dotCMS / dotCMS/core

Analytics: Environment Filtering — Documentation: dashboard docs, configuration reference, and data-reset notice

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@jcastro-dotcms is already working on this.

Since Sep 8, 2026.

dotCMS : Analytics Team : Falcon Type : Documentation
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Description

Summary

Document the new environment selector for dashboard users, the new per-customer configuration for Platform/support, and publish the data-reset customer notice — the last of these must land before the release, not after, per the epic's own acceptance criteria.

Parent epic: #37349
Spike: #37107
Depends on: final naming/behavior decisions from the dotCMS-core (config endpoint contract) and Dashboard (selector UX) sub-tasks, for the user-facing docs to be accurate. The data-reset notice specifically should be drafted early and does not need to wait on those.

Background

The epic's acceptance criteria explicitly call out: "Data-reset notice and the 'production numbers will change' note land before the release, not after." This is a hard release gate, not a nice-to-have — customers must know in advance that:

  • Their existing Content Analytics data is being dropped as part of this rollout (per the epic's reset decision — no backfill, no migration of historical numbers).
  • Their dashboard numbers will restart from zero (or from whatever point the reset lands) once the new schema is live.
  • A new environment selector will appear, defaulting to their current environment, letting them view other environments' data going forward.

Scope

  • Dashboard user-facing docs: what the environment selector does, default behavior (defaults to current environment), what "no selection changed" means (today's blended-view behavior, unchanged), how to switch to viewing another environment.
  • Configuration reference: DOT_ANALYTICS_ENVIRONMENT / DOT_ANALYTICS_AVAILABLE_ENVIRONMENTS — what they are, how Platform curates the available-environments list per customer, what happens if a customer's list drifts out of sync (self-heals, logs a warning, never breaks the dropdown).
  • Data-reset customer notice: explain the ClickHouse reset in plain terms, that historical analytics numbers reset at cutover, expected timing, and that this is a one-time event tied to this rollout (not a recurring behavior).

Out of scope

  • Internal engineering documentation already covered by the epic, spike, and ADR-0022 — this ticket is customer/support-facing docs, not engineering design docs.
  • Any documentation for self-hosted/non-Cloud deployments (out of scope for the whole epic).

Dependencies

The dashboard-docs and configuration-reference pieces need the dotCMS-core and Dashboard sub-tasks' final behavior to be accurate — draft against their specs once available, don't block entirely on implementation completing. The data-reset notice is not blocked on the other sub-tasks and should be drafted and reviewed early, since it's a hard release gate per the epic's acceptance criteria.

Acceptance Criteria

  • Dashboard docs describe the environment selector, its default, and how to change it
  • Configuration reference documents both env vars and the curation/self-healing behavior for Platform/support
  • Data-reset notice published and reviewed before the release ships (epic acceptance criterion — not after)
  • Docs reviewed against the actual shipped behavior of the core/dashboard sub-tasks before publishing (not just the design intent)

Next step

Run /speckit-specify against this issue to produce the formal spec (doc structure, publishing location, review/sign-off process) before drafting.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Assessment

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