Exec Dashboards POC with the "Product Analytics section" capabilities

Overview

Following this comment.

In case Insights can't be extended to support metrics comparative view use case, here is issue for groupoptimize to collaborate with Product Analytics section / group and to POC the option of utilize their sets of dashboards and visualizations.

Problem to solve

GitLab Analytics provide high value to executives. However, these reports are spread across multiple pages in GitLab and may require specific filters to be applied to be relevant. Executives' time is very valuable, and they might not know how to use GitLab to get insights that are relevant to their business.

Proposed solution

Build proof of concept of a new Exec Dashboards page on top of what was developed by Product Analytics.

  1. Create a new group-level page /analytics/exec_dashboards.
  2. The new page will contain custom view of multiple gitlab metrics. cube.js example.
  3. The API queries will be against gitlab-org production database.
  4. The visualization for this POC will be counters tile.
  5. For each metric the tile will show the current time period compared to previous time period - value and change rate %.
  6. Each tile could have a drill-down link into other GL analytics reports.
  7. The new page will be behind a feature flag.
  8. Page "Edit" mode don't need a detailed UI. It can can be customized via yaml or json.

POC criteria

Build a dashboards view to compare month over month DORA Deployment Frequency value and change rate % across 4 different projects.

Future POC iterations:

  1. The new dashboards should support sub-views /analytics/exec_dashboards/view1, /analytics/exec_dashboards/view2.
  2. The views need to be shared as a single link for everyone to see the same metrics in the same context. (aka "Saved filters")
  3. Each tile should have drill-down link to other GL analytics reports.
  4. Each tile should filters for different combinations of groups, projects and environments.
  5. Future metrics: Lead Time for Changes, Time to restore service, Change Failure Rate, Lead time, Cycle time, ...)

Additional details and validation

Edited by Adam Hegyi