Dashboards: Metric Reference

  • 26 September 2019
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This guide aims to help you to navigate our analytics dashboards.


Analytics Dashboards - Metric Reference

This article explains in detail how each metric shown on the analytics dashboards behaves. There are a few basic principles to keep in mind:

  • In general, the dashboards reflect the current state of the community, rather than ‘what happened at the time’.*
  • That means that current & historical data will change to reflect the current state after you carry out moderation actions like trashing a topic, moving a reply, or changing the category of a topic.
  • Other implications:
    • Spam/trashed/deleted topics are not taken into account in the content metrics.
    • Banned/unapproved/deleted users are not taken into account in the user metrics.
  • Percentage difference calculations are calculated as follows: ((A - B)/A)*100

* The exception to this rule is event-based metrics, such as views.

This reference includes documentation for metrics in the following dashboards:

  • Content Dashboard
  • User Dashboard
  • Success Dashboard

Content Dashboard

 

Metric Description Extra Details
# Posts created The number of topics and replies created in the selected time period. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics, and topics that have been converted to replies. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted replies, replies in spam/trashed/deleted topics, and replies that have been promoted to new topics.
% increase posts created over previous period The percentage difference between the number of topics and replies created in the current/previous time period. -
# Topics The number of topics created in the selected time period. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics, and topics that have been converted to replies.
% increase topics over previous period The percentage difference between the number of topics created in the current/previous time period. -
# Replies The number of replies created in the selected time period. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted replies, replies in spam/trashed/deleted topics, and replies that have been promoted to new topics.
% increase replies over previous period The percentage difference between the number of replies created in the current/previous time period. -
# Likes received The number of likes received on topics/replies in the selected time period. Excludes likes given to spam/trashed/deleted topics and replies. If a user unlikes a topic/reply, the original like is discounted for this metric.
% increase likes over previous period The percentage difference between the number of likes received in the current/previous time period. -
Positive content helpfulness votes The number of positive content helpfulness votes given to topics in the selected time period. Excludes positive content helpfulness votes given to spam/trashed/deleted topics.
% difference positive content helpfulness votes The percentage difference between the number of positive content helpfulness votes given in the current/previous time period. Excludes positive content helpfulness votes given to spam/trashed/deleted topics.
Topics created per content type The % of topics created in the selected time period broken down by the content type of the topic. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics. This metric looks at the current content type of the topic.
Topics created per user role The % of topics created in the selected time period broken down by the primary role of the author of the topic. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics. This metric looks at the current primary role of the author.
Popular categories - # Posts by Category The number of topics and replies created in the selected time period, broken down by category.

This metric looks at the current category of the topic.

Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics, and topics that have been converted to replies.

Excludes spam/trashed/deleted replies, replies in spam/trashed/deleted topics, and replies that have been promoted to new topics.

Popular categories - # Topics by Category The number of topics created in the selected time period, broken down by category. This metric looks at the current category of the topic.

Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics, and topics that have been converted to replies.
Popular categories  - # Replies by Category The number of replies created in the selected time period, broken down by category. This metric looks at the current category of the topic of the reply.

Excludes spam/trashed/deleted replies, replies in spam/trashed/deleted topics, and replies that have been promoted to new topics.
Popular categories  - # Likes by Category

The number of likes given to topics/replies in the selected time period, broken down by category.

 

This metric looks at the current category of the post that was liked.

Excludes likes given to spam/trashed/deleted topics and replies.

If a user unlikes a topic/reply, the original like is discounted for this metric.
Popular topics - # Replies by Topic The number of replies created in the selected time period, broken down by topic. This metric looks at the current topic that the reply is under.

Excludes spam/trashed/deleted replies.
Popular topics overview - # Likes by Topic The number of likes given to a topic & its replies in the selected time period, broken down by topic. Excludes likes given to spam/trashed/deleted replies.

If a user unlikes a topic/reply, the original like is discounted for this metric.
Popular topics overview - % Content helpfulness score The % of votes that were positive votes out of the total number of content helpfulness votes.

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# Positive votes by Topic The number of positive votes a topic received in the selected time period.

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# Neutral votes by Topic The number of neutral votes a topic received in the selected time period.

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# Negative votes by Topic The number of negative votes a topic received in the selected time period.

