DE-9874 - Getting issue details... STATUS
The Mouseflow admin interface is available via
https://us.mouseflow.com/websites/4a7ff1cf-f5b8-4dd8-95da-13bfe4f4e580
Account details via
https://us.mouseflow.com/account/billing
With login credentials online-services@vuw.ac.nz, password available from Developers upon request.
What does Mouseflow currently track
Currently set up to track three sites: http://www.wgtn.ac.nz, intranet.wgtn.ac.nz and http://go.wgtn.ac.nz (although go.wgtn shows no recording available)
Mouseflow will track 75% of views, set to ensure we don’t go over our 150,000 per month limit. This is easily tailorable if we need to reduce the sessions we track per month. We can also limit Mouseflow to only fire on specific pages or areas of the site to further limit the usage.
Mouseflow is also currently not tracking any users with the IP address 130.195.* - I believe this is removing all on-campus users, but would have to double check whether it is filtering out only staff or all users on campus.
Where are Mouseflow results being used
Mouseflow was primarily being used by Shirley Wang and Bernadette McNaught, both of who have since left the Universe. As such it is difficult to gauge exactly how it was in use and how it will be missed moving forward. Mike has been in contact with Shirley who responded
If the business users asked, I shared the Mouseflow shareable link to them.
I think International team and marketing team are the primary users, usually asked for this.
Can't remember other specific users. If they asked, I usually put a shareable link on their dashboard.
Unfortunately I don’t have access to the dashboards so cannot confirm where if they contain mouseflow content.
I am not sure how we can list what shareable links have been created, but did manage to find one ‘funnel’ available for the Rethink USA campaign: https://us.mouseflow.com/websites/4a7ff1cf-f5b8-4dd8-95da-13bfe4f4e580/funnels/I-U6qoV8VEmZ2jQ5OI_ssQ?fromdate=2022-06-12&todate=2022-12-12
The heatmaps page also shows the ‘shared’ icon for a number of sites, which could give us another avenue to find who is using the reports: https://us.mouseflow.com/websites/4a7ff1cf-f5b8-4dd8-95da-13bfe4f4e580/click-heatmaps?fromdate=2022-06-12&todate=2022-12-12
There are a few tickets that mention mouseflow. For example DE-4012 - Getting issue details... STATUS
But the linked documents (google dashboard and Word) don’t make it clear where this information is coming from.
The majority of tickets for the last year seem to be around implementing or bugfixing the mouseflow code.
Jira link for Mouseflow tickets assigned to Shirley (5d6dc0e3b605d80dc0149c2a) or Bernadette (557058:1f5edcf7-5689-4651-835b-4fc3728f942f)
https://victoriauniversity.atlassian.net/issues/?jql=text ~ "mouseflow" AND (assignee %3D 5d6dc0e3b605d80dc0149c2a OR assignee %3D 557058%3A1f5edcf7-5689-4651-835b-4fc3728f942f) ORDER BY updated DESC
Moving ahead we should see if there is someone from the International or Marketing team who would be good to contact to understand where/if they are using Mouseflow reports.
What is the current cost
All currency here is listed in US dollars.
More information about each of the plans can be found here: https://mouseflow.com/pricing/#features
We are currently on the Pro plan, paying $3588 per annum. (equiv. of $299 per month)
This will increase to the new cost of $4788 per annum (equiv. of $399 per month) if we make no changes to our subscription. Please note, the change will have to be made before the billing date of 14 Dec 2022. Any changes made before then will be applied to the next billing cycle.
It is worth noting the confluence page /wiki/spaces/WT/pages/176914442 previously stated we were on a plan of $99 per year. I believe this is in reference to the plan we were on in 2017, which was $99 per month. The history of payments can be seen in the following expandable section:
What are our options
I would advise retaining the Mouseflow services in at least the ‘Growth’ ($109 per month) category. The primary reason for this is being able to do a before/after comparison of the site when the new design is in place. However, if there is no need for this, we could feel comfortable cancelling or halting the Mouseflow service until the need arises for it’s usage in future. However, if we are to cancel the service now I believe the previous 12 months records will be lost and we will have no historic data to compare with.
The Pro plan (what we’re on currently) allows for 150,000 recordings per month. We appear to reach just over 140,000 recordings in a month, while tracking 75% of all visits to the entire site. It also retains 12 months of historical data.
The Business plan provides 50,000 recording per month with 12 months of historical data, same as the Pro plan. The Growth plan provides 15,000 recordings per month with 6 months of historical data. With more restrictive placement of mouseflow over specific areas of the site, and reducing the recordings to 50% of the site this should not be a huge issue. The more recordings are nice, but not a necessity, and if need ed we can buy a batch of extra credits.
I would advise one of the following options:
Reduce to the Business plan on a monthly billing ($259 per month, $3108 per annum unless we decide to cancel earlier), and add filters so only certain pages/recordings are tracked. This will allow us to retain all previous recorded sessions/information (up to 12 months), and can be useful for looking at comparisons with the upcoming design change. Once the new design is in place (and has a month or so of user data) Mouseflow can be re-evaluated to determine its’ usefulness, hopefully once the position of data analyst has been brought on board. This should save us approximately $140 per month, and if the service is only retained for another couple of months we do not end up paying for the rest of the year.
Reduce to the Growth plan on yearly billing ($129 per month, $1308 per annum). If we are unable to move to monthly billing, the Growth plan seems the best compromise of cost ($1308 per annum) while still retaining 6 months of previously recorded sessions. This will give us the ability to utilise mouseflow for the upcoming design change, while still giving us a few months of recordings with which to compare. Moving to this plan should save us $290 per month/$3480 per annum, but will not allow us to cancel the service early if we no longer require it.
Hotjar alternative
I have not had the chance to do a comparison between Horjar or Mouseflow at this point. But felt it worthwhile to add to the conversation earlier this morning that Mouseflow is able to create feedback popups similar to Hotjar. More information on it can be found here:
https://help.mouseflow.com/en/articles/4291376-create-a-feedback-campaign