Dashboard creation walkthrough

Prerequisites

• A connection to your data warehouse and datasets.
• (Optional) Any pre-built explorations that contribute to the dashboard goals.

Introduction

Follow this walkthrough guide to create a dashboard in Optimizely Analytics with metrics for product engagement and several visualizations that present active users and conversion metrics using various key elements.

Imagine you are a product manager or a member of the data team at a fictional streaming app named Flix. This guide walks you through building a dashboard in Optimizely Analytics to measure product engagement, including active users and conversion metrics.

After team discussions, you arrive at the following objective and outcome:

• Objective – Build a dashboard that
  • Tracks usage of a new feature
  • Segments engagement by user type, entry point, and session depth
  • Surfaces insights to help the product team improve onboarding
• Outcome – Increase visibility into feature adoption and identify opportunities to increase engagement and feature adoption. 

Create a dashboard and add basic details

1. Click + > Dashboard.
2. Click Unnamed Dashboard, and enter Product Engagement Dashboard and a brief description.
3. Click the folder icon above the dashboard name and choose the desired location to save this dashboard.
4. Click Save.

Include usage and engagement metrics

Add a section to the dashboard that displays visualizations illustrating the unique titles viewed in the last seven days, average session duration, session count, number of daily active users, monthly active users categorized by subscription tier, session with and without plays, most engaged categories, plays by platform, and weekly total time viewed categorized by product tier.

Unique titles viewed in the last seven days

By tracking the unique page titles viewed in the last seven days, you can measure how widely users explore your site and assess the impact of features. A higher count indicates broader engagement and helps identify which content drives interest.

1. Click + Add Tile > New Visualization > Event Segmentation.
2. Select Aggregate over property of an event in the Measure type field, choose unique count as the aggregator, and set the value as content_id to count the unique events.
3. Select Play Content in the Product Events dataset under the events section.
4. Add two filters in the Filtered By section:
   • For the first filter, select subscription_tier in the Subscriptions dataset and set the value to All.
   • For the second filter, click + > Add a condition and choose the All Users cohort in the Users dataset and set the value to true using the radio button that displays.

     

5. Set the time range to Last 7 days and click +Offset and set the ending to 30 days ago.
6. Click Run to generate the unique titles viewed metric.
7. Click Add to Dashboard.

Session count in the last thirty days

By calculating session count in the last 30 days, you can gauge overall user activity and returning engagement on your site. This metric helps evaluate the impact of changes like personalized recommendations on driving repeated visits.

1. Click + Add Tile > New Visualization > Event Segmentation.
2. Select Count of unique actors that performed event in the Measure type field, and choose the Sessions dataset.
3. Select All Events in the Product Events dataset under the Events section.
4. Add two filters in the Filtered By section:
   • For the first filter, select subscription_tier in the Subscriptions dataset and set the value to All.
   • For the second filter, click + > Add a condition and choose the All Users cohort in the Users dataset and set the value to true using the radio button that displays.
5. Set the time range to Last 30 days.
6. Click Run.
7. Click Add to Dashboard.

Daily active users (DAU)

By measuring daily active users, you can understand how many unique users engage with your site each day. This helps track product stickiness and the immediate impact of recent changes or experiments.

1. Click + Add Tile > New Visualization > Event Segmentation.
2. Select Count of unique actors that performed event in the Measure type field, and choose the Users dataset.
3. Select All Events in the Product Events dataset under the Events section.
4. Add a filter for subscription tier. Choose subscription_tier in the Subscriptions dataset and set the value to All.
5. Set the time range to Last 30 days and click +Offset and set the ending to 30 days ago.
6. Click Run to generate the metric.
7. Click Add to Dashboard. 

Monthly active users by subscription tier

By tracking monthly active users by subscription tier, you can understand engagement across customer segments. This helps identify which tiers are most active and where to focus retention or upsell efforts.

1. Click + Add Tile > New Visualization > Event Segmentation.
2. Select Count of unique actors that performed event in the Measure type field, and choose the Users dataset.
3. Select All Events in the Product Events dataset under the Events section.
4. Select the subscription_tier attribute in the Group by Property section.
5. Add a filter for subscription tier. Choose subscription_tier in the Subscriptions dataset and set the value to All.
6. Set the time grain to Monthly and the time range to the Last 12 months.
7. Click Run.
8. Click Add to Dashboard. 

Sessions with and without plays

Calculating the number of sessions with and without content plays helps you gauge how often users engage with key media or product features. This helps identify content effectiveness and uncover opportunities to improve user engagement.

1. Click + Add Tile > New Visualization > Event Segmentation.
2. Select Count of unique actors that performed event in the Measure type field, and choose the Sessions dataset.
3. Click + to add your first event. Select All Events in the Product Events dataset for this event and add a filter to exclude the Play Content event.
4. Click + to add the second event and choose Play Content.
5. Add a filter for subscription tier. Choose subscription_tier in the Subscriptions dataset and set the value to All.
6. Set the time range to the Last 30 days ending 30 days ago.
7. Click Run.
8. Click Add to Dashboard. 

