New Custom Event Limits - Please Read

Hi @UNNYHOG,

If you app starts sending non existing values as a string parameter each unique string will cost 1 Analysis Point. If this occurs please get in contact with us and we will take the appropriate measures.

The 11 points come from our test sceneLoad custom event, since we are still in Beta it is useful for our support team to locate possible issue across devices and platforms. We are rather lenient on Analysis Points so when you get close to using all of them let us know and we can make some adjustments.

 

Hello,

Due to some bad usage of events our project already used all of the points. We'v deleted that code but points seems to never go down - they will by the time or I have to start another project?

 

Hi @Jog,

Currently you will not receive back any spent Analysis Points. However, if you would like to open a support ticket here, https://analytics.cloud.unity3d.com/support we can see about the possibility of increasing your limit.

 

why error services unity with live

 

Hi @omarzonex, This issue is actually related to Unity Ads. This occurs if you just enabled Unity Ads via the Services window and pressed Play in the editor. The reason this occurs is because the project for Unity Ads takes up to 15 minutes to be configured for the first time. This error should go away after those first 15 minutes have passed.

 

It's not cleared to me how the analytics defines these possible values. Lets assume we are talking about level names like the example. How does it work?

 

Hi @vicenterusso,

Let's say I have just integrated my game with Analytics and I have just sent my first Custom Event named "levelStart" with a parameter named 'levelName' with a value 'castle' and a parameter named 'playerGold' with a value of 53. In code it would look something like,

Analytics.CustomEvent("levelStart", new Dictionary<string, object> { { "levelName", "castle" }, { "playerGold", 53 } } );

This event costs 2 Analysis Points. One for the new string value of the level name and one for the numerical value for the gold.

Now if I add the same event on a different level,

Analytics.CustomEvent("levelStart", new Dictionary<string, object> { { "levelName", "swamp" }, { "playerGold", 28 } } );

the total amount of my used Analysis Points only goes up by one because of the new string value that I passed. The numerical value of the gold does not incur any more used Analysis Points. Now the total amount of Analysis Points used by the Custom Event "levelStart" has increased to 3.

I hope this helps!

 

I'd like to have this feature too. During development phase, there are times that I experiment with various custom events, and eventually it turns out messy (some are not needed, some were named badly,...). Thanks

 

Little late here, but there are quite a few examples in the original post that list "no parameters" as an option. Is this still possible?

 

Hi @mcarriere,

Yep, you can send custom events without any parameters.

 

I have started using analitics with some test events. How can I clear it now and set my Analitics Points to 0?

 

Should we be providing an empty dict or null for "eventData" in the CustomEvent method?

Regardless, it might be useful to have the API documentation to reflect that, both the docs and the analytics introduction led me to believe that wasn't the case.

 

How the points are counting - is it per user? or per event?
For instance:
I have three event - main, game and level selection. So it takes my 3 points or 3xUSERS_AMOUNT (1000 users = 3000points)?

 

Hey,

@codeedward,
Currently there is no way to clear a project's Analysis Points. There are two things you can do though, you can create a new project and reintegrate your game to use the new project or contact us through support and we can take a look at increasing your Analysis Point limit. If you would like you can PM me your project I can take a look at and maybe make some suggestions on ways to use your Custom Events more effectively. Most of the time I see that someone has sent something like a timestamp as a string parameter and since each unique string value counts as one Analysis Point, they end up using all of their points in one testing instance.

Points are counted per event. For example, let's say you have one Custom Event that sends which level a user is on as a numerical value.

Analytics.CustomEvent("LevelNumber", new Dictionary<string, object>{{"num", 1}});

This event can be sent by 800,000 users and it will only count as 1 Analysis Point.

@mcarriere,
You should be able to use 'null' or an empty dictionary for your Custom Events. Thank you for the feedback, I made a note to make this more visible!

 

For the time being, my idea is that we create 2 different projects:

Cool Game (dev)
Cool Game (live)

The dev one is to be linked to Unity editor during development. There are a lot of events sent just by our team testing the game (gameplay event, and especially revenue record which can't be counted when the game goes live).

The live one is to be linked to Unity editor when we build for publishing on stores. After that we link back to the dev one to continue working on the game (e.g. for next release).

Is it a good idea?

 

Hi @phong.genix,

This is something that I have heard quite a few of developers doing to keep their dev data separated from their live data. The most important thing is to always remember to make sure you are linked to the appropriate project!

I started a thread asking for some use cases of how/when/why developers would like to use multiple project id's, would you mind making a post there about why there is a need for this feature and also if there were any features we could add to help make this process easier?

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/ch...ojects-with-multiple-clouldprojectids.365968/

There are a few possible ways we can go about implementing something like this but we want to make sure we get enough feedback to make the right decision for our developers.

 

Ah yes, obviously I would also want to have different project ID snot only for Dev vs. Live but also for iOS, Android, etc. like a comment in that thread.

Ok, I'll switch to that thread now for this matter. Thanks @mpinol

 

Looks like a really intelligent system. Me gusta.

 

Hey there!

I noticed that after turning on Unity Analytics for my project, I automatically see a custom event called 'unity.sceneLoad' with a couple parameters:



Although I appreciate the fact that it tracks these things automatically, I do have some second thoughts on this:

• This messes up my naming conventions / forces me to use Unity's naming conventions.
• What exactly unity.name and level_num mean is unclear. unity.name is a count of sorts, and level_num is ...? (It's unclear.)
• But more importantly (and more on-topic): this automatic-thing-that-I-cannot-turn-off uses analysis points. I planned to make my own custom events for level analysis, but now I will have two systems next to each other, both eating up my points...

I see a few solutions for this:

• Allow me to toggle whether I want Unity to automatically track these things for me.
• Don't use analysis points for these default events. (They are not custom events anyway, as they come with Unity by default, right?)

 

Hi @_Adriaan,

This event is just a dummy/test event and you are not required to use this naming convention for you Custom Events. This event also does not count against your Analysis Point usage, although I believe it does still show on the Event Watcher page on the Dashboard. This is an issue we are aware of and are working on a fix.

 

I wanted to say, UnityPerf has been promising. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to get it working with WebGL. I can't tell if that's a bug or it just isn't supported?

The Analytics tool has been fun to play with... but its unusable for us - even for analytics. Or maybe I'm not understanding something. We have access to our vendor portals, so IAP and User count information is redundant for us - I've tried to use custom events, but it doesn't actually produce usable information.

Actual example of basic data we need:

• Action: (50+ Types - Type of action, i.e. Add, Update, Remove, + many more)
  
• Object: (50+ Elements - Type of element, i.e. Bracket, Wire, Elastic + many more)
• Data: (Any extra data)
  
• Location: (Generic location info)
• Delay: (Processing speed)

This is a basic scenario for analysis. I need to determine what Objects combined with what Action are experiencing the longest Delay. But there is no way to drill down using Unity Analytics without using funnels, which we can't predict in this case as we are using an unlimited number of actions and objects.

This is a very typical example of a basic 3 way comparison - its actually why pivot tables and bar charts exist in Excel. However, this doesn't help us, as we can't export actual data from UA to just find the answer ourselves. In fact, there is no way to even access the Data or Location Information in this example at all.

Anyway, if anyone has had a positive experience on a professional analytics core that allows for detailed breakdowns or just data exports (and especially if there is a unity asset ready for their API) - please do share! I would love to get us something flexible that provides data for us.

Thank you

 

Hi @Kerm_Ed,

I do not believe that UnityPerf supports WebGL at the moment.

Have you taken a look at our Heatmaps thread? http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-analytics-heatmaps-official-thread.358312/ One of the interesting things you might be interested in is that if you are signed up for Heatmaps our Raw Data Export feature, which is still in Beta, becomes available as well.

 

Gotcha, thank you for letting me know - I couldn't find a supported list anywhere for UnityPerf (and it is marked alpha, no complaints from me!). The heatmap stuff definitely looks cool, I'll keep an eye on it - however it looks like its for development use and not really for drilling down to individual data points either ... so I'm thinking maybe I need to just accept that we are the odd company out on this one.

