Question

What does last activity represent in user exports?

  • 30 August 2021
  • 8 replies
  • 66 views
ddpancratz
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

In a user export, I’d like to confirm what last_activity represents. I’m assuming it’s a user event like: 

  • create a topic
  • create a reply/comment
  • Like 
  • Upvote

Is that correct? Is there a clear definition somewhere? 

8 replies

Jeanie Lee
Userlevel 5
Badge +1

You are correct. Last activity includes everything from creation, comment/reply, like, and upvote. 

ddpancratz
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

@Jeanie Lee does it include last visit as well? 

Jeanie Lee
Userlevel 5
Badge +1

@ddpancratz 

Last activity only tracks the actions listed above. :slight_smile:  There is a separate column in the export that tracks last visit: 

 

ddpancratz
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

Thanks, @Jeanie Lee. 

Are you sure last_visit isn’t actually last login? The answer to this previous question seems to suggest otherwise. 

 

And that’s in line with what I’m seeing: a lot of empty last_visit columns in our data export (we just launched 10 days ago and many are still on their first login, which doesn’t register in the last_login column), but a last_activity date/time that’s more recent.

Here’s an example: 


So based on @Shane’s answer to the above question, I’m thinking that last_activity also includes last visit. 

ddpancratz
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

@Jeanie Lee along the lines of my last comment, the discrepancies in the data labels from User Overview (Control > Users > User Overview) and the User Data Export is causing a lot of confusion for our team. 

In User Overview, the terms used are Registration Date and Last Login. 

In the User Data Export, those terms do not exist, but join_dates (why plural?) and last_visit seem like they’re probably the same thing. And then we add last_activity which I’m trying to get a clear picture of. 

Jeanie Lee
Userlevel 5
Badge +1

Hi @ddpancratz,

I could see how my answer above did not include all information and can be confusing. Indeed, “last visit” is actually “last login”, which can remain blank because a user would have to be logged out in order to log back in and have their login tracked. Our platform does not actually track an actual “last visited” date, so if the user has remained logged in and not interacted with any posts, you could not accurately track them, if they’re only lurking. 

A good way to understand how many users are returning to your community on a monthly basis would be by using Google Analytics. There is a tracker for “monthly returning users” that will track the user’s IP address. However, you would not understand exactly which users are returning, just the number of how many are. 

I agree that there are discrepancies in the export feature, and I would love to see improvements. I’ve noticed a lot of unrelated, great ideas for our export feature. Since the ideas a broken down into many smaller ideas, I feel like the topics have not received enough attention. 

I feel like this is a great conversation to have in our next internal meeting (combining many smaller ideas into a larger project to improve exports), so I appreciate your feedback here. 

Daniele
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

Hi there, we always understood “last_activity” the last moment in which we could record any activity, even just a pageview, while being logged in.

For practical purposes, we consider the field “last_activity” like a “last login” 

(“Last Login” not in terms of the act of logging in but the act of browsing the community while being logged in. It also does not necessarily signify an activity like liking, posting, commenting.)

 

ddpancratz
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

@Daniele My understanding is that it’s very close to what you assume. The documentation I referenced above was outdated at the time (not sure if they’ve fixed). 

I don’t know if it counts every single page view, but I believe it’s the last activity “event” registered for the Salesforce integration (which tracks and record each new “Visit” that’s more than 30 minutes since the previous one).  

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings