Telemetry

Telemetry#

In order to understand how our users interact with the ACCESS-NRI Intake catalog, we collect some usage statistics, in accordance with the privacy policy detailed here.

A typical telemetry record is shown below:

{
    "timestamp": "2025-04-01T01:07:53.146786Z",
    "name": "unknown",
    "function": "esm_datastore.search",
    "args": [],
    "kwargs": {
        "file_id": "ocean_month"
    },
    "session_id": "df07384b-acca-49e9-949c-dbef13b45562",
    "catalog_version": "v2025-03-04"
}

In this example, the user has called the .search function on an ESM-Datastore, with the following signature:

esm_ds.search(file_id='ocean_month') # Searching for a file with the ID 'ocean_month' - this is our recorded call

The other data collected are:

  • timestamp

    The time at which the telemetry was recorded.

  • name

    A name identifier which may in future be used to connect usage to a particular user. Presently, we do not collect any identifying information about users, such as usernames, and so this field is always unknown. In future, we may collect fully anonymised identifiers relating to users, but this will be communicated to users in advance.

  • function

    The function that was called, in this case .search. We collect this in order to understand how our users interact with the catalog, and to help us improve it.

  • args

    The positional arguments that were passed to the function. In this case, there are none. This is used in order to, for example, understand which experiments users are searching for.

  • kwargs

    The keyword arguments that were passed to the function. This allows us to see, for example, how users tend to select a dataset from within a datastore.

  • session_id

    A unique identifier for the Python session in which the telemetry was recorded. This allows us to understand the series of interactions a user makes with the catalog in a single session. Restarting the notebook kernel will generate a new session ID - and so in combination with other data we collect, allows us to improve the stability of the catalog and related functionality.

  • catalog_version

    The version of the catalog that was used to generate the telemetry. This allows us to understand whether old versions of the catalog are still being used, for example.

Below is a list of frequently asked questions and accompanying answers:#

Note

Any questions or concerns about telemetry on the ACCESS-NRI Intake catalog? Please open an issue here.

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