What we are trying to unify for analytics and data is the following, and it looks like Unity will get there over the next couple years - but isn't quite there yet (at least from a WebGL perspective):

• exception tracking
  
• crash tracking
  
• performance
  
• interaction details

For now, I just started to roll our own 'nix server and encrypt the data.

Unfortunately, our WebGL/WebPlayer blob is part of a much bigger application, and runs as an integrated part of a website - often on restricted networks. Which means we are restricted in how we use Unity, how the project runs, how we communicate and what format we run as.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to reply. We'll keep looking at options in the meantime to see if an option for us comes up.

 

Are there limits on the size of the Parameter dictionary? I can't seem to find anything on it. I'm able to pass in 10 parameters, but when I hit 11, it won't send the Event.

 

Hi @MochiBits,

By default, custom events are limited to 10 parameters, as you noticed. However providing a service that fits the needs of our customers is very important to us, so if you have discovered a need for more than 10 parameters in an event, we would like to find a way to help you. Can you please fill out a support ticket so we can look into your situation and find a way to assist you?

 

I have a few questions. Let's say I want to see a funnel of players that have made it through all 40 levels of the first stage. Is it better for me to make custom events with the level name (e.g. event Level1-1: "complete:", "true", "usedPotion": "1", "starsEarned" : "3") or flip it like (event LevelPlayed: "levelName" : "1-1", "complete" : "true", "usedPotion" : "1", "starsEarned" : "3").

It seems you are pointing to the latter format, but I'm curious if I can correlate data within an event. Can I query "How many potions did the average player consume on level 5-2"?

In terms of points, the first option is points = levelCount * 5, but the second option is points = levelCount * 1 + 5. Since my game is 200 levels, the first option would be my entire point budget, but the second option would be closer to 200. Seems odd since it's the same data, just pivoted. I'm a little confused why pivoting my data, without any change to how much I send, can make such a huge difference in my point cost?

Also, what happens to the data when a player plays the same level twice? Does one event supercede the other, or events just accumulate?

Is it valid for me to send different data on the same event, or is your expectation that I send the same data every time? (i.e. send LevelPlayed : "complete" : "True" in one event, and LevelPlayed : "usedPotion" : "1" in another event).

 

Hi @relayOne,

For the sake of your Analysis Points I would suggest sending a Custom Event formatted like,

Analytics.CustomEvent("LevelPlayed", new Dictionary<string, object> { { "levelName", "1-1" }, { "complete", "true" }, { "usedPotion", 1 }, {"starsEarned", 3 } });

Also, by sending your events this way you should be able to find out how many potions on average a player consumed on a particular level.

We use Analysis Points as a rough guideline for how much processing power is required during the aggregation of data. It mostly operates on the idea that aggregating one event with several different parameters is less processing power than aggregating five events with several different parameters. We know how confusing Analysis Points can be and we hope to make some changes to how they are counted, but I cannot really give you any information about if/when this will occur.

A player can only move through a funnel one way one step at a time. It is not possible for a player to move backwards a step or skip any steps. That is, if a player is on step 2 then will remain on step 2 until they meet the requirements for step 3, no other events sent would cause them to move to another step.

I do not believe you will have a problem sending your events like this, but I would not suggest sending them this way. I think it would be easier to remember the significance of each Custom Event by having them consistently send the same parameters every time they are called, this will help keep your events individually meaningful while you are viewing them on the Dashboard!

 

Maybe its not the best location to ask but:

The Platform segment is missing windows, isn't it? Should I create a parameter in all my events for windows? But as my project runs on 3 platforms, this parameter would add 3 points to each of my costum events?

 

Hi @EPNW,

Currently we only create the Android and iOS segments by default. However you can create segments for many other platforms, including windows, in segment builder, without having to add an extra custom event. Here's a link to a post that shows the steps: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/missing-platforms.389632/#post-2539824

 

Hi @mpinol and guys, just to clarify,

say I have an app with

> only TEN custom events, I've disabled all the rest

but the app has

> a million users who use the app for hours a day, you typically get a few hundred million calls (of the ten events) each day


Just to be clear, you're saying that (for now anyway) that would be quite free?

I would only be scoring 10 or so of the 5000 points available?

I don't mind either way, I just want to clarify. Thanks for your attention!

