Create a Tracking Plan

This guide will help you create a new tracking plan in the RudderStack dashboard.

Overview

You can create a new tracking plans using any of the following approaches:

• From an existing Event Stream source
• Using a tracking plan template
• From the events and properties in the data catalog

You can also use the Data Catalog API to create and manage your tracking plans programmatically.

1. From an existing Event Stream source

You can create a tracking plan from an existing event data source. This option leverages the Event Audit API to import the events and properties tracked by the event data source and generates an initial plan.

Before you proceed, make sure the Event Audit API setting is turned on in your RudderStack dashboard.

Go to Settings > Workspace and click the Data Management tab. Scroll down to the Data governance section and turn on the Event Audit API toggle.

See Enable Event Audit API section for more information.

1. Log in to the RudderStack dashboard and go to Govern > Tracking Plans option in the left sidebar.
2. Click Create tracking plan.

3. Select Pull from source on the next screen.

4. Select the event stream source from which you want to import the tracked events and properties and click Continue.
5. Enter a unique name and description for your tracking plan and click Continue.
6. Select events tracked from the source and click Continue.

Note that:

• The events and properties listed here are obtained from the Event Audit API.
• RudderStack automatically adds these events and properties to the data catalog if they do not exist already.

7. In the Map properties to events section, RudderStack displays the list of events selected in the above step with the associated properties.

8. You can also add more properties to an event from the data catalog:

• Go to the Add Properties tab.
• Select the Event from the dropdown.
• Click the Add button next to the properties you want to add.

You can also define nested properties for an event in your tracking plan.

Based on the schema sampled from the incoming events, RudderStack shows up to three levels of nesting for a property of Object or Array data type. See Nested properties for tracking plans created from source for more information.

In addition, you can:

• Configure the event settings to allow unplanned properties.
• Remove an event from the tracking plan.
• Mark the property as optional or required by clicking the Optional/Required option.
• Remove specific properties from the event.

9. Select the sources you want to connect to the tracking plan and click Continue.

You can connect a tracking plan to multiple sources. However, note that a source can have only one tracking plan connected to it at a given time.

10. Configure the tracking plan settings for specific event types and click Create Tracking Plan.

11. (Optional but Recommended) Use RudderTyper for autocomplete and linting.

2. Using a tracking plan template

Use this option to import your event and property mappings from a default RudderStack template:

1. Log in to the RudderStack dashboard and go to Govern > Tracking Plans option in the left sidebar.
2. Click Create tracking plan.

3. Click Use template.

4. Select the RudderStack template and click Continue.

RudderStack supports the Ecommerce tracking plan template.

5. Add a tracking plan name and description and click Continue.
6. In the Map properties to events section, RudderStack displays the list of events and properties inherited from the tracking plan template. You can customize these events and their associated properties for the tracking plan as per your requirement.

7. You can also add more properties to an event from the data catalog:

• Go to the Add Properties tab.
• Select the Event from the dropdown.
• Click the Add button next to the property you want to add.

You can also add nested properties for an event in your tracking plan. You can add up to three levels of nesting for a property of Object or Array data type.

In addition, you can:

• Add or remove an event from the tracking plan.
• Configure the event settings to allow unplanned properties.
• Remove specific properties from the event.

8. Connect the tracking plan to the required sources.

You can connect a tracking plan to multiple sources. However, note that a source can have only one tracking plan connected to it at a given time.

9. Configure the tracking plan settings for specific event types and click Create Tracking Plan.

10. (Optional but Recommended) Use RudderTyper for autocomplete and linting.

3. From the data catalog

You can create a tracking plan from scratch using the events and properties defined in the Data Catalog section:

1. Log in to the RudderStack dashboard and go to Govern > Tracking Plans option in the left sidebar.
2. Click Create tracking plan.

3. Select From data catalog on the next screen.

4. Enter a unique name and description for your tracking plan.
5. Choose the required events from the displayed events list (populated from the data catalog) and click Continue.

6. In the Map properties to events section, add properties (populated from Data Catalog) to map to each event by clicking the Add properties button.

You can also add nested properties for an event in your tracking plan. You can add up to three levels of nesting for a property of Object or Array data type.

7. Click the Add button next to the property you want to add.

In addition, you can:

• Add or remove an event from the tracking plan.
• Configure the event settings to allow unplanned properties.
• Remove specific properties from the event.
• Mark a property as Optional or Required.

8. Select the sources you want to connect to the tracking plan and click Continue.

You can connect a tracking plan to multiple sources. However, note that a source can have only one tracking plan connected to it at a given time.

9. Configure the tracking plan settings for specific event types and click Create Tracking Plan.

10. (Optional but Recommended) Use RudderTyper for autocomplete and linting.

Configure tracking plan settings

When creating a new tracking plan, you can define how RudderStack processes events that do not adhere to the tracking plan rules.

The settings are described below:

Tracking plan version validation

When you connect a source to a tracking plan, RudderStack validates incoming events against the specific tracking plan version that was used to instrument each event. This version-aware validation ensures:

• Accurate validation: Events are validated against the exact rules they were designed to follow
• Multi-version support: Different app versions can run simultaneously without validation conflicts
• Evolution safety: Tracking plan changes don’t break existing app versions

This behavior is particularly important when using RudderTyper for type-safe instrumentation, as it embeds the tracking plan version in the generated code.

See Tracking Plan observability for more details.

Questions? Contact us by Email or on Slack