Most engaged categories in the last thirty days

Identifying the most engaged categories in the last thirty days helps you understand where users are spending the most time. This insight helps prioritize high-performing content and inform future content or feature investment.

1. Click + Add Tile > New Visualization > Event Segmentation.
2. Select Count of Events in the Measure field.
3. Select All Events in the Product Events dataset for your event and add a filter to exclude events whose category ID is not Other.
4. Add a category_id attribute in the Group by Property section.
5. Set the time range to the Last 30 days.
6. Click Run.
7. Click Add to Dashboard. 

All plays by platform

Tracking all content plays categorized by platform helps you understand where users engage most—web, mobile, or other. This helps optimize content delivery and user experience for each platform.

1. Click + Add Tile > New Visualization > Event Segmentation.
2. Select Count of Events in the Measure field.
3. Select Play Content in the Product Events dataset in the Events section.
4. Add a platform attribute in the Group by Property section.
5. Set the time range to the Last 30 days.
6. Click Run.
7. Click Add to Dashboard. 

Add users' conversion metrics

Incorporate the previously executed funnel exploration template analysis of existing users into the dashboard to present the conversion analysis.

1. Open the funnel explorations you want to add to the dashboard.
2. Hover over the chart, click + Add to Dashboard, and select Pick a Dashboard.
3. Select the Product Engagement dashboard in the Select Dashboard dialog.
4. Click Confirm. This adds the exploration to the dashboard and provides a link to go to it.
5. Click the dashboard link to return to the dashboard definition page.
6. Hover over the funnel tile, click More (three vertically aligned dots), and select Edit Tile to change the funnel.
7. Add the following explorations:
   • Search > Play Content Funnel
   • View Similar > Purchase Funnel
   • Paths starting from View Similar
   • Retention by Cohort
   • Weekly Play Retention
   • Top Categories by Total Plays – L30D
8. Add a heading for the dashboard section, incorporating the recently added and modified funnel chart for user conversion metrics.
   1. Click + Add Tile > Text. This adds the text tile to the bottom of the dashboard.
   2. Locate the tile on the dashboard and click the edit icon.
   3. Set the Title as Conversion.
   4. Select the Title size as L.
   5. Select the Title alignment as Center.
   6. Set the Title background to green and close the dialog.
9. Use drag and drop to move the tile to the top of the funnel tile and resize it to cover the entire width of the viewport.
10. Rearrange the funnel tile underneath it to cover the viewport area.
11. Click Save to add the users' conversion metrics to the dashboard. 

Add parameter tiles for filtering

Add parameters and filter tiles to the dashboard to facilitate metrics filtering in the visualization tiles.

Add a parameter tile

1. Click + Add Tile and select Parameter.
2. Configure the following properties:
   1. Set a Name for the tile, such as Time Range. This name is the heading in the tile on the dashboard. Add a description if required.
   2. Choose the Parameter Type as Time Range.
   3. Set the default value to the Last 30 days.
   4. See the preview to observe how the tile displays on the dashboard. You can also see all the visualizations in the dashboard. Use the toggle to link tiles to the parameter you created or use the Link All/Unlink All buttons.
   5. Click Add to Dashboard.
3. Return to the dashboard definition page and locate the parameter tile at the bottom of the dashboard. Use drag and drop to move and resize the tile.
4. Click Save.

Add filter tiles

Add a subscription tier filter to filter the dashboard results by the subscription tier of your users.

1. Click + Add Tile > Filter.
2. Configure the following properties:
   1. Set a Name for the tile, such as Subscription Tier. This name is the heading in the tile on the dashboard. Add a description if required.
   2. Set the condition where subscription_tier is All. Add a display name – Choose Tier.
   3. See the preview to observe how the tile displays on the dashboard. You can also see all the visualizations in the dashboard. Use the toggle to link tiles to the filter you created.
   4. Click Add to Dashboard.
3. Return to the dashboard definition page and locate the parameter tile at the bottom of the dashboard. Use drag and drop to move and resize the tile.
4. Click Save.

Add a cohort filter

1. Click + Add Tile > Cohort Filter.
2. Configure the following properties:
   1. Set a Name for the tile, such as User Cohorts. This name is the heading in the tile on the dashboard. Add a description if required.
   2. Choose the cohorts. Set the default value for actors to all users.
   3. See the preview to observe how the tile displays on the dashboard. You can also see all the visualizations in the dashboard. Use the toggle to link tiles to the filter you create.
   4. Click Add to Dashboard.
3. Return to the dashboard definition page and locate the parameter tile at the bottom of the dashboard. Use drag and drop to move and resize the tile.
4. Click Save.

Conclusion

You have created a Product Engagement dashboard that is ready to be shared, presented, or kept as such, and is:

• Real-time – Monitor user behavior within days of releasing new features.
• Stakeholder-friendly – Interpret easily with filters and a clear visual structure.
• Scalable – Add more tiles as new features or experiments are launched.