BTW Unity Analytics is incredible. The only thing better in the universe than Unity Analytics is Unity IAP.

 

Haha, thank you @Fattie! I will be sure to pass your enthusiasm along to the rest of the team.

Yes that would be free however it really depends on how your points are formatted to determine how many points they will cost.

For example:
If you are only sending 10 events with no parameters then this event will count as 10 Analysis Points.
If you are sending 1 event with 9 numerical parameters this event will count as 10 Analysis Points.
If you are sending 1 event with 1 numerical parameter and 1 string parameter where the string parameter has a possible 8 different values, then this event will also count as 10 Analysis Points.

All of these events will count as 10 Analysis Points each no matter how many users send them!

I hope this helps clarify a little bit about Analysis Points!

 

Hi @mpinol ,

"All of these events will count as 10 Analysis Points each no matter how many users send them!"

Got it, thanks! That's seems "unfair" on Unity but I won't complain!

I'm purely curious, when I "disable" an event (say, "AtomicLaser") on the web side backend. Do you actually telemetry that to the apps, so that, the app will no longer send "AtomicLaser" (to drastically cut your bandwidth and processing), or does it still send them and you simply drop or ignore them on the cloud side. (I am only asking this out of pure curiosity, makes no difference to us developers - and of course don't tell if it's a secret process.) Cheers!

 

Hey @Fattie,

We are interested in the idea of being able to disable particular events from sending on the app but as of right now the events are still sent to us and we just ignore them during processing.

 

Hey @Fattie,

I believe someone has already responded, did they miss any part of the question?

 

hi @mpinol for sure, that one was totally taken care of. Cheers....

 

I see that we can only send 10 parameters per custom event request. Does that mean we can only have 10 parameters total per event on the backend, or that we can only send 10 at a time? For instance, say we have 200 different collectable cards. When a player plays a handful of cards, I want to track each card. Obviously it would be bad to send one event per card, that would reach the event limit quickly. So I'd like one event "PlayedCards", with one parameter per card, each one being an int quantity of how many of each card were played. Even if I'm only sending that event with <10 parameters each time, will I hit a limit if I reach 10 parameters total on the backend? Or can an event have 200 reportable parameters?

 

@junglemason we have not tested this implementation of CustomEvents yet. In theory, it should work but breaking the consistency of CustomEvents can cause unexpected behavior in our dashboard.

I will create a test case on a smaller scale to test this and get back to you.

 

@junglemason I just tested this on a smaller scale and it seems to work so far.

Please let me know how it works for you and if you run into any issues.

 

When I attempt to use Analytics it acts as if I'm on the Personal edition. We're still on our perpetual license, for which we spent tens of thousands of dollars for all our seats. I believe we should be treated like Pro until that reaches its end of life, like for Unity build. Yes?

 

Thank you guys.

 

Hi @mpinol From your examples I wanna know how to design custom event in funnels .
I have to create :
custom event name:Level1
para: NumLevel equals 1
para: LevelName equals castle
para: LevelName equals swamp
para LevelName equals balckriver
or all content is empty as:
para:LevelName equals empty
I have attach a photo.Please explain for me.thanks.

 

Hi @petvenger,

To fulfill a step of a funnel, all parameters in that step need to be met in one event. So I don't think you would want to require multiple LevelName parameters in a single step, since you can't send all of them in a single event. What exactly are you trying to learn from the funnel you want to create here? Are you simply trying to see how many levels people get through? Then you could just do

Step 1: event name: Level1
Step 2: event name: Level2
etc.

But if you're trying to do something more complicated involving the LevelNames, I need more explanation of what you're trying to learn.

 

HI @erika_ .In @vicenterusso's examples I saw 2 code line:
Analytics.CustomEvent("levelStart", new Dictionary<string, object> { { "levelName", "castle" }, { "playerGold", 53 } } );
Analytics.CustomEvent("levelStart", new Dictionary<string, object> { { "levelName", "swamp" }, { "playerGold", 28 } } );
He sent up 2 value strings is castle and swamp with 1 parameter levelname
.I wanna ask I should create 1 custom event in funnels how to can map with above 2 code line.
In my photos which attach under is it correctly?
In my examples suppose I have 3 heroes is hero1,hero2,hero3 string.
now I wanna know how many times hero1,hero2 and hero3 use in Level 1.How many times one of them use in Level 2...ect.How should I do? Can you suggestion for me a design custom event?