-

 

Content from ‘reported posts’ categories is not available in the Content dashboard.

 

User Dashboard

 

 

Metric Description Extra Details
# Total users The total number of registered users on the community up to the end of the selected time period. Excludes banned/deleted users, as well as users who have not activated their account (via email), and users who have not been approved (if registration approval feature is active).

Includes all other user roles.
% increase total users over previous period The percentage difference between the total number of registered users in the current/previous time period. -
# New registrations The number of new registrations in the selected time period. Excludes banned/deleted users, as well as users who have not activated their account (via email), and users who have not been approved (if registration approval feature is active).

Includes all other user roles.
% increase new registrations over previous period The percentage difference between the number of new registrations in the current/previous time period. -
# Users with at least 1 post The number of users who created at least one topic or reply in the selected time period. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics and replies, as well as banned/deleted users, users who have not activated their account (via email), and users who have not been approved (if registration approval feature is active). Includes all other user roles.
% increase users with at least one post over previous period The percentage difference between the number of users who created at least one topic or reply in the current/previous time period. -
% users with at least one post The % of users who created at least one post (topic/reply) in the selected time period, out of the total users up until the end of the selected time period. Calculation: (‘# Users with at least 1 post’ divided by ‘Total Users’).
Top users - # Posts (by user) The number of topics and replies created by a user in the selected time period. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics and replies.
Top users - # Topics (by user) The number of topics created by a user in the selected time period. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics.
Top users - # Replies (by user) The number of replies created by a user in the selected time period. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics and replies.
Top users - # Likes given (by user) The number of likes given by a user in the selected time period. Excludes likes given to spam/trashed/deleted topics and replies. If a user unlikes a topic/reply, the count goes down.
Top users - # Likes received (by user) The number of likes given by a user in the selected time period. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics and replies. If a user unlikes a topic/reply, the count goes down.
Top users - # Answers given (by user) The number of best answers marked in the selected time period where the user was the author of the answer. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted questions. Unmarking the answer to a question will decrease the count for the user. Remarking an answer will update the time that the answer was marked.
Top users - Points earned The points earned by the user in the selected time period. Note: negative points can be shown based on the time period you’ve selected.  E.g. if a user’s post was liked before the selected time period, and then unliked during the selected time period, the points earned during the selected time period could go negative.

 

 

Success Dashboard

 

Metric Description Extra Details
# Questions The number of questions asked in the selected time period Excludes spam/trashed/deleted questions.
# Questions answered The number of questions asked in the selected time period that also have an answer marked. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted questions. Unmarking the answer to a question will decrease the count.

Note: the answer to a question does not have to have been marked as the best answer in the selected time period.
Average response time (hours) Average amount of time (in hours) between the creation of a topic and its first reply. Only includes topics created in the selected time period.

Replies from after the selected time period still count towards the calculation of average response time.

Excludes trashed/deleted topics, trashed/deleted replies. Topics with no replies are also excluded.

Replies from the original topic author are counted as a response.

All topic types are included.
# total single user topics The number of topics in the selected time period where only one user contributed content. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics.

Includes topics with no reply, as well as topics which only have replies from the user who started the topic (spam/trashed replies do not count).

This metric takes into account replies that are moved/promoted to topics, as well as topics that are converted to replies.
% questions answered The % of questions created in the selected time period.which have an answer marked. Calculation: (Questions divided by Questions Answered * 100).
% answered by peer The % of answers where the author of the best answer has the registered user or superuser role. Only includes answers that were marked in the selected time period.

Excludes spam/trashed/deleted topics.

This metric looks at the current role of the author of the answer, rather than the role the user had when the answer was created.

If you unmark an answer to a question, then this will also impact historical data. Changing the best answer will also impact historical data, and will count as being answered in the current time period.

 

Audience Dashboard

Metric Description Extra Details
Page views The total number of community pages loaded or reloaded in the selected time period. Excludes spam/trashed/deleted questions.
Unique visitors The total number of unique visitors within the selected time period, identified by tracking cookie. Both logged-in and anonymous visitors are included. Visits from different devices are counted as separate, unique visitors. A unique visitor is better technically defined as a unique ‘device’.

