Release Notes: July 2017

Here's what's new in Amplitude as of July 2017.

Inside Amplitude
July 27, 2017
Image of Jessica Chiu
Jessica Chiu
Solutions Architect Team Lead, Amplitude
Release Notes: July 2017

Happy July! Our Product Development team has been continuously shipping these past few weeks and we’re excited to share with you the new features and improvements we’ve made to Amplitude. In this product update, you will find information on:

  • New Features
    • Chart Transitions
    • In-Line Behavioral Cohorts
    • Percentiles in Formulas
    • Propose Charts to Dashboards
  • Feature Improvements
    • Auto updated top values
    • Custom Events: View definitions in charts
    • Behavioral Cohorts: View definitions in charts
    • Event Segmentation: New group by visualization
    • Event Segmentation: Tabs in bottom module
    • Retention Analysis: Multiple return events
  • Resources
    • User Retention Bootcamp Webinar Series
  • SDK Updates

Amplitude Product Training Webinar Series

Join one of our interactive webinars! Register here for New User Trainings and chart-specific Deep Dives.

1) New Features

Chart Transitions

You can now switch the chart type you are viewing by clicking the chart type name and selecting a different chart type all without navigating away from your chart. In addition, you have the option to preserve all the events and/or segments you have already added to your current chart. This allows you to quickly switch between different types of analyses without having to rebuild from scratch each time!

change_chart_type

In-Line Behavioral Cohorts

(Enterprise Only) You can now create simple Behavioral Cohorts in-line directly within the right module of the chart control panel. This will allow you to create a cohort in the context of a chart without having to navigate away into the Behavioral Cohorts tab. You can do this by selecting the “+perform” button. Similar to chart transitions, this helps streamline your workflow and minimizes the need to navigate away from your current view while analyzing your data.

in-line-behavioral-cohorts

Percentiles in Formulas

We have introduced a new function of PERCENTILE in our Custom Formulas feature. This will return the inputted percentile of the event selected and will only work if you are grouping by a numerical property on the event. For example, if you wanted to display the 50th percentile for the ‘Duration’ of all ‘Play Song or Video’ events, you would do PERCENTILE(A, 0.50). For more information on our Custom Formulas feature, see here.

percentiles-in-formulas

Propose Charts to Dashboards

(Enterprise Only) Previously, charts could only be added to a dashboard by the dashboard owner. Now, other users in your organization can propose chart additions to dashboards they do not own. The dashboard owner will receive a notification in the Notification Center and can accept or reject the suggestion.

propose_chart-dashboard

2) Feature Improvements

Auto updated top values

When you create a chart with multiple values/events, you now have the option to always display all top N values on a chart. For example, if you want to always display the top 10 cities with the most active users, then you can select top 10 in the breakdown data table below your chart. The top 10 values may then change if your user base grows in new cities. A chart with top N values will have a breakdown data table with purple checkboxes. For more information on this improvement, see here.

top_values

Custom Events: View definitions in charts

Custom events is a feature that’s widely used in Amplitude. We have made it even easier to view the custom event definition while in a chart so you no longer have to navigate to the Settings page for more information. Now, you can view the definition of a custom event directly in the chart control panel!

custom_event

Behavioral Cohorts: View definitions in charts

(Enterprise Only) Similarly, you can now view the definition for a Behavioral Cohort directly in the current chart you are working on!

cohort_definition

Event Segmentation: New group by visualization

The previous group by visualizations available were another area for improvement. Oftentimes, when multiple group by’s are applied to a chart, the resulting view was very confusing and difficult to digest. As a result, we’ve added a new group by visualization to our Event Segmentation chart type that makes it easier to analyze data when there are several group by’s on a chart. Read more about this new visualization here!

group_by

Event Segmentation: Tabs in bottom module

We have also redesigned the bottom module in our Event Segmentation chart so that each metric you can select is in a separate tab instead of in one dropdown menu. This makes it easier to see all available options. To read more about the metrics in our Event Segmentation chart, see here.

tabs_bottom_module

Retention Analysis: Multiple return events

You can now select up to 2 return events in your Retention Analysis charts. This allows you to compare 2 return events side-by-side to see the retention rates without having to create 2 separate charts. For more information on this feature, see here.

retention

3) Resources

**3-part webinar series: User Retention Bootcamp ** Retaining the users you acquire is a precursor to growth. It’s critical to exist as a business. Which is why it’s so important to us to help you understand retention, why it matters and how to do it well. (If you’ve seen our 155-page Guide to Mastering Retention, you know it’s a topic we care a lot about.) Because we know just how crucial retention is, we are turning that guide into **User Retention Bootcamp: **a three-part webinar series and collection of resources to help you hold onto what matters most: your users. Sign up here for a U.S. timezone and here if you’re in a European timezone.

4) SDK Updates

Please find below updates we’ve made to our JavaScript and Android SDKs. We highly recommend that you always update to the latest version of our SDKs.

Amplitude-Javascript v3.4.1

Since v3.4.0

  • Handle SDK loading errors in the load snippet. Please update the load snippets on your website to the latest version.
  • Migrating setup instructions and SDK documentation in the README file to Zendesk articles.

Amplitude-Android v2.14.0

Since v2.13.4

  • Added support for logging events to multiple Amplitude projects. See our Android SDK Installation Guide for details.

5) Questions?

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please reach out to contact@amplitude.com. You can find previous release notes here.

About the Author
Image of Jessica Chiu
Jessica Chiu
Solutions Architect Team Lead, Amplitude
Jessica Chiu leads the corporate Solutions Architect team at Amplitude. Her team helps lead customers through Amplitude implementations to get up and running quickly and successfully.