# Problem Once users store their Product Analytics data with GitLab, we must give them the ability to export that data if they so wish. We want users to stay with us because of the value we provide, not because of data lock-in and that they feel trapped. Allowing users to export their data has several benefits: * We are not "locking them in" to our platform by keeping the data from them * They are able to experiment in any BI or other tool they are comfortable with to learn things that our dashboards don't show * We will learn what insights users want and dashboards they find value in based on what they create outside of GitLab. Enterprises likely have their own analytics/BI platform with other metrics vital to running their business. Offering egress of their product analytics data in addition to the other data store in GitLab can help businesses make better informed decisions. # Proposal We will approach data export in two phases: 1. Allow users to export data to standard file formats. They can then save, process, and load these as they like in their workflow. * This addresses the original pain point of preventing users from being locked in and not having accces to their data. 1. Direct export to other third-party tools. * Specific tools will be covered in this [child epic](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/9066). * This is a valuable feature that makes it easy to use other tools along with GitLab, but is not the most [boring solution](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#boring-solutions) possible.