 

Our pageview/visitor metrics are filtered for bots. We see that when compared to tools such as Google Analytics, our metrics have a definitive correlation, although they typically report higher numbers. This difference can be attributed to the fact that a subset of users block Google Analytics using privacy-enhancing/ad-blocking browser extensions.


11 replies

Hi folks,

Just a comment on Avg. users per topic - (since it’s not documented yet, and this one was confusing for me!)

 

Users per topic - assuming I calculate for a period with the following topics

Topic X = 1 user (user A)

Topic Y = 2 users (user A+B)

Topic Z = 3 users (user A+B+C)

 

I presumed this to mean

(#users participating per individual topic)/# topics = Avg. users per topic

Here, (1+2+3)/3 = 2

 

But it seems to calculate

(#users participating on any topics)/#topics = Avg. users per topic

Here, (3)/3 = 1

 

My interpretation is that the first way tells you more specifically whether several people are interacting on each topic, while the second way tells you more generally about how many users are active vs the number of topics coming up - “Ratio of total active users to total topics”.

I can’t say which is the “right” way, as they can both be meaningful, but it’s good to know what is being calculated.

 

Looking forward to final docs, and the roll-out!

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Thanks a lot for your feedback @JessEs ! This metric caused us a bit of confusion during the audit as it seemed to be dividing by both topics and replies. We’ve adjusted it to make it work in the second way you described (#users participating on any topics/#topics). We plan to rename the metric to Active users per topic to reduce confusion 🙂!

Hey @daniel.boon Just to check something on the success dashboard. How often does it refresh? Is it once every 24 hours?

Moderation dashboard goes up to today (30th July) but success dashboard doesn’t seem to want to include anything from today.

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Hey @daniel.boon Just to check something on the success dashboard. How often does it refresh? Is it once every 24 hours?

Moderation dashboard goes up to today (30th July) but success dashboard doesn’t seem to want to include anything from today.

Hey @m4rc - the dashboards refresh roughly every 4 hours. It could be that one is refreshed before the other, but generally you shouldn’t see this happen too often 🙂.

Hey @m4rc - the dashboards refresh roughly every 4 hours. It could be that one is refreshed before the other, but generally you shouldn’t see this happen too often 🙂.

Ah, got it. Excellent! Thank you @daniel.boon :thumbsup:

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Thanks a lot for your feedback @JessEs ! This metric caused us a bit of confusion during the audit as it seemed to be dividing by both topics and replies. We’ve adjusted it to make it work in the second way you described (#users participating on any topics/#topics). We plan to rename the metric to Active users per topic to reduce confusion 🙂!

 

 Can’t find this one any more Daniel. It’s an interesting one. Has it been removed:?

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Correct @Gabolino, → we saw limited adoption of the active users per topic metric after adjusting the behaviour, so we decided to remove the metric when we upgraded the technology of the dashboards about a year ago.

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I see. Thanks, Daniel.

Im trying to figure out a way to calculate % of topics where at least 3 or more users participated in the discussion. Can you think of any way to calculate that @daniel.boon ?

 

Userlevel 4
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Hey @Gabolino - one way you could do that is with a posts export.  If you create a pivot table with a column for the topic titles, you can then set the values as ‘countunique’ of ‘post_creator’ (I’m using Google Sheets language here).  This gives you a nice list already, and from there it’s easy to grab the ones that are >3 and get your percentage. :)

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Can I get some clarification around what “previous period” is? Does that change on the backend depending on what dates you put? For example, if I put Sunday-Saturday for this week as my dates, is the % vs. previous period for the Sunday-Saturday prior? 

I did some spot checking if the math worked out and it doesn’t look like it does, so just hoping to better define what “previous period” actually means here. 

Userlevel 5
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@Gainsight CC Team FYI the Audience dashboard section needs updated documentation following this product update: 

 

Also, from my experience… the dashboard does not filter out all bots. We’ve been having a bot scan us weekly since moving to a public setting, skewing that day’s guest visitor numbers by >900 each time and with no way to block or remove it from our metrics. (The bot is ignoring the robots.txt file)

re: 

Our pageview/visitor metrics are filtered for bots. We see that when compared to tools such as Google Analytics, our metrics have a definitive correlation, although they typically report higher numbers. This difference can be attributed to the fact that a subset of users block Google Analytics using privacy-enhancing/ad-blocking browser extensions.

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