š NOTE: It is assumed you know how to create custom Dashboards and Charts, and have an understanding of chart Types, Presets, and Metrics. If not,Ā read this articleĀ before proceeding.
When building your own Dashboard Charts, you can pull data from variousĀ data sourcesĀ to view different types of analytics events.
In this article, we're going to focus on theĀ Posts data source, which allows you to see:
- How many new posts were added to your community
- How many users are contributing content
- This includes new discussions, comments added, ideas posted, questions asked, and answers provided
Use the filters and grouping options to refine these posting trends.
Overview
An event is logged in Analytics for each post contributed, and for each event you can see:
- Information about the discussion:
- Category ID
- Category Name
- Country
- Country Code
- Discussion Comment Count
- Date Added
- Discussion ID
- Discussion Type
- Discussion Name
- First Comment?
- Time
- Type
- Information about the discussion author:
- Discussion Author Name
- Discussion Author ID
- Discussion Author Rank Name
- Discussion Author Role Type
- Discussion Author Role Name
- Discussion Author Role ID
- Information about the user who posted:
- User Name
- User Rank Name
- User Role Type
- User Role Name
- User Role ID
- User Session ID
- User ID
- User UUID
Examples
- Filter or group data by Category Name or Category ID to see how many posts were added to which categories.
- Filter data to a Discussion Name or Discussion ID to see how many users are participating in a discussion and how many comments were added.
- Filter or group data by Discussion Type to look at how many discussions, questions, ideas, and polls were added.
- Filter or group data by Continent or Country to see where contributors are located.
- Filter of group data by User Role Type to understand how many posts are being added by community managers and admins versus community members.
Filter Chart data
Controlling what data is shown in a Chart is accomplished via theĀ Group ByĀ andĀ FilterĀ options. Each of the available options is listed in the Overview section above, and each can be used as a grouping option and filter.
- TheĀ Group ByĀ options (available for pie graphs, line graphs, bar graphs, and tables) enable you to view specific discussion, author, and user data.
- You can addĀ FiltersĀ to your query toĀ drill intoĀ orĀ excludeĀ specific details of this data.
āļøĀ TIP: You can add one or multiple Group By and Filter options to dissect the data how you see fit. Generally speaking, you'll select Group By options to view a specific slice of data, and, if needed, use Filters to dig deeper.
Let's learn about each of the available Group By and Filter options.
šĀ NOTE: These options can be used both to group and filter data.
Discussion data
You can group and/or filterĀ Discussion dataĀ based on the following event parameters:
- Category ID: The ID of the category posted to.
- Category Name: The name of the category posted to.
- Country: The country of the user who posted.
- Country Code: The country code of the user who posted.
- Discussion Comment Count: The number of comments (replies) by discussion.
- Date Added: The number of discussions added over time.
- Discussion ID: The ID of the discussion posted to.
- Discussion Type: The type of discussion that was started (Discussion, Idea, Question, Poll).
- Discussion Name: The name of the discussion added or posted to.
- First Comment?: Indicates whether the post is the first comment in a discussion, idea, or question (true or false).
- Time: The number of discussions added over time.
- Type: The type of post (discussion or comment)
Discussion author data
You can group and/or filterĀ author dataĀ based on the following event parameters:
- Discussion Author Name: The name of the user who authored the discussion.
- Discussion Author ID: The ID of the user who authored the discussion.
- Discussion Author Rank Name: The Rank assigned to the author of the discussion.
- Discussion Author Role Type: The Role type assigned to the author of the discussion.
- Discussion Author Role Name: The name of the Role assigned to the author of the discussion.
- Discussion Author Role ID: The ID of the Role assigned to the user who authored the discussion.
Posting user data
You can group and/or filterĀ user dataĀ based on the following event parameters:
- User Name: The name of the user who posted.
- User Rank Name: The Rank name of the user who posted.
- User Role Type: The Role type of the user who posted (e.g., Admin, Member, Guest).
- User Role Name: The name of the Role assigned to the user who posted.
- User Role ID: The ID of the Role assigned to the user who posted.
- User Session ID: The Session ID of the Role assigned to the user who posted.
- User ID: The ID of the user who posted.
- User UUID: The UUID of the user who posted.
