Left sidebar organization for Product Analytics

Release notes

Problem to solve

For Product Analytics, we need to introduce several new screens for the user to interact with. This includes approximately five screens for dashboards, query building & configuration, and cluster configuration settings, and funnel analysis, at a minimum. These screens need to reachable via the left sidebar while also complying with our design and product guidelines.

Proposal

There is a short-term plan as well as a directional vision for how we will add these screens. This is intended to mesh with the existing menu system and offering in the product.

Add new options under the existing Analytics tab. Specifically:

• Add a new Dashboards item
  • This is where all the Product Analytics dashboards (e.g. Audience and Behavior will live.
  • Over time, the existing dashboards (e.g. Value Stream,CI/CD, etc) on the Analytics tab will move here as individual dashboards that can be viewed.
• Add a new Configuration item
  • This is where Product Analytics configuration (Jitsu/ClickHouse/Cube.dev) will go
  • Any additional configuration screens needed for new dashboards or features will go here
• Add a new Funnel item
  • Once built, this is where Product Analytics funnel features will live
• Add a new Experiments item
  • Once built, this is where Product Analytics experimentation capabilities will live

Short term this will look like:

Longer term this will look like:

The longer-term vision may change as we iterate and learn more.

Previous work

There are several approaches we have discussed up to this point for where to introduce these new screens:

1. Introduce a single screen called Product under Analytics to house one screen and link from that screen to others
   • This has the downside of needing to add links from a top-level page to subpages, which isn't an ideal UX.
   • We don't have the concept of sub-submenus to be able to fan out multiple links from the Analytics->Product option.
2. Introduce a new option, Product Analytics, to the left sidebar
   • This would be confusing for users to see both Analytics and Product Analytics on the left sidebar.
   • It would give us flexibility to add as many new screens as we needed.
3. Utilize the existing Analytics tab for all Product Analytics screens and move the existing options to new locations.
   • This would be ideal from a Product Analytics perspective but would require thoughtfully relocating the existing 7 screens.
   • Proposed Update

     Value stream -> Value Stream Management / Optimize
     CI/CD -> CI/CD (therefore renamed to something like CI/CD -> Analytics (or Charts, its current URL slug)
     Code review -> Security & Compliance
     Insights -> Value Stream Management / Optimize
     Issue -> Issues (renamed as something else as a sub-item)
     Merge-Request -> Merge Requests (renamed as something else as a sub-item)
     Repository -> Repository (renamed as something else as a sub-item)
     
4. Re-name the existing Analytics tab to Product Analytics, move some of the existing items under Analytics to new sections, and introduce new left sidebar options for other analytics-related items (such as Value Stream Analytics)
   • This is again ideal for Product Analytics, but would require thoughtful planning.
   • Adding other Analytics use cases, such as Value Stream Analytics, to the left sidebar could make it become cluttered.
5. Enable the concept of sub-submenus to be possible within Pajamas
   • UX team has intentionally not done this previously, so would be controversial.
6. Add Dashboard, Settings, and other Product Analytics screen links to the existing Analytics sidebar option and leave the existing other options there.
7. fill in other ideas

Open questions

1. Can we feature flag where these will live on a per-project basis?
   • If so, perhaps we could update the screens to only appear on the internal handbook project page, and then we can iterate from there before a full rollout to all of GitLab. This would also let us expose it on an as-needed basis if we pursue a closed beta.

Implementation plan (IN PROGRESS)

backend - 2️⃣

1. Add new item declaration to add the item to configure_menu_items.
2. Create new method to add the new item if product_analytics_internal_preview is enabled and the feature is available for the project.
3. Update the specs to validate the menu item is shown accordingly.

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