In-Context Merchant Analytics

5/25/2021

This post details the technical process of bringing analytics into the Shopify admin's Orders page. It covers the steps of identifying key metrics and their dimensions by collaborating with product managers and analyzing merchant workflows, understanding the 'shape' of the data across various merchant segments (order volume, journey stage, fulfillment processes, geography, industry) to validate and refine metrics, prototyping visualizations with real data (e.g., using histograms for fulfillment time distributions), and creating a data specification sheet to ensure consistency in queries and data sources across clients. It also outlines the dataset design for new metrics, including identifying business processes, selecting data grain (event-level), and defining dimensions, and discusses the initial implementation of a batch pipeline for data modeling before a streaming pipeline.

1/28/2021

This post details a product thinking approach to dashboard creation, emphasizing user-centered design, clear goals, and iterative development to ensure dashboards provide value and are actively used by stakeholders. It outlines a three-step process: understanding the problem and audience, building with users in mind (including code quality, layout, content, and context), and following up with marketing and iteration. The post also discusses when dashboards are appropriate and how to select relevant metrics.