Summary: Use this FAQ to choose the right Vanilla analytics report, data source, or admin tool for common reporting questions. Some questions are answered in Analytics, while others are better answered by Audit Logger, user exports, or external infrastructure tools.
Before You Begin
Vanilla Analytics uses different data sources for different kinds of activity. When building custom dashboard charts, choose the data source that matches the activity you want to measure, then use filters and grouping options to narrow the result.
Some admin and security events are not Analytics reports. For those, use Audit Logger, which tracks user and admin activity and stores the last 30 days of activity for non-Enterprise customers and 60 days for Enterprise customers.
Which Report Should I Use?
Reporting question | Best place to look | How to build or find it | Notes |
|---|
Who signed in recently? | Audit Logger | Go to Dashboard > Settings > