New Custom Event Limits - Please Read

This post is now deprecated. We have removed the Analysis Point system.

See this thread for more details:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/new-data-processing-limits.450266/

Hello Unity Analytics users!

Here's an overview of how Analytics Points work.

Please note that we will never charge you if you exceed your Analysis Points allocation, though certain events may not be tracked. But fear not - you can always manage your Analysis Points via the Event Manager.

Let’s break this down with a few examples:

Example 1: Custom Events with No Parameters
For Custom Events with No Parameters, the cost for each Custom Event = 1 Analysis Point

LevelStart
Custom Event with No Parameters = 1 Analysis Point

LevelEnd
Custom Event with No Parameters = 1 Analysis Point

PurchaseItem
Custom Event with No Parameters = 1 Analysis Point

Total of 3 Points
1000 - 3 = 997
I have 997 points left.

Example 2: Custom Events with Numeric Parameters Only
For Custom Events with Numeric Parameters only, the total Analysis Point cost is equal to the number of Numeric Parameters + 1 for the event itself.

Let’s build out our example below (assuming all parameters are numeric only):
LevelStart
coins
Custom Event with 1 Numeric Parameter = 2 Analysis Point

LevelEnd
coins
levelnum
Custom Event with 2 Numeric Parameters = 3 Analysis Points

PurchaseItem
levelnum
cost
gold
Custom Event with 3 Numeric Parameters = 4 Analysis Points

Total of 9 Points
1000 - 9 = 991
I have 991 points left.

Example 3: Custom Events with Numeric and Non-Numeric Parameters
Now this is where things get a bit tricky. Non-Numeric Parameters (strings and booleans) cost more Analysis Points than Numeric Parameters. Non-Numeric Parameters cost more because we need to run individual calculations on these in order to show you how they break down. The cost of Non-Numeric parameters is equal to the possible values they can assume.

Here are a few more examples:
LevelStart
coins (numerical)
levelname (string) > For levelname, let's assume there are 10 possible values.

Custom Event = 1 Analysis Point
coins: 1 Numeric Parameter = 1 Analysis Point
levelname: 1 String Parameter (with 10 possible values) = 10 Analysis Points
Custom Event with 1 Numeric Parameter and 1 String Parameter = 12 Analysis Points

LevelEnd
hitpoints (numerical)
coins (numerical)
levelname (string) > For levelname, let's assume there are 10 possible values.

Custom Event = 1 Analysis Point
hitpoints: 1 Numeric Parameter = 1 Analysis Point
coins: 1 Numeric Parameter = 1 Analysis Point
levelname: 1 String Parameter (with 10 possible values) = 10 Analysis Points
Custom Event with 2 Numeric Parameters and 1 String Parameter = 13 Analysis Points

PurchaseItem
name (string) > For name, let's assume there are 100 possible values.
cost (numerical)
on_sale (boolean) > on_sale is a boolean (i.e., True or False), so it can take at most 2 possible values.

Custom Event = 1 Analysis Point
name: 1 String Parameter (with 100 possible values) = 100 Analysis Points
cost: 1 Numeric Parameter = 1 Analysis Point
on_sale: 1 Boolean Parameter (with 2 possible values) = 2 Analysis Points
Custom Event with 1 String Parameter, 1 Numeric Parameter, and 1 Boolean Parameter = 104 Analysis Points

Total of 129 Points
1000 - 129 = 871
I have 871 points left.

As you can see, it’s very important to keep track of your Analysis Points and not let any part of the equation get out of control. You can track your usage through the Event Manager tab.

Some recommendations:

• Use numbers when possible
• Spend your points wisely! Don’t send parameters you don’t need.
• Avoid sending highly variable (string) parameter values. For example, a user or device ID is probably a pretty useless thing to include, and will cost a lot of points.
• Think about how you want to analyze your data as you structure your events and parameters.

Hope that helps explain things! Feel free to ask clarifying questions below, we're here for you guys so feedback is always welcome and appreciated

 

Per project - will update the post accordingly

 

Chiming in on Angelo’s post- we know Analysis Points is a new concept and folks have already established custom events and parameters, so we will not vigorously enforce the 1,000 point limit while we're in Beta. That’s not to say, we won’t ping you if you are getting close or exceed your allowance.

We’d like for folks to start thinking about this, to ask us questions, and to provide feedback on what you think of this framework. As Angelo mentioned, our team is thinking of creative ways to make our product powerful and give you guys the flexibility to implement custom events the way you want to (and keep our data processing costs reasonable).

 

@khan-amil
>> This only applies to the number of different events, nothing changed for the limit of event/hour, right?
Correct.
>> ...to have a breakdown of our points usage by events?
Absolutely! In fact, we had one, but decided at the last minute that the way we had it structured was a bit misleading. We'll push a proper one soon-ish.

@Twice Circled
>>The thing is exceptions don't need to be tracked like other events
You're correct. Exception tracking is a different beast, and we'll be handling that through a different service (not Unity Analytics, but Unity Perf). We suggest you not use UA for exceptions tracking for exactly this reason.

@SeashellsRacer Thanks!

 

Hi @Alex2539!

Will we be able to manually remove certain events or parameters from being tracked?
>> This is on our roadmap, currently we envision having some sort of check-box where you can check and un-check custom events you don't find useful anymore. Open to any additional suggestions

Also, regarding the two-point cost for boolean parameters. If we want to save points it's obviously twice as efficient to just send a 1 or a 0, but is there a benefit in UA to using an actual boolean instead of a number?
>> For booleans you'll want to send the data as True or False. If you send it as a 1 or 0, UA will treat it as a numeric parameter, and you'll only be able to see counts/sums/averages, and not the pie chart or bar chart distributions.

 

Hey @khan-amil!

Thanks for the feedback - we'll definitely take it into consideration

So for now, how is it working? when you send a custom event once, it's on the system forever?
>> Currently, yes. If you stop sending Unity Analytics the custom event, it will still be counted towards your analysis points allowance (though as Salley mentioned we won't be vigorously enforcing the Analysis Point cap during the Beta). We are planning on building functionality to allow you to trim events you no longer use.

 

Hey @renanse!

Our goal with Analysis Points is to give developers the flexibility to choose which data points they want to analyze. Unfortunately, there are additional processing costs associated with string parameters vs. numerical parameters (hence the extra points), but we are taking a deep look at usage and we will be using feedback from the beta to determine what limits are reasonable (and more importantly, still provide value!) for the free tier of analytics. In the future, there will likelt be premium tiers, which will have a higher number of Analysis Points.

Also, to echo @khan-amil l, I'd actually recommend against numeric mappings: for example, if you have a custom event ClassType, and you send 1 instead of "Warrior" and 2 instead of "Mage", Unity Analytics will treat the 1 and 2 as numerical parameters, which are processed differently from string parameters.

For numeric parameters UA will calculate the sum, count and average. We do more complicated calculations on string parameters so we can show you distributions (useful for answering questions like "Which class is played the most?"). See this forum post for more info on string vs. numeric parameter visualizations.

 

Hi @Jazon Burnell!

The CSV export option gives (at the segment level) the count, average, and sum of your numeric parameters, and the count for string & boolean parameters. Export of raw event level data is not currently available, though this is a feature we're looking at.

>> some sort of int to string mapping since the points system ... discourages string use
>> ...set up a way for Analytics to accept enums...

We don't currently support Enums (though we are considering this also). But this doesn't really address the problem you're looking to solve. Even with Enum support (or strings mapped to ints), we still need to evaluate categorical values. Any "category" (i.e., something you want to categorize, rather than sum up), whether expressed as string, Enum, bool or number, requires a unique pass to calculate and distribute.

It's not our intention to discourage string use - in fact we built out the new custom events visualizations specifically so developers could get value out of their string parameters !

However, because of the additional calculations required for string vs. numeric parameters, we introduced Analysis Points to encourage developers to track their string (bool/Enum) parameters carefully.

 

Hey @Jazon Burnell,

Thanks for the suggestions! We are planning on building out an easy way to de-select custom events and parameters that you no longer care to track, so they would no longer count towards your Analysis Points allowance. Until that feature is live, here's a rough workaround: create a test app with all your custom events integrated. Once you have a better feel for which events you want to track, create a new app which just the custom events you care about.

>> there's some AB testing scenarios I'd like to be able to do that I'm pretty sure couldn't be derived from ordinary visualizations of data.

Speaking of AB testing, we're working on an update to Segment Builder that will allow you to create segments based on custom event data. This means that if you are able to tag users as "A" or "B" users via custom events, you'll soon be able to create custom segments (i.e., "A Players" and "B Players"). Once you've created these segments, in Data Explorer, you'll be able to compare metrics and KPIs of the "A Players" segment vs. the "B Players" segment.

 

You could combine the startLevel and endLevel event into just "endLevel" event, and put more parameters into the endLevel event.

 

Hi @kenli_touchten - Thanks for the feedback on our new custom event visualization. I'll add your request for median and quartiles to our list.

 

Hey @Saxi,

Could you elaborate as to what specifically is confusing or where we could do a better job explaining Analysis Points? We're always looking for feedback, and the last thing we want to do is make something more complicated than it needs to be (and that goes against one of our core tenets: making analytics accessible and easy to understand!).

Please know that we are planning on making improvements to the Analysis Points system, like being to able easily select/deselect custom events and parameters you no longer care about. Suggestions are always welcome

 

Hi Saxi,

Our service is in beta so we will be iterating on how we describe the offering. Definitely a fair assessment that this first proposal is complex. The intent was to provide transparency into our limitations and we'll work on a simpler approach.

While there are Pro specific features in the works, we are absolutely committed to providing a tier of free service that all users can access. As such, we may have to make trade-offs and acknowledge the service will not always be the best fit for everyone.

Thanks,
John

 

Hey @monark - once you reach the 1,000 Analysis Points limit, additional events will not be processed. We are working on a feature to allow you to blacklist custom events that you no longer want Unity Analytics to process (so they won't count towards your 1000 Analysis Points limit). We'll make sure to post in the forums once that feature is ready.

Hi @PAHeartBeat - the 1,000 Analysis points is per project.

 

Hi @Ryceratops !

We are still finalizing the strategy for Analysis Points. However, during the beta, if you are close to hitting your Analysis Points limit, please reach out to us by filing a support ticket and we'll work with you

 

Hi @slava_pankratov,

Unity Analytics is free during the open beta, however we currently don't have support for WebGL. We'll make sure to post if we decide to extend platform support.

Thanks!
-Angelo

 

Hi @PAHeartBeat - The Analysis Points are 1,000 points per project. The points are per custom event or parameter and it doesn't matter how many times the custom event is processed. We only count the first time the custom event or parameter is processed towards your Analysis Points.

Regarding your questions:

1. When you test your game in the Editor those events and sessions are recorded. Currently we do not support clearing data. Our recommendation for the time being is to create two separate projects (test vs. dev) and replace the test projectId with the dev projectId at build time.

2. Unity Analytics does not collect device info by default.

3. Dashboard dates are based on UTC time, which could to lead to some cases where you might not see data until much later in the day based on your timezone.

 

Hi @Marble - You are correct that it may use up your points rather quickly depending the number of search terms you had. For example, if you had ten terms (ie: Word1, Word2, Word3, etc...) it would use up ten Analysis Points.

 

Hi @jjobby - The points are per custom event or parameter and it doesn't matter how many times the custom event is processed. We only count the first time the custom event or parameter is processed towards your Analysis Points.

You example is correct. If you have one custom event and it is sent 100 times it will only use 1 Analysis Point.

 

Hi @dwshiraz and @asperatology ,

@dwshiraz,

We are currently working on a way to view and delete custom events! Once this feature becomes available we will make a post to forums. As of right now, one way of viewing a list of custom events is on the Data Explorer page as a drop down menu.

@asperatology,

Since Unity Analytics is still in Beta it is offered free to all users! Our FAQ has some information that you might be interested in, http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-analytics-beta-faqs.292372/, and you can find more general information about Unity Analytics here, http://unity3d.com/services/analytics.

I am also happy to let you know that your Analytic Points will not accumulate incrementally. As you described your button tracking, it should only add up to a total of 5 Analytic Points!

You can also read more about Analytic Points here, http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/new-custom-event-limits-please-read.315594/