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How to Build and Deploy Your Own Analytics Dashboard using NodeJS and Redis on the AWS Platform


Profile picture for Ajeet Raina
Author:
Ajeet Raina, Former Developer Growth Manager at Redis

An interactive analytics dashboard serves several purposes. They allow you to share data and provide you with all those vital information to make game-changing decisions at a faster pace. Building a real-time dynamic dashboard using a traditional relational database might require a complex set of queries. By using a NoSQL database like Redis, you can build a powerful interactive and dynamic dashboard with a small number of Redis commands.

Let’s take a look at how this was achieved.

  • What will you build?
  • What will you need?
  • Getting started
  • How does it work?
  • How data is stored
  • Navigating the application

What will you build?

You’ll build an analytics dashboard app that uses Redis Bitmap written in NodeJS (JavaScript) and then deploy it to AWS.

Ready to get started? Ok, let’s dive straight in.

What will you need?

  • NodeJS: used as an open-source, cross-platform, backend JavaScript runtime environment that executes Javascript code outside a web browser.
  • Redis Cloud: used as a real-time database, cache, and message broker.
  • NPM: used as a package manager. It allows you to build node apps.

Getting Started

Prepare the environment

  • Install Node - v12.19.0
  • Install NPM - v6.14.8

Step 1. Sign up for a Free Redis Cloud Account

Follow this tutorial to sign up for a free Redis Cloud account.

image

Choose AWS as a Cloud vendor while creating your new subscription. At the end of the database creation process, you will get a Redis Cloud database endpoint and password. You can save it for later use.

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Step 2. Clone the repository

 git clone https://github.com/redis-developer/basic-analytics-dashboard-redis-bitmaps-nodejs

Step 3. Set up a backend environment

First we will be setting up environment variables

Go to /server folder (cd ./server) and then execute the below command:

 cp .env.example .env

Open .env file and add Redis Cloud Database Endpoint URL, port and password as shown below:


PORT=3000

# Host and a port. Can be with `redis://` or without.
# Host and a port encoded in redis uri take precedence over other environment variable.
# preferable
REDIS_ENDPOINT_URI=redis://redis-XXXX.c212.ap-south-1-1.ec2.cloud.redislabs.com:15564

# Or you can set it here (ie. for docker development)
REDIS_HOST=redis-XXXX.c212.ap-south-1-1.ec2.cloud.redislabs.com
REDIS_PORT=XXXX

# You can set password here
REDIS_PASSWORD=reXXX

COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME=redis-analytics-bitmaps

Step 4. Install dependencies

 npm install

Step 5. Run the backend

 npm run dev

Step 6. Set up the frontend environment

Go to the client folder (cd ./client) and then:

 cp .env.example .env

Add the exact URL path and port number of your choice for VUE_APP_API_URL parameter as shown below:

VUE_APP_API_URL=http://localhost:3000

Step 7. Install dependencies

 npm install

Step 8. Run the frontend

 npm run serve

analytics

How does it work?

How the data is stored:

The event data is stored in various keys and data types which is discussed below:

For each of time spans:
  • year: like 2021
  • month: like 2021-03 (means March of 2021)
  • day: like 2021-03-03 (means 3rd March of 2021)
  • weekOfMonth: like 2021-03/4 (means 4th week of March 2021)
  • anytime
For each of scopes:
  • source
  • action
  • source + action
  • action + page
  • userId + action
  • global
For each of data types/types:
  • count (Integer stored as String)
  • bitmap
  • set

It generates keys with the following naming convention:

 rab:{type}[:custom:{customName}][:user:{userId}][:source:{source}][:action:{action}][:page:{page}]:timeSpan:{timeSpan}

where values in [] are optional.

For each generated key like rab:count:*, data is stored like: INCR {key}

Example:
 INCR rab:count:action:addToCart:timeSpan:2015-12/3

For each generated key like: rab:set:*, data is stored like:

 SADD {key} {userId}
Example:
 SADD rab:set:action:addToCart:timeSpan:2015-12/3 8
  • For each generated key like rab:bitmap:*, data is stored like:

     SETBIT {key} {userId} 1
Example:
 SETBIT rab:bitmap:action:addToCart:timeSpan:2015-12/3 8 1

Cohort data

  • We store users who register and then bought some products (action order matters).
  • For each buy action in December we first check if the user performed register action (register counter must be greater than zero).
  • If so, we set user bit to 1
Example
  SETBIT rab:bitmap:custom:cohort-buy:timeSpan:{timeSpan} {userId} 1
  • Example - User Id 2 bought 2 products on 2015-12-17. It won't be stored.
  • Example - User Id 10 bought 1 product on 2015-12-17 and registered on 2015-12-16. So, it will be stored like:
 SETBIT rab:bitmap:custom:cohort-buy:timeSpan:2015-12 10 1
  • We assume that user cannot buy without registering first.

