# Analyze App Adoption

**Cadence** Quarterly

**Sites** production

|  | Initial | Recurring |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Estimated Time** | 25 Min | 10 min |

Benefits:

* Understand adoption
* Better understand user-base
* Identify top and bottom applications by adoption

***

## Goal

At its simplest, the goal of this page is to identify the top five and bottom five applications by two metrics:

* Total sessions by application
* Total distinct users by application

It is also important to identify any visible trends of usage — is usage trending up or down, or are there consistent spikes? In addition, it is helpful to characterize these applications, e.g. *highly used yet only by a few individuals*, *widely used but infrequently accessed*, etc. To visualize these areas, two additional charts will be built.

## Suggested Prerequisites

* [Remove/Quarantine Unused Apps](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/remove_quarantine_unused_apps.htm)

***

## Operations Monitor

This page leverages the **Operations Monitor**. Please refer to the [Operations Monitor](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/tooling/operations_monitor.htm) page for an overview and relevant documentation links.

### Confirm Operations Monitor is Operational

Navigate to the **Monitoring apps** and select the **Details** button (info icon) on the **Operations Monitor** application. Confirm that the application's data is up-to-date.

![ops_monitor_operational.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/ops_monitor_operational.png)

If the **Operations Monitor** is not up-to-date, please refer to the [Operations Monitor Documentation](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/tooling/operations_monitor.htm#documentation) for configuration details and troubleshooting steps.

***

## User & Session Metrics

1. Navigate to the **Monitoring apps** stream and open up the **Operations Monitor** application.

   ![app_adoption_17.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_17.png)

2. Select the **Session Details** sheet.

   ![app_adoption_19.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_19.png)

3. Assuming this process is taking place quarterly, select the latest three full months.

   ![app_adoption_20.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_20.png)

4. Sort the **Sessions** column of the **App Session Summary** table descending to view the applications with the greatest number of sessions.

   ![app_adoption_21.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_21.png)

5. To see the applications with the greatest number of distinct users, sort the **Users** column **descending**.

   ![app_adoption_22.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_22.png)

6. Analyze the results. In this example, three of the applications overlap, but notice that one was heavily used by only a single user. It is important to recognize and weigh an application's importance by considering both metrics. Ask: Is it relevant only to one person? Is it known only to that person? Or is that person unaware of a newer application?

7. Repeat the process above for the bottom five applications, sorting both the **Sessions** and **Users** columns **descending** and recording results for comparison.

## Application/Session Activity Breakdown

The metrics above are valuable for discerning which applications are used the most. Consider the following questions:

* What is the breakdown of each user's usage within each app?
* Is the session usage relatively evenly distributed, or is it condensed to only a few users?
* What is the percentage of an application's usage against other applications? For instance, what percentage do the top five applications take up of the entire environment?

A new chart can be created to easily visualize session usage and users and answer these questions.

1. Duplicate the **Session Details** sheet and clear space on the dashboard to make room for a new chart object.

   ![app_adoption_1.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_1.png)

2. Drag and drop the **Mekko chart** (available as of the **November 2019** release) and select **Add dimension**. Then select the **Session App Name** field.

   ![app_adoption_2.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_2.png)

3. Add the second dimension of **UserId**.

   ![app_adoption_3.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_3.png)

4. Select **Add measure** and add **Sessions**.

   ![app_adoption_4.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_4.png)

5. In the properties panel, expand the **Session App Name** panel and set the **Limitation** to **Fixed number**. Set the **Top** to `6` (which allows the top five applications to show, along with the **Others** faux dimension). Ensure that **Show others** is toggled on.

   ![app_adoption_5.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_5.png)

6. Select the **UserId** dimension and do the same, setting the **Top** to `11`.

   ![app_adoption_6.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_6.png)

7. Navigate to the sorting section and expand **Session App Name**. Untoggle the default sorting (Auto), toggle on **Sort by expression**, select **Descending**, and enter `Sum([Session Count])` as the expression value.

   ![app_adoption_7.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_7.png)

8. Repeat the same sorting process for the **UserId** dimension.

   ![app_adoption_8.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_8.png)

9. Ensure the sort order is:

   * Session App Name
   * UserId
   * Sessions

10. Move to the **Colors and legend** section under **Appearance**. Toggle off **Show legend** to give the chart more space.

    ![app_adoption_9.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_9.png)

11. View the completed chart. You can now quickly spot:

    * Who the predominant consumers of the top five applications are (if the distribution is uneven)
    * The distribution of sessions by user (even or condensed to several)
    * The percentage distribution of sessions relative to others
    * The percentage of all sessions of the top five applications against all others

    ![app_adoption_23.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_23.png)

12. Click on the top five applications specifically (after noting the higher-level metric regarding overall usage) to make the detail easier to consume.

    ![app_adoption_10.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_10.png)

## Application Usage Trending

After identifying the top five applications, it is important to see in which direction their usage is trending. To do this, create a new chart.

1. Create some room on the duplicated **Session Details** sheet. (In this example, the details table has been removed as it is not relevant to this analysis.)

   First, select the **Combo chart** and insert it. Then select the **Date** as the dimension.

   ![app_adoption_11.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_11.png)

2. Select **Add measure** and insert the **Sessions** measure.

   ![app_adoption_12.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_12.png)

3. Under **Measures**, select **Sessions** and change the type to **Line**.

   ![app_adoption_13.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_13.png)

4. In the editing pane, under **Height**, select **Add**. Then click the **fx** button.

   ![app_adoption_14.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_14.png)

5. Insert the expression `count({<[Session Count]={1}>} DISTINCT UserId)`. Name the measure **Users** and ensure it is of type **Line**.

   ![app_adoption_15.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_15.png)

6. View the completed chart. It is easy to spot when there are many distinct users with few sessions each, or when there are only a few users with many sessions. Select each of the top five applications one by one (as well as the bottom five) to view the trends individually.

   ![app_adoption_16.png](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/qs-admin-playbook/Content/asset_management/apps/images/app_adoption_16.png)

**Tags**

#quarterly

#asset\_management

#apps

#operations\_monitor