Basic Content Usage Tracking

Posit Connect provides access logs for most types of assets that can be published to the server. They can be accessed via the Connect Server API.
Answer the Question
  • How what content is most used on the server?
  • Which users are most active?

Screenshot of Content Usage Tracking Report showing most used content on Connect

View this sample report in use at: https://pub.current.posit.team/public/connect-usage/

Step 1 - Get the report code

Step 2 - Run & Customize the report

This R Markdown report uses the /v1/instrumentation/content/visits, /v1/instrumentation/shiny/usage, and /v1/user API endpoints available in Connect. Visit the Connect API Reference documentation for more information.

Requirements: Administrator API Key

Create an .Renviron file to store your API key and Connect server URL.

Your Connect server URL is the same URL you use to access the Connect dashboard, minus the connect path. If you access the dashboard at https://rsc.company.com/connect/, the server URL is https://rsc.company.com/.

# ~/.Renviron
# The CONNECT_SERVER URL must have a trailing slash.
CONNECT_SERVER="https://rsc.company.com/"
CONNECT_API_KEY="mysupersecretapikey"

Restart your R session to pick up on the new environment variables.

Step 3 - Publish the report to Connect

If you are push-button publishing from the RStudio IDE, we recommend the selection “Publish document with source code” so that the report can be re-executed on a schedule.1

Connect deployment dialog box showing publication options

Alternatively, A manifest.json file is provided in the git repository to aid in git-backed or programmatic deployment.

Step 4 (optional) - Set the report to update on a schedule

Automate a data refresh of your report by setting it up to run on a schedule. Open the Schedule content management pane to get started.

Read more about Scheduling in the Connect User Guide.

Further reading

The Connect: Server API Cookbook is a collection of practical examples for interacting with Connect Server API via code.

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Footnotes

  1. Connect will automatically provide these environment variables for you when you publish. If you are on an older version of Connect, or if this feature has been disabled by your admin, you should reference https://docs.posit.co/connect/user/api-keys/ for how to create an API key and https://docs.posit.co/connect/user/content-settings/#content-vars for how to input environment variables into the Vars pane of Connect.↩︎