DataHub React Analytics

About

The DataHub React application can be configured to emit a set of standardized product analytics events to multiple backend providers including

• Mixpanel
• Amplitude
• Google Analytics

This provides operators of DataHub with visibility into how their users are engaging with the platform, allowing them to answer questions around weekly active users, the most used features, the least used features, and more.

To accomplish this, we have built a small extension on top of the popular Analytics npm package. This package was chosen because it offers a clear pathway to extending support to many other providers, all of which you can find listed here.

Configuring an Analytics Provider

Currently, configuring an analytics provider requires that you fork DataHub & modify code. As described in 'Coming Soon', we intend to improve this process by implementing no-code configuration.

Mixpanel

1. Open datahub-web-react/src/conf/analytics.ts
2. Uncomment the mixpanel field within the config object.
3. Replace the sample token with the API token provided by Mixpanel.
4. Rebuild & redeploy datahub-frontend-react to start tracking.

const config: any = {
  mixpanel: {
    token: "fad1285da4e618b618973cacf6565e61",
  },
};

Amplitude

1. Open datahub-web-react/src/conf/analytics.ts
2. Uncomment the amplitude field within the config object.
3. Replace the sample apiKey with the key provided by Amplitude.
4. Rebuild & redeploy datahub-frontend-react to start tracking.

const config: any = {
  amplitude: {
    apiKey: "c5c212632315d19c752ab083bc7c92ff",
  },
};

Google Analytics

Disclaimers

• This plugin requires use of Universal Analytics and does not yet support GA4. To create a Universal Analytics Property, follow this guide.
• Google Analytics lacks robust support for custom event properties. For that reason many of the DataHub events discussed above will not be fully populated. Instead, we map certain fields of the DataHub event to the standard category, action, label fields required by GA.

1. Open datahub-web-react/src/conf/analytics.ts
2. Uncomment the googleAnalytics field within the config object.
3. Replace the sample trackingId with the one provided by Google Analytics.
4. Rebuild & redeploy datahub-frontend-react to start tracking.

const config: any = {
  googleAnalytics: {
    trackingId: "UA-24123123-01",
  },
};

Verifying your Analytics Setup

To verify that analytics are being sent to your provider, you can inspect the networking tab of a Google Chrome inspector window:

With DataHub open on Google Chrome

1. Right click, then Inspect
2. Click 'Network'
3. Issue a search in DataHub
4. Inspect the outbound traffic for requests routed to your analytics provider.

Development

Adding a plugin

To add a new plugin from the Analytics library:

1. Add a new file under src/app/analytics/plugin named based on the plugin
2. Extract configs from the analytics config object required to instantiate the plugin
3. Instantiate the plugin
4. Export a default object with 'isEnabled' and 'plugin' fields
5. Import / Export the new plugin module from src/app/analytics/plugin/index.js

If you're unsure, check out the existing plugin implements as examples. Before contributing a plugin, please be sure to verify the integration by viewing the product metrics in the new analytics provider.

Adding an event

To add a new DataHub analytics event, make the following changes to src/app/analytics/event.ts:

1. Add a new value to the EventType enum

   export enum EventType {
    LogInEvent,
    LogOutEvent,
    ...,
    MyNewEvent
}

2. Create a new interface extending BaseEvent

export interface MyNewEvent extends BaseEvent {
    type: EventType.MyNewEvent; // must be the type you just added
    ... your event's custom fields
}

3. Add the interface to the exported Event type.

export type Event =
    | LogInEvent
    | LogOutEvent
    ....
    | MyNewEvent

Emitting an event

Emitting a tracking DataHub analytics event is a 2-step process:

1. Import relevant items from analytics module

import analytics, { EventType } from "../analytics";

2. Call the event method, passing in an event object of the appropriate type

analytics.event({ type: EventType.MyNewEvent, ...my event fields });

Debugging: Enabling Event Logging

To log events to the console for debugging / verification purposes

1. Open datahub-web-react/src/conf/analytics.ts
2. Uncomment logging: true within the config object.
3. Rebuild & redeploy datahub-frontend-react to start logging all events to your browser's console.

Coming Soon

In the near future, we intend to

1. Send product analytics events back to DataHub itself, using them as feedback to improve the product experience.
2. No-code configuration of Analytics plugins. This will be achieved using server driven configuration for the React app.