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Do I really need to "define" every event I want to send from our product?

  • 7 July 2022
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Our company is using Heap, and I’ve just got started sending some events from the product to heap. It’s a drawing app, so things like “element_add”, “element_delete”, “choose_tool”, etc.

But when I come into heap I cannot graph these without first “defining” the event? Is that right? That seems rather cumbersome.

Is there any way to graph things that are “tracked” via client-side heap analytics without having to go in and manually “define” everything? What is the thinking behind this model, when basically every other analytics platform doesn’t require this manual step?

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Best answer by danielle 9 July 2022, 01:07

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danielle
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Hi @tom.hicks.felt!

Happy to provide some insights here! It sounds like you're enriching your dataset by sending custom events into Heap, which is great (you may also want to try utilizing autocaptured data if you haven't already -- see more on this below). Custom events will be defined automatically after the first event is received by Heap.

There may be a slight delay between the first time the event is received by Heap and the custom event being defined for you in the UI. You will be able to confirm if the event has been defined for you by checking the Custom Events category in the Definitions > Events section of your account. Once the event appears there, you will be able to use it in analysis and should not have to manually define it yourself.

The power of Heap comes from the fact that many events are autocaptured without you having to manually send them into Heap. These autocaptured events will need to be defined in Heap, as your team will have the knowledge of what these events mean in the context of your application/site. There are a number of different ways to define events in Heap which are outlined in our documentation here.

If your account is newer, you may also have access to the Explore Events tab in the Data Management section of Heap. In this section you’ll be able to see an overview of the events autocaptured by Heap, click through to analyze the events, and define new events all from this page.

Don’t hesitate to let us know if you have additional questions!

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