- Data sources
- Built-in dashboards
- Custom dashboards
- Dashboard designer
- Visualization designer
- View project dashboards
- Change the location of dashboards
- Define a dashboard
- Define a chart visualization
- Create a custom dashboard
- Edit a custom dashboard
- Create a custom visualization
- Troubleshooting
Analytics dashboards
Introduced in GitLab 15.9 as an Experiment feature with a flag named combined_analytics_dashboards
. Disabled by default.
combined_analytics_dashboards
.
On GitLab.com, this feature is not available.
This feature is not ready for production use.Analytics dashboards help you visualize the collected data. You can use built-in dashboards or create your own with custom visualizations.
Data sources
A data source is a connection to a database or collection of data which can be used by your dashboard filters and visualizations to query and retrieve results.
The following data sources are configured for analytics dashboards:
Built-in dashboards
To help you get started with analytics, GitLab provides built-in dashboards with predefined visualizations. These dashboards are labeled By GitLab, and you cannot edit them. Instead, you can create a custom dashboard with a similar style.
Product analytics
When product analytics is enabled and onboarded, two built-in dashboard are added:
- Audience displays metrics related to traffic, such as the number of users and sessions.
- Behavior displays metrics related to user activity, such as the number of page views and events.
Value Stream Management
- Value Streams Dashboard displays metrics related to DevOps performance, security exposure, and workstream optimization.
Custom dashboards
With custom dashboards, you can design and create visualizations for the metrics that are most relevant to your use case. You can create custom dashboards with the dashboard designer.
- Each project can have an unlimited number of dashboards. The only limitation might be the repository size limit.
- Each dashboard can reference one or more visualizations.
- Visualizations are shared across dashboards.
Project maintainers can enforce approval rules on dashboard changes with features such as code owners and approval rules. Your dashboard files are versioned in source control with the rest of a project’s code.
Dashboard designer
Introduced in GitLab 16.1 with a flag named combined_analytics_dashboards_editor
. Disabled by default.
combined_analytics_dashboards_editor
.
On GitLab.com, this feature is not available.
This feature is not ready for production use.You can use the dashboard designer to:
- Create custom dashboards.
-
Edit custom dashboards to:
- Rename the dashboard.
- Add and remove visualizations.
- Resize or move panels.
Visualization designer
Introduced in GitLab 16.4 with a flag named combined_analytics_visualization_editor
. Disabled by default.
combined_analytics_visualization_editor
.
On GitLab.com, this feature is not available.
This feature is not ready for production use.You can use the dashboard designer to:
- Create custom visualizations.
- Explore available data.
View project dashboards
Prerequisite:
- You must have at least the Developer role for the project.
To view a list of dashboards (both built-in and custom) for a project:
- On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
- Select Analyze > Analytics dashboards.
- From the list of available dashboards, select the dashboard you want to view.
Change the location of dashboards
You can change the location of your project or group dashboards.
Group dashboards
To change the location of a group’s dashboards:
- On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find the project you want to store your dashboard files in. The project must belong to the group for which you create the dashboards.
- On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
- Select Settings > General.
- Expand Analytics.
- In the Analytics Dashboards section, select your dashboard files project.
- Select Save changes.
Project dashboards
Dashboards are usually defined in the project where the analytics data is being retrieved from. However, you can also have a separate project for dashboards. This is recommended if you want to enforce specific access rules to the dashboard definitions or share dashboards across multiple projects.
To change the location of project dashboards:
- On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project, or select Create new… () and New project/repository to create the project to store your dashboard files.
- On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find the analytics project.
- Select Settings > General.
- Expand Analytics.
- In the Analytics Dashboards section, select your dashboard files project.
- Select Save changes.
Define a dashboard
To define a dashboard:
-
In
.gitlab/analytics/dashboards/
, create a directory named like the dashboard.Each dashboard should have its own directory.
-
In the new directory, create a
.yaml
file with the same name as the directory, for example.gitlab/analytics/dashboards/my_dashboard/my_dashboard.yaml
.This file contains the dashboard definition. It must conform to the JSON schema defined in
ee/app/validators/json_schemas/analytics_dashboard.json
. -
Optional. To create new visualizations to add to your dashboard see defining a chart visualization.
For example, if you want to create three dashboards (Conversion funnels, Demographic breakdown, and North star metrics) and one visualization (line chart) that applies to all dashboards, the file structure would be:
.gitlab/analytics/dashboards
├── conversion_funnels
│ └── conversion_funnels.yaml
├── demographic_breakdown
│ └── demographic_breakdown.yaml
├── north_star_metrics
| └── north_star_metrics.yaml
├── visualizations
│ └── example_line_chart.yaml
Define a chart visualization
You can define different charts, and add visualization options to some of them:
- Line chart, with the options listed in the ECharts documentation.
- Column chart, with the options listed in the ECharts documentation.
- Data table, with the only option to render
links
(array of objects, each withtext
andhref
properties to specify the dimensions to be used in links). See example). - Single stat, with the only option to set
decimalPlaces
(number, default value is 0).
To define a chart for your dashboards:
- In the
.gitlab/analytics/dashboards/visualizations/
directory, create a.yaml
file. The filename should be descriptive of the visualization it defines. - In the
.yaml
file, define the visualization configuration, according to the schema inee/app/validators/json_schemas/analytics_visualization.json
.
For example, to create a line chart that illustrates event count over time, in the visualizations
folder
create a line_chart.yaml
file with the following required fields:
- version
- type
- data
- options
Create a custom dashboard
To create a custom dashboard:
- On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
- Select Analyze > Analytics dashboards.
- Select New dashboard.
- In the New dashboard input, enter the name of the dashboard.
- From the Add visualizations list on the right, select the visualizations to add to the dashboard.
- Optional. Drag or resize the selected panel how you prefer.
- Select Save.
Edit a custom dashboard
You can edit your custom dashboard’s title and add or resize visualizations in the dashboard designer.
To edit an existing custom dashboard:
- On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
- Select Analyze > Analytics dashboards.
- From the list of available dashboards, select a custom dashboard (one without the
By GitLab
label) you want to edit. - Select Edit.
- Optional. Change the title of the dashboard.
- Optional. From the Add visualizations list on the right, select other visualizations to add to the dashboard.
- Optional. In the dashboard, select a panel and drag or resize it how you prefer.
- Select Save.
Create a custom visualization
To create a custom visualization:
- On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
- Select Analyze > Analytics dashboards.
- Select Visualization Designer.
- In the Visualization title field, enter the name of your visualization.
- From the Visualization type dropdown list, select a visualization type.
- In the What metric do you want to visualize? section, select the metric you want to query.
- Optional. To refine your query, select a dimension.
- Select Save.
After you saved a visualization, you can add it to a new or existing custom dashboard in the same project.
Troubleshooting
Something went wrong while loading the dashboard.
If the dashboard displays a global error message that data could not be loaded, first try reloading the page. If the error persists:
- Check that your configurations match the dashboard JSON schema defined in
ee/app/validators/json_schemas/analytics_dashboard.json
. - For product analytics, check your admin and project settings, and make sure they are set up correctly.
Invalid visualization configuration
If a dashboard panel displays a message that the visualization configuration is invalid, check that your visualization configurations match the visualization JSON schema defined in ee/app/validators/json_schemas/analytics_visualization.json
.
Dashboard panel error
If a dashboard panel displays an error message:
- Check your Cube query and visualization configurations, and make sure they are set up correctly.
- For product analytics, also check that your visualization’s Cube query is valid.