HipChat Video Stats

[Jan Szczepanski]

Hello,

does anyone of you know how to get some information about the newest HipChat Video? Like count, avg. time, etc.?

Regards,
Jan

[Shanye]

Hi Jan,

If I understand correctly, you're looking for network statistics with Atlassian's Video service.

If so, you can start a video call, then hover over the "network strength" icon located in the picture-in-picture view of your own video feed (bottom-right corner of the call screen).

While hovering, there's a "Show more" link to display more in-depth network statistics:

I hope that helps!

[Jan Szczepanski]

Hi Shayne,

thanks for the information. But I am looking for Admin stats in the Admin Backend or via the Database. Like video chat count, Amount of chats within the current month, last month, chat lenght, etc.

Regards,
Jan

[Shanye]

Hi Jan,

Thanks for the clarification. Since you mentioned the database, I'm assuming you're hosting your own HipChat Server/Data Center.

There's currently no built-in functionality to provide the kind of statistics you're looking for, so I've outlined some options that might help bridge the gap for now.

Database/Backend

I'm not able to find any statistics related to video calls in the backend on HipChat Server/DC. I suspect this is partly because most of the traffic occurs between the HipChat client and the video service hosted by Atlassian, rather than routing through HipChat Server/DC.

Log parsing

I am able to see that the /var/log/hipchat/tetra.log (Tetra handles the chat protocol inside the server) is updated with some indicators that calls are occurring:

### Video call started

2017-08-02T13:50:30.897438+00:00 ip-10-0-1-2 tetra-app-1: [tetra.controllers.enso_controller.handle_call_message#bfae5391-fd3a-4e58-9ede-ec9a738b58c9] Sending system message to rid-%s, data={'color': 'purple', 'from_nick': 'Initiating User', 'notify': True, 'message_format': 'html'}


### User joining call is set to "On a call" status

2017-08-02T13:33:18.715261+00:00 ip-10-0-133-53 tetra-app-1: [tetra.controllers.presence_controller.handle_inbound#7977c220-bc98-40e8-9954-edacedbb7756] New presence from uid-609:web||proxy|example.hipchatserver.com|5232: type='available', show=u'dnd', status=u'On a call', idle=None


### Call is ended - results in a benign error on HipChat Server v2.2.4

2017-08-02T13:34:00.065100+00:00 ip-10-0-1-2 tetra-app-0: [tetra.controllers.enso_controller.handle_call_message#e7ed61ec-8532-4d27-8e7e-14d43fe690f7] =====> New request: e7ed61ec-8532-4d27-8e7e-14d43fe690f7, func=tetra.controllers.enso_controller.handle_call_message, in-progress=0, from=uid-609:web||proxy|example.hipchatserver.com|5232, proxy=proxy:example.hipchatserver.com:5232
2017-08-02T13:34:00.070980+00:00 ip-10-0-1-2 tetra-app-0: [tetra.controllers.enso_controller.handle_call_message#e7ed61ec-8532-4d27-8e7e-14d43fe690f7] WARN: Sending "bad-request" error stanza to uid-609:web||proxy|example.hipchatserver.com|5232. text=u'Invalid room video call event type:hangup'
2017-08-02T13:34:00.071271+00:00 ip-10-0-1-2 tetra-app-0: [tetra.controllers.enso_controller.handle_call_message#e7ed61ec-8532-4d27-8e7e-14d43fe690f7] WARN: Stanza recipient: 1_609@chat.btf.hipchat.com/web||proxy|example.hipchatserver.com|5232 does not match "to" field: 1_609@chat.btf.hipchat.com
2017-08-02T13:34:00.071672+00:00 ip-10-0-1-2 tetra-app-0: [tetra.controllers.enso_controller.handle_call_message#e7ed61ec-8532-4d27-8e7e-14d43fe690f7] =====> Request failed: e7ed61ec-8532-4d27-8e7e-14d43fe690f7, in-progress=1, from=uid-609:web||proxy|example.hipchatserver.com|5232, time=6ms, stanza=<message xmlns='jabber:client' proxy_received='2017-08-02T13:34:00Z 063852' to='1_default@conf.btf.hipchat.com' type='groupchat' id='9169841' from='1_609@chat.btf.hipchat.com'><x xmlns='http://hipchat.com/protocol/enso'><hangup/></x></message>

You could potentially scrape these logs for some insight into when calls are being initiated, which user IDs are starting/joining calls, etc.

Since the system automatically rotates logs, only keeping ten iterations, historical data will be limited.

Elasticsearch query

If you're not on HipChat Data Center, you could also query Elasticsearch for the message indicating a user has started a call.

The following cURL would search Room chat from 08/2017 ('muc-2017.08') for any messages containing "Click here to join the call" - the message automatically sent when someone starts a new video chat:

curl 'http://localhost:9200/muc-2017.08/document/_search?q=Click%20here%20to%20join%20the%20video%20call&pretty'

The query could likely be refined to more specifically target calls starting, since it would also match a regular user sending a message that says "Click here to join the call", but it's a start.

It's worth noting we don't recommend going straight to Elasticsearch, especially since it's not used in HipChat Data Cener, but it could be an option.

API call

A better long-term solution would be to use the View room history API to approximate the same approach above, which would still apply if you make the switch to HipChat Data Center. This won't give you the statistics you're after, but could at least show when someone is initiating video calls. You'd also be subject to API rate limiting if you went this route.

I hope that helps!