Integrating DeskMetrics Analytics into your C# application - The three minute version

This short tutorial will guide you through the basics of our API for C# applications. The examples were made using Visual Studio 2010, but it works well with MonoDevelop running under Linux and MacOSX.

Don’t forget to check the Complete DeskMetrics Analytics C# API reference.

Get ready...

1 - The first minute - Hello, DeskMetrics!

We don’t have much time. Create a Windows Form project and add the reference for our assembly (https://github.com/downloads/deskmetrics/DeskMetrics.NET/DeskMetrics.dll)

The code below talks by itself:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

using DeskMetrics;

namespace DeskMetricsDemoApp
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        //DeskMetrics.Watcher
        Watcher watcher = new Watcher();
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            //you **need** to call the Start method
            //see below how to get the app id
            watcher.Start("your_app_id", "1.0");
        }

        private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
        {
            //you **need** to call the Stop method
            watcher.Stop();
        }
    }
}

The two methods call (Start and Stop) are mandatory. The Start method is responsible for gathering the machine information (like OS, plugins and VMs, hardware, etc) and the Stop method will send the gathered data to DeskMetrics Analytics.

Warning

your app won’t work if you don’t call these two methods in order in your application

Where is my app id?

You need the app id for the Start method. This ID identifies your application on DeskMetrics Analytics. Go to http://analytics.deskmetrics.com/ and you’ll see something like this:

You can find this on DeskMetrics Analytics page (http://analytics.deskmetrics.com/)

2 - Second minute - Running the app and checking the results

Just run the app and close it in sequence. Yeah, it will be an empty form, but it is enough for you to see the impact on your DeskMetrics Analytics.

After you run and successfully close your application, you’ll be able to see the data on your Analytics page:

Mission accomplished, your first integration was done! You can see this data on your application’s Dashboard.

3 - Third minute - Adding some event tracking

DeskMetrics Analytics provide a full-featured framework for you to track any user action inside your software. Want to know how much time an user takes to fill a form? No problem, just use the TrackEventTimed method. Do you want to know how many times a specific button was clicked? No problem, just use the TrackEvent method and it’s done. In our sample app, we can do something like this:

Our first .NET app tracked with DeskMetrics.

Just add those controls on your form. Our code will look like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using DeskMetrics;

namespace DeskMetricsDemoApp
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        Watcher watcher = new Watcher();
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            watcher.Start("your_app_id", "1.0");
        }

        private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
        {
            watcher.Stop();
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            watcher.TrackEvent("ButtonClick", "TrackMe");
        }

        private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            watcher.TrackCustomData("UserEmail", textBox1.Text);
        }
    }
}

In this example we track a button click and we send the user email address to our analytics as a custom data. If you want to track something that DeskMetrics Analytics doesn’t provide by default, you can track it as a custom data. You can even track custom data in real time, using the TrackCustomDataR method. There is a lot of cool stuff available on DeskMetrics Analytics :-)

4 - What is next?

We hope that this basic tutorial was useful to you. If you missed anything, you can download the entire project and make the things works by yourself :-)

By now, you already have some knowledge on the DeskMetrics Analytics platform. If you want to know more, we recommend reading the Complete DeskMetrics Analytics C# API reference.