
  • For product analytics, check your admin and project settings, and make sure they are set up correctly.

Dashboard panel error

If a dashboard panel displays an error message: