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Setting up the Mixpanel integration
Setting up the Mixpanel integration

Learn how to sync user events and metrics from Mixpanel to Planhat

Christian Dreyer avatar
Written by Christian Dreyer
Updated over a year ago

Our Mixpanel integration enables you to easily sync your usage data with Planhat. In Planhat you can leverage the data in health scores, send proactive alerts when usage level changes and much more. Let us describe how the integration works and how you can set it up

Summary

  • The integration should be set up by a Mixpanel admin

  • Since Mixpanel's API doesn't support real-time event flow we pull data every 20 minutes

  • Mixpanel events can be linked to Planhat's Companies, End Users, Assets and/or Projects. Data linked to End Users can also be associated with Assets / Projects and aggregated up to Company level

  • Data is mapped to the right object using either the object's External ID in Planhat or the End Users email

  • If the End User doesn't already exist in Planhat, the End User can be created if the Mixpanel data includes either End User email or End User external-Id and Company external-Id

  • Mixpanel data creates User Activities or Metrics in Planhat - it does not update fields

  • The integration will only work with paying plans in Mixpanel

  • Updating "Sync events from date" will pull in usage data from that date, duplicates will therefore be created if you are updating it multiple times.

Additional information about data structure expectation and flexibility

To map the events from Mixpanel we expect the following structure:

{"event": "Viewed report", "properties": { ...}}

In the properties section, you may pass either the EndUser External Id (often $user_id in Mixpanel) or email for user activities. For the $user_id to work, Planhat's EndUsers need a matching ExternalId.

Events are typically linked to User activities, which in Planhat are logged on the EndUser level and can be associated with one of our custom objects, e.g. Asset or Projects. Additionally, the usage data can be aggregated up to the company level and further to a custom set of companies.

If an event is passed with no End User identifier, the event/metric can be saved on the Company level as a Metric, based on the Company’s External Id. The same is true for Assets and Projects which are only available in some packages.

Step 1 - Get your credentials from Mixpanel

  1. Login to Mixpanel and go to the Project Settings page

  2. Press Create a Project and save the API Secret and Location settings

  3. Log in to Planhat

  4. Navigate to the Operations Module > Integrate, and click on "Mixpanel". Flip the switch, at the top of the page to "yes" to turn the integration on

  5. Paste the API secret and Mixpanel data location setting

Step 2 - Map your Mixpanel data to Planhat.

The outcome of this step is to inform Planhat how to link Mixpanel’s identifiers should to Planhat's objects' identifier. In Planhat the mapping properties are standardized to be either email or External Id. In Mixpanel the properties may vary which is why this step is needed.

To complete Step 2 please follow the below

  1. On the Mixpanel integration, page expand the “Data Mapping” area

  2. Enter Mixpanel’s Event properties’ names that match Planhat's external ids (and email)

  3. Required properties to match are Company externalId or either EndUser externalId or EndUser email. If Planhat is to create endusers based on incoming user activities, Company External ID or EndUser email is required. If only EndUser email is provided, Planhat will assign the enduser to the company that has the same related domain as the email domain (given that related domain on the company object is populated in Planhat).

Optional Step - Filter the usage data that you want synced

Some customers Mixpanel environment has a lot of user events that aren’t necessary for the Customer Success team. To limit noise and ensure that focus is kept on what's important we advise customers to filter the data, see below for how to do it.

  1. Expand “User Activities” and type Mixpanel's event name followed by enter to only allow those activities to be synced

  2. Expand “Custom Metric” and type Mixpanel's metric name followed by enter to only allow those to be synced

Step 3 - Complete set-up

Complete the set-up by scrolling down to the bottom of the screen and selecting the date you want to sync events from and pressing save

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