At a glance
Core Events Firing (purchase / add_to_cart) is an event-health metric tracked from Amplitude data. It confirms that the handful of events your entire analytics stack depends on are still arriving. If a core ecommerce event such aspurchaseoradd_to_cartstops firing, every downstream funnel, retention, and attribution card silently lies, so this card acts as the early-warning canary for your tracking. Cross-reference the related cards listed below for context.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Amplitude data. The card counts firings of each designated core ecommerce event over the time window and flags any event whose count has fallen to zero. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A representative reading of Core Events Firing (purchase / add_to_cart) for a typical merchant on Amplitude. On 12 Mar 26 the card showsadd_to_cart at 4,210 firings and purchase at 318 firings over the last 24h, both consistent with the prior day. On 13 Mar 26 add_to_cart holds steady at 4,180 but purchase drops to 0. That single zero means every funnel, conversion, and revenue card downstream is now understating reality, even though nothing looks broken on the surface. The likely cause is a release that changed the checkout confirmation page and stopped the purchase event from sending. Vortex Mind can trace the drop to the deploy window and the affected platform; ask Ask Viq “which core events stopped firing today and when” to confirm the exact timestamp before reporting any conversion number as real.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against Amplitude
Where to look in Amplitude’s own dashboard: Open Event Segmentation and chart the uniques or totals for each core event (for examplepurchase and add_to_cart) over the last day. The Data or Govern section is where event taxonomy lives, so use it to confirm the event name has not been renamed or marked as blocked. Confirm period boundaries and any segment filters match the Vortex IQ profile to reconcile cleanly.
Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:
Cross-connector reconciliation: cross-check a
purchase count against orders in your ecommerce connector to confirm the event truly stopped rather than merely changing shape. For divergence investigations, use Vortex Mind.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Q: How often does Core Events Firing (purchase / add_to_cart) update? The card refreshes on the standard data refresh (typically every 30-60 minutes for live integrations). Because a zero on a core event is urgent, force a manual refresh from the dashboard if you suspect a tracking break right after a release. Q: Why does my Amplitude dashboard show a different number? The most common reasons are period-boundary differences (Vortex IQ uses a rolling 24h window vs Amplitude’s calendar day), time-zone alignment, and filter scope (profile-level vs an unfiltered Amplitude chart). Match these settings before assuming a real divergence. Q: What counts as a “core” event? Core events are the small set of ecommerce actions your reporting cannot function without, typicallypurchase and add_to_cart. They are the events that, if missing, break funnels and attribution rather than just reducing detail. The exact set is configurable per profile.
Q: Can I customise the alert threshold?
The alert fires when any core event count reaches zero, which is the right default for a tracking canary. You can adjust the core event list and alert thresholds per profile in the Alert Rules tab to match your store’s setup.