New feature: event tracking via API

Image of the blog authorChris PattisonLast updated: June 1, 2023

EngineeringProductEvent Tracking
Blog cover image

Introduction

Custom event tracking has been available in Squeaky since the first release of our Event Tracking feature, but until now these events were always tied to a specific recording and visitor whose session we’d captured. Furthermore, if you wanted to define a custom event, it would always be sent to us via the Squeaky tracking code during your visitor’s session, limiting the types of data you can capture and analyse in Squeaky.

To push the feature further, in January 2023 we added API-based event tracking to Squeaky. This significantly enhances Squeaky’s capabilities, allowing you to track any type of event, client, or server-side. In addition, it’s now optional whether you wish to associate this event with a visitor or session recording, you can even track system or performance data alongside user experience data.

Needless to say, this opens up some incredible new possibilities for what you can do with Squeaky, and we’ll be expanding on the ways you can surface and analyse this data over the coming months. In the article below we’ve provided some examples of how you might use API-based event tracking, alongside an overview of new changes to the Squeaky interface that we’ve introduced as part of the update.

Use case examples

As is the case with our existing web-based custom event tracking, API-based event tracking offers fairly limitless potential in terms of what you can track. To give you a few ideas of where to get started, I’ve listed a few examples below:

Tracking emails

One thing we’re already using the feature for ourselves is to track how many emails we’re sending to our customers each day e.g. our onboarding emails, or emails inviting new team members to different sites.

Monitoring subscription changes

You could also now use Squeaky to track payments or subscription activity and link that directly to your visitor profiles in Squeaky e.g. record each successful or failed transaction along with the currency, date, and time of the transaction.

Form submissions

With our previous approach to event tracking you could track form submission using clicks on the submit button, but that didn't tell you whether the form was submitted successfully. With API-based tracking, you can now share the server-side response with Squeaky to better analyse form performance.

Server-side errors

Our existing error tracking is limited to Javascript errors that we capture client-side, but now you can use the API-based event tracking to monitor server-side errors, such as failed database queries, and use Squeaky to help diagnose and resolve issues.

Please note: For now these errors will only be visible in the Event Tracking interfaces, but we’ll look to include them in the dedicated JS error tracking page in our app as well.

Background jobs

You can now track the frequency, success, or failure of background jobs that are performed on the server, meaning Squeaky can be used to monitor performance and trends that may have nothing to do with your visitor's experience.

API events in the Squeaky interface

Introducing an entirely new way of sending events to Squeaky also means updating several areas of our interface. Some of the changes are small, but overall they should help make it easier to quickly surface the most important events.

API tab for Site Settings

In the Site Settings page, business and enterprise customers will now see an API key tab where they can generate an API key for their site.

Image shows the API key tab in the Squeaky site settings.
Image shows the API key tab in the Squeaky site settings.

Additional columns in the Events and Visitors pages

There are now additional columns you can display in the Events and Visitors tables that will show you the data source. WEB is any event or visitor generated via the Squeaky tracking code and events tracking, and API is any event or visitor generated via API.

Image shows the new data source column in the events table.
Image shows the new data source column in the events table.
Image shows the new data source column in the visitors table.
Image shows the new data source column in the visitors table.

Updated UI for the visitor's profiles

Visitor profiles now include a tabbed interface beneath the profile stats, within which you can see a timeline for each event associated with that visitor - this will only be visible to sites on plans that include event tracking functionality. Additionally, we're displaying the source of the visitor, as you can create visitors directly from the API./p>

Image shows the new Events and Source UI elements added to the visitor profiles.
Image shows the new Events and Source UI elements added to the visitor profiles.

Please note: events displayed in the visitor profile tab will not include historical event data prior to late January/early February 2023 when the feature was released.

Sending and analysing events via API

Sending events to Squeaky via API takes just a couple of steps:

Step 1: Generate your API Key from within your site settings tab.

Video demonstration of where and how to generate your API key.

Step 2: Visit the Squeaky developer documentation to learn about how to send event data to Squeaky.

Image shows a screenshot of the Squeaky Developer Documentation.
Image shows a screenshot of the Squeaky Developer Documentation.

Step 3: View and analyse your events in Squeaky.

Image shows a screenshot of the Event History & Comparison screen.
Image shows a screenshot of the Event History & Comparison screen.

Step 4: If you want to group your events or provide a user-friendly alias, you can do so within the events table.

Image shows the edit event modal in Squeaky.
Image shows the edit event modal in Squeaky.

Please note: unlike autocapture events that you define in Squeaky, custom event tracking involves some technical know-how, but the new API section of our developer documentation offers straightforward guidance for anyone with the appropriate level of expertise.

Conclusion

API-based event tracking opens up an incredible new frontier for Squeaky’s product, enabling us to offer both user and product experience analytics, as well as broader data capture and analysis reflecting the entirety of our customer's businesses.

The initial rollout makes use of our existing interface models, with a few small adjustments to ensure the feature can have an impact from day one, but our ambitions are much greater. Over the months ahead we’ll gradually introduce new ways to display your event data, with the end goal being full custom dashboarding.

We hope you like the new feature and we can’t wait to hear what you’re using it for 🙂