Setting Up Usage Tracking

An Account Administrator can gather usage statistics on one or more spaces within an account. Birst presents the statistics in a special space called the Usage Tracking space. The space has a pre-defined data model and pre-built reports and dashboards. You can create additional reports from the data that is gathered from the space or spaces being tracked.

Usage statistics are gathered for the reports and dashboards in a space and for space usage in general. Usage statistics are not available for modeling operations such as data model changes or custom measure creation.  

Important: You must be an Account Administrator to run usage statistics. A Space Administrator can enable a space to have usage statistics extracted but cannot run the actual data.

Note: You can create modeling changes but creating external connection and data extracts in usage tracking spaces is not allowed.

Enabling Usage Statistics Extracts in the Space

Each space where statistics should be gathered needs to be marked for statistics extracts. The administrator of the space can perform these steps.

To track usage in a space

  1. On the Home page, select the space for which you want to track usage.
  2. Go to Admin - Manage Space - Modify Properties.
  3. On the Modify Properties page check Allow Usage Statistics Extracts.

    Tip: In effect, there is only one Usage Tracking space for an account, because you cannot assign a space to be tracked by any particular Usage Tracking space.
  4. Click Save.

Creating, Importing, and Publishing the Usage Data from Your Spaces

Next, run commands from the Command Window to create, import, and publish the usage data to the usage statistics space you created.

Tip: All spaces that have been configured for usage tracking will return usage data.

  1. From Admin - Manage Space - Command Window.
  2. To review the list of spaces that are set up for usage tracking, enter at the command line:
    listspacesforusage
    Birst lists all the spaces that have been set up for usage tracking, as in the previous step Enabling Usage Statistics Extracts in the Space. Confirm that the spaces you want to track are in the list.
    For details about the command see listspacesforusage.
  3. Enter at the command line:
    getusage [usage_tracking_space_name] [from_date]
    For example:
    getusage "Usage Tracking for My Retail Analytics" 2015-10-21
    For details about the command see getusage.
  4. If the Usage Tracking space does not already exist, the command will create a new space, import, and publish the information. If the space already exist, the command will updated and publish the space's information.You see a message similar to the following:
    Executing command: getusage "Usage Tracking for My Retail Analytics" 2015-10-21

Viewing the Usage Statistics in Dashboards

After processing the usage data, either:

  • Go to the original Dashboards module to view the auto-generated dashboards for the usage data. These dashboards are part of every Usage Tracking space but are not the same as QuickDashboards.
  • Build your own reports in Visualizer and create your own dashboards in Dashboards 2.0. For example:
    • Sessions by Date
    • Sessions by Weekday
    • Sessions by Time of Day
    • Spaces Accessed by Date
    • Dashboards Accessed by Date
    • Top Users
    • Last Session by User

    Tip: In Dashboards 2.0, add filters to filter reports by space, users, or dates.

    Usage Tracking Attributes and Measures

    Designer lists the attributes and measures. See Usage Tracking Reference for details.

    Automating the Usage Tracking Space

    To automate the space, make a command file that contains the getusage command and its parameters. Then add that as a task in Birst Connect. See Birst Connect and Birst Command Files.

    Tip: See the Community article for how to update the date parameter.