How to calculate rolling 90 days active users (DAU/MAU/WAU) in BigQuery

"Number of Active users" is a crucial metric is any business report. 

• DAU - No. of daily unique active users
• WAU - No. of weekly unique active users
• MAU - No. of monthly unique active users

Computing unique users is resource intensive process

Solution:

Method #1: To get Accurate counts of active users (works, but gets slower)

SELECT DATE_SUB(date, INTERVAL i DAY) date_grp
 , COUNT(DISTINCT owner_user_id) unique_90_day_users
 , COUNT(DISTINCT IF(i<31,owner_user_id,null)) unique_30_day_users
 , COUNT(DISTINCT IF(i<8,owner_user_id,null)) unique_7_day_users
FROM (
  SELECT DATE(creation_date) date, owner_user_id
  FROM `bigquery-public-data.stackoverflow.posts_questions` 
  WHERE EXTRACT(YEAR FROM creation_date)=2017
  GROUP BY 1, 2
), UNNEST(GENERATE_ARRAY(1, 90)) i
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY date_grp

Method #2: To get Approximate counts of active users (faster results, but approximate)

SELECT DATE_SUB(date, INTERVAL i DAY) date_grp
 , HLL_COUNT.MERGE(sketch) unique_90_day_users
 , HLL_COUNT.MERGE(DISTINCT IF(i<31,sketch,null)) unique_30_day_users
 , HLL_COUNT.MERGE(DISTINCT IF(i<8,sketch,null)) unique_7_day_users
 , COUNT(*) window_days
FROM (
  SELECT DATE(creation_date) date, HLL_COUNT.INIT(owner_user_id) sketch
  FROM `bigquery-public-data.stackoverflow.posts_questions` 
  WHERE EXTRACT(YEAR FROM creation_date)=2017
  GROUP BY 1
), UNNEST(GENERATE_ARRAY(1, 90)) i
GROUP BY 1
HAVING window_days=90
ORDER BY date_grp

victor

posted on 18 Feb 22