Export an instance's usage ping
Problem to solve
We have a usage ping in GitLab that's of critical importance to helping us understand how instances are actually using the product. The usage ping is opt-out, and thus we don't get usage statistics from a significant proportion of our userbase.
We'd like to increase the amount of usage data we have from our users, and one opportunity is allowing instances to share this data with us via an exported file. If instances could capture and export their usage ping, we can then ask them to share it with us without asking them to get their instance to "phone home".
Appropriate opportunities to share this might be 1) support inquiries (include in the logs instances share with us), and 2) renewal/licensing touchpoints.
Proposal
- Capture weekly usage ping and store it on the instance.
- Allow an instance to export stored usage ping information to a file (e.g. json, csv).
We'll need another issue to discuss how and where GitLab might be able to ingest this file, and where it might be appropriate to get this from customers.
What does success look like, and how can we measure that?
- An instance with usage ping turned off can export their usage statistics into a readable/shareable file.