Retention data

  • Retention means users who bought on two different dates

  • For each buy action we check if user bought more products anytime than bought on particular day (current purchase not included).

  • If so, we add user id to set like:

     SADD rab:set:custom:retention-buy:timeSpan:{timeSpan} {userId}
  • Example - User Id 5 bought 3 products on 2015-12-15. His retention won't be stored (products bought on particular day: 2, products bought anytime: 0).

  • Example - User Id 3 bought 1 product on 2015-12-15 and before - 1 product on 2015-12-13. His retention will be stored (products bought on particular day: 0, products bought anytime: 1) like:

 SADD rab:set:custom:retention-buy:timeSpan:2015-12

How the data is accessed:

Total Traffic:

December:
  BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:custom:global:timeSpan:2015-12```
X week of December:
  BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:custom:global:timeSpan:2015-12/{X}
Example:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:custom:global:timeSpan:2015-12/3

Traffic per Page ({page} is one of: homepage, product1, product2, product3):

December:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:visit:page:{page}:timeSpan:2015-12
Example:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:visit:page:homepage:timeSpan:2015-12
X week of December:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:visit:page:{page}:timeSpan:2015-12/{X}
Example:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:visit:page:product1:timeSpan:2015-12/2

Traffic per Source ({source} is one of: Google, Facebook, email, direct, referral, none):

December:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:source:{source}:timeSpan:2015-12
Example:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:source:referral:timeSpan:2015-12
X week of December:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:source:{source}:timeSpan:2015-12/{X}
Example:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:source:google:timeSpan:2015-12/1
Trend traffic ({page} is one of: homepage, product1, product2, product3):
December:

From

 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:visit:{page}:timeSpan:2015-12-01

to

 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:visit:{page}:timeSpan:2015-12-31
  • 1st Week of December: Similar as above, but from 2015-12-01 to 2015-12-07
  • 2nd Week of December: Similar as above, but from 2015-12-08 to 2015-12-14
  • 3rd Week of December: Similar as above, but from 2015-12-15 to 2015-12-21
  • 4th Week of December: Similar as above, but from 2015-12-22 to 2015-12-28
  • 5th Week of December: Similar as above, but from 2015-12-29 to 2015-12-31
Example:
 BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:visit:homepage:timeSpan:2015-12-29 => BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:visit:homepage:timeSpan:2015-12-30 => BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:visit:homepage:timeSpan:2015-12-31

Total products bought:

December:
 GET rab:count:action:buy:timeSpan:2015-12
X week of December:
 GET rab:count:action:buy:timeSpan:2015-12/{X}
Example:
 GET rab:count:action:buy:timeSpan:2015-12/1

Total products added to cart:

December:
 GET rab:count:action:addToCart:timeSpan:2015-12
X week of December:
 GET rab:count:action:addToCart:timeSpan:2015-12/{X}
Example:
 GET rab:count:action:addToCart:timeSpan:2015-12/1
Shares of products bought ({productPage} for product1, product2, product3):

December:

 GET rab:count:action:buy:page:{productPage}:timeSpan:2015-12
Example:
 GET rab:count:action:buy:page:product3:timeSpan:2015-12
X week of December:
 GET rab:count:action:buy:page:{productPage}:timeSpan:2015-12/{X}
Example:
 GET rab:count:action:buy:page:product1:timeSpan:2015-12/2

Customer and Cohort Analysis

  • People who registered: BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:action:register:timeSpan:2015-12

  • People who register then bought (order matters): BITCOUNT rab:bitmap:custom:cohort-buy:timeSpan:2015-12

  • Dropoff: (People who register then bought / People who register) * 100 [%]

  • Customers who bought only specified product ({productPage} is one of: product1, product2, product3):

     SMEMBERS rab:set:action:buy:page:{productPage}:timeSpan:2015-12
Example:
 SMEMBERS rab:set:action:buy:page:product2:timeSpan:2015-12

Customers who bought Product1 and Product2:

 SINTER rab:set:action:buy:page:product1:timeSpan:anytime rab:set:action:buy:page:product2:timeSpan:anytime

Customer Retention (customers who bought on the different dates):

 SMEMBERS rab:set:custom:retention-buy:timeSpan:anytime

References