PS: I really still don't have a exactly custom event for my game.
Let's me say for you all things which I will do in my game.Then maybe You can help me create a extacly custom event.
My game is puzzle game type match three gems like Best Fiends game.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Seriously.BestFiends.
In my game have 25 heroes to fight with boss.(each heroes have level from 1 to 20.)When play game will have 5 heroes to fight boss.And I wanna know It be use in each level.
All things I wanna analyze in each level as this:
for examples: Level 1 play 50 times-play lost 20 times-play win 30 times-use hero1 level 1 50 times-use hero2 level 5 30 times-use hero3 20 times.
Level 2 play 70 times-lost 40 times-win 30 times-use hero5 level 5 use 70times,...ect.(Analyze for All User which Unity analytics work.)
this is all things I describe about my game.
I don't have many knowledge about Unity Analytics.I also ask you and your'team many question but I still don't have a exactly solutions for my game.
I really hope you can design for me a perfect custom event and take a picture it for me.
Thank you so much.@erika_d
@erika_d

 

Hi @petvenger,

To map a funnel to the example custom events it would be your first picture Capture.PNG. But this would only capture users who first completed the castle level, then completed the swamp level. If the levels are allowed to be played out of order than the funnel wouldn't capture a player who played the swamp level first, than the castle level.

Ultimately I don't think funnels are what you want to use for the things you've said you want to track anyway. Data Explorer is going to be where you get most of this info you're looking for.

There is also not going to be one perfect custom event to get all this info - you'll need several to track the things you described. I've given two examples of custom events I would implement if I was trying to learn the information you described, but I would highly suggest reading these useful documentation pages, as you'll want to be able to create more than just these two custom events to learn what you've described and more.

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UnityAnalyticsCustomEvents.html - Our manual for creating custom events
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWZiB7jX7C0 - The first 15-20 minutes of this video is a very helpful list of do's and dont's for creating custom events
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/a-new-updated-data-explorer.395300/ - an explanation of how to use the data explorer

I would write 1 custom event for each hero I'm trying to track. In that custom event I would have a parameter for heroLevel (which describes what level from 1-20 the hero is on) and levelUsedOn (which describes what levels that hero is selected to be played on). I would send this event every time a user picks that hero to play a level. The event would look like:

Code (CSharp):

1. Analytics.CustomEvent("hero1", new Dictionary<string, object> { { "heroLevel", "level1" }, { "gameLevelUsedOn", "level5" } } );

("hero1" would change for each hero, "level1" and "level5" are example strings - you would send whatever string is relevant for that hero at that time)

I would also send an event at the end of each level that indicates whether the level was one or lost. This would be a different event per level, so:

Code (CSharp):

1. Analytics.CustomEvent("level1", new Dictionary<string, object> { { "gameOverStatus", "won" } } );

or

Code (CSharp):

1. Analytics.CustomEvent("level1", new Dictionary<string, object> { { "gameOverStatus", "lost" } } );

This would let you see the distribution for each level of wins vs losses.

 

HI @erika_d .I really appreciate your help.I'll try to do all your ways.

 

It seems for CustomEvents, the eventData dictionary parameter can no longer be null. I had to change it to an empty dictionary for it to work. Just checking.

Thanks.

 

I do express concerns about this as well. I am doing a fighting/brawler game and trying to figure out how to best work around this. With settings, they could go down to 1 minute timed match (and I don't even want to think of how short 1 life stock matches can be ATM). With a limit of 10 variables per custom event, that becomes a big limit on information I can pull from a 4 player match. Even with being generous and rounding down to 55 matches per hour due to scene transitions, I am still only squeezing in 1 or 2 custom events per match that would at best allow for mode selected, mode sub-setting (time length/stock count), stage selected, which character selected and their rank of 1st - 4th and still keeping me from seeing if a character is just barely winning or completely dominating the matches from an unbalanced and abused attack.

 

I need to see counts of my custom event. Just a total count. Can I do it? How?