Building the BI system and analytics capabilities at the company. How we built it and grew its capabilities? How we developed our analytics capabilities? What was easy, what was more difficult. Preparation, process step by step. Presentation from GameCamp webinar: http://www.gamecamp.io/events/webinar-growing-measurement-capabilities-of-gaming-and-apps-company/

1. Adam Longhorn
Head of Analytics
Reality Games
adam.longhorn@reality.co
https://pl.linkedin.com/in/adamlonghorn
Making life easier and delivering insight faster:
Simplifying App analytics and reporting in a few easy steps with Firebase and
BigQuery

2. Award-winning f2p games using
real-world data from across the globe
Launched
2015
Launched
2016
Launched
2017
Launching
2020
Coming 2021 Coming 2021

3. ⓘ Start presenting to display the poll results on this slide.
How long does it take to perform a 'typical'
data analysis request from your team
member?

4. ⓘ Start presenting to display the poll results on this slide.
When would your team member 'typically'
like to have their analysis request delivered?

5. What would be helpful for analysts:
➢ Accessible data, at the appropriate granularity
➢ Simple data structures so analysts (and quasi-analysts) are able to use it easily
➢ Relevant business metrics and dimensions that make it truly useful instead of just ‘nice to
have’ data
A challenge many analysts face (including myself):
➢ Business requests for analysis come in fast and business decisions get made even faster
➢ Our businesses generate a ton of data. A lot of that data not readily available to support the
pace of the business

6. Solution: The ‘Daily KPI’ table
➢ An easy-to-use BigQuery table
➢ Granulated at the user/day level
➢ Covers 80% of ad-hoc analysis requests
➢ (Bonus) Connectable to Google Data Studio reporting
SQL
Tools:

7. Agenda for today:
➢ Integrate BigQuery with Firebase (assumes we all have
Firebase SDK installed)
➢ Set-up SQL data-pull in BigQuery and schedule
data-extraction job (step-by-step instructions and tools
are given -- making your life easier!)
➢ Review what we have done, takeaways, and final
thoughts
Estimated time to implement
yourselves:
● 1-min to integrate BigQuery
● 1-day of rest
● 30-min to build and schedule
the jobs

8. ⓘ Start presenting to display the poll results on this slide.
How familiar are you with Firebase and
BigQuery?

9. Navigate to Firebase console, open your Firebase project and navigate to the BigQuery
‘Integration’ manager
Select your project1 Project settings2
BigQuery3
Next
window
Next
window

10. Toggle ‘Google Analytics’ integration
Side note -- Other BigQuery integrations
available:
● Crashlytics
● Predictions
● Performance Monitoring
● Cloud Messaging
...So much to analyze!
Toggle this!1

11. Great job! Firebase is now sending raw analytics event data to BigQuery
You have just opened up a new world of possibilities w/ BigQuery!
…..
….
But what now?

12. Take a (1 day) break. You deserve it!
AND You need to give Firebase time to export the raw data

13. Navigate to GCP platform, select your project and initialize BigQuery
Scroll-down
for BigQuery
Select your project1
2

14. Navigate to your project and create dataset ‘reporting’
Highlight your project
Create dataset
Name:
‘reporting’
Create dataset
Pop-up
window
1
2
3
4

15. Paste in 1st SQL query (link) into any text editor
Will look similar to
this
Point the 1st SQL query to your project’s analytics
events dataset
Find this string within the query: <analytics events dataset>
...Replace with: your project’s events
dataset (ex: ‘analytics_201716494’)
….For each instance of <analytics events dataset> in the query
1
2
3
4
Link to 1st SQL query: https://bit.ly/DailyKPIs1

16. Paste modified 1st SQL query into editor, run and save as BQ table named ‘daily_KPIs’
Paste query here
Run query
Save results
Clear editor
Name table ‘daily_KPIs’ in the
‘reporting’ dataset
Pop-up
window
1
2
3
4
5
6 Save

17. Paste in 2nd SQL query (link) into any text editor
Point 2nd SQL query to your project’s analytics events
dataset
Find this string: <analytics events dataset>
...Replace with: your project’s events dataset
(ex: ‘analytics_201716494’)
….For each instance of <analytics events dataset> in the query
(Exactly like we did with the 1st
SQL query)
1
2
3
4
Link to 2nd SQL query: https://bit.ly/DailyKPIs2

18. Paste modified 2nd SQL query into editor and schedule query to run automatically every day
Paste query here
Create new
scheduled query
Clear editor
Pop-up
window
Schedule it!
1
2
3
4
5
Fill in
required
data

19. Nice job! You are finished!

20. But wait!
…..
What did I just
create?

21. Scheduled job in
BigQuery
Extracts raw
analytics event data
from previous day
IAP
First opens
sessions
transforms raw data
into daily summary
for every user that
logs into your app
User info
Appends user data
to ‘daily_KPIs’ table
on BQ to keep
running history
reporting.daily_KPIs
Your Project
space on BQDaily user summary

22. FIELD TYPE EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION
event_date STRING 20200523 YYYYMMDD format for the day’s summary
user_pseudo_id STRING 9544015614101dfce88afd6cf2ac6eb5 Unique identifier (to your project) for each of your app’s users
country STRING United States Long form of user’s country
platform STRING ANDROID ANDROID or iOS
sessions INTEGER 3 Number of total sessions generated by user in given day
seconds FLOAT 350 Total number of seconds user spent within your app on given day
first_open INTEGER 1 1 = this is the device’s first time using your app. 0 = not first time
payments INTEGER 2 Number of IAP user made on given day
revenue FLOAT 9.98 Total amount of gross IAP revenue from user on given day (in USD)
‘daily_KPIs’ table: details

23. How your life has become easier: super quick analysis
What was MAU, by country,
in March?
What percentage of new users
converted to payers on D0 in the
first week of February?
What is the average session
length by platform?
What was our ARPU in
January?

24. How your life has become easier: Customized/Flexible reporting with Google’s Data Studio
Built-in connectors
reporting.daily_KPIs
Your Project
space on BQ
Your Logo Here!

25. How your life has become easier: Framework for more building a more sophisticated
‘daily_KPIs’ table
You can modify the queries provided earlier by ...
● adding more dimensions (ex: mobile device or brand, app
version, etc.) to group and filter by
● metrics from customized analytics events (level-ups, tutorial
completes, etc.) that you would like to report on
Enhance your own ‘daily_KPI’ table to…
● best-fit your businesses needs
● make your job easier
● deliver insight faster

26. Thank You for your time today
and Good Luck!
Adam Longhorn
Head of Analytics
Reality Games
adam.longhorn@reality.co
https://pl.linkedin.com/in/adamlonghorn

27. ⓘ Start presenting to display the audience questions on this slide.
Audience Q&A Session