get_stats

There are lot of analytics tools out there which you can integrate with your application and get stats you need, but they do not always provide full control over the information, plus you always have to go back to there site to get the information.

GetStats is a simple way to measure key metrics in your Rails app.

https://github.com/megharastogi/get_stats

If you have any questions or feedback, please reach out to me on Twitter.

Installation

• Add 'get_stats' to your Gemfile.
• Run bundle install.
• rails generate get_stats
• rake db:migrate
• Restart your server

This will create a stats table in your database to store all the information.

GetStats Usage

To track a metric, all you need to add to your code is:

Stats.increment('stats_name')

Where 'stats_name' is the name you want to assign to the metric (ex: 'signup','liked_page')

Usage Examples

If you want to track number of signups everyday, you can add a call to Stats in 'after_create' to log the amount of signups every day.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
   def after_create
      Stats.increment('signup')
   end
end

If the stat 'signup' does not exists it will create one, otherwise it will just increment the existing stat for the current day.

To track number of succesfull payments made everyday you can do something like

class Payment < ActiveRecord::Base
   def after_create
      if status == 'Success'
        Stats.increment('successful_payment')
      else
        Stats.increment('failed_payment_attempt')
      end 
   end
end

Optionally, you can pass a date parameter to the 'increment' method to store the stat for a given date.

For example, if want to track how many users signed up on each day, you can add something like this to a rake task:

  @users.each do |u|
      Stats.increment('signup', u.created_at)
  end    

  @payments.each do |p|
      if p.status == 'Success'
        Stats.increment('successful_payment',p.created_at)
      else
        Stats.increment('failed_payment_attempt',p.created_at)
      end
  end    

Retreiving Daily Stats

Now that you have stored all the information, you just need to call Stats.daily_stats(stat_name)

  Stats.daily_stats('signup')
  Stats.daily_stats('successful_payment')

By default, it will output the data collected over last 7 days, but you can also pass options for viewing data for the trailing month, or a particular time range.

  Stats.daily_stats(stat_name,'week') // get trailing 7 days - default
  Stats.daily_stats(stat_name,'month') // get trailing 30 days
  Stats.daily_stats(stat_name,'time_range', start_date, end_date) // custom date range

  Stats.daily_stats('signup','week')
  Stats.daily_stats('signup','month')
  Stats.daily_stats('signup','time_range', Date.today - 15.days, Date.today)

Stats.daily_stats returns an array of data with count everyday

Stats.daily_stats('signup','week') 
[["signup", Sat, 16 Feb 2013, 0], ["signup", Sun, 17 Feb 2013, 2], ["signup", Mon, 18 Feb 2013, 4], ["signup", Tue, 19 Feb 2013, 5], ["signup", Wed, 20 Feb 2013, 0], ["signup", Thu, 21 Feb 2013, 0]]

Retreiving Weekly Stats

To view stored information aggregated over each week, you just need to call Stats.weekly_stats(stat_name)

  Stats.weekly_stats('signup')
  Stats.weekly_stats('successful_payment')

By default, it will output the data collected over last 5 weeks, but you can also pass options for a particular time range.

  Stats.weekly_stats(stat_name) // get trailing 5 weeks - default
  Stats.weekly_stats(stat_name, start_date, end_date) // custom date range

  Stats.weekly_stats('signup')
  Stats.weekly_stats('signup', Date.today - 15.days, Date.today)

Stats.weekly_stats returns an array of data with count everyweek

Stats.weekly_stats('signup') 
[["signup", Mon, 21 Jan 2013, 316], ["signup", Mon, 28 Jan 2013, 204], ["signup", Mon, 04 Feb 2013, 161], ["signup", Mon, 11 Feb 2013, 141], ["signup", Mon, 18 Feb 2013, 195], ["signup", Mon, 25 Feb 2013, 22]]

Retreiving Monthly Stats

To view stored information aggregated over each month, you just need to call Stats.monthly_stats(stat_name)

  Stats.monthly_stats('signup')
  Stats.monthly_stats('successful_payment')

By default, it will output the data collected over last 5 months, but you can also pass options for a particular time range.

  Stats.monthly_stats(stat_name) // get trailing 5 months - default
  Stats.monthly_stats(stat_name, start_date, end_date) // custom date range

  Stats.monthly_stats('signup')
  Stats.monthly_stats('signup', Date.today - 8.months, Date.today)

Stats.monthly_stats returns an array of data with count every month

Stats.monthly_stats('signup') 
[["signup", Mon, 01 Oct 2012, 1378], ["signup", Thu, 01 Nov 2012, 253], ["signup", Sat, 01 Dec 2012, 474], ["signup", Tue, 01 Jan 2013, 1391], ["signup", Mon, 25 Feb 2013, 565]]

Retreiving All Stat Names

To view list of all the stat_names stored in the system you can call

Stats.show_all_stat_names  

Which will return an array of all the stat_names stored in the system

Displaying Graphs or Table

For displaying beautiful graphs, the gem uses highcharts.js.

To add graphs to views, include highcharts.js (already added in the assets) and then use the partial 'display_graph'. Example below:

<%= javascript_include_tag :highcharts %>

<% @signups = Stats.daily_stats('signups','week') %>
<%= render :partial => "./display_graph", :locals => {:stats => @signups,:graph_type => "line"}%>
<%= render :partial => "./display_graph", :locals => {:stats => @signups,:graph_type => "column"}%>

If you want to display more than one metric in a graph you can pass an array of different metrics to stats variable and pass variable 'multiple' true for example:

<%= javascript_include_tag :highcharts %>

<% @signups = Stats.daily_stats('signup','week') %>
<% @free_plan = Stats.daily_stats('Free Plan signups','week') %>
<% @paid_plan = Stats.daily_stats('Paid Plan signups','week') %>

<%= render :partial => "./display_graph", :locals => {:stats => [@signups,@free_plan,@paid_plan],:graph_type => "line",:multiple => "true"}%>

<%= render :partial => "./display_graph", :locals => {:stats => [@signups,@free_plan,@paid_plan],:graph_type => "column",:multiple => "true"}%>

Supported options for graph_type:

• 'line'
• 'area'
• 'bar'
• 'column'

You can also display the same information in table using 'display_table' partial.

<% @signups = Stats.show('signup','week') %>

<%= render :partial => "./display_table", :locals => {:stats => @signups}%>

More options are under development!

Feedback

Source code available on Github. Feedback would be greatly appreciated (this is my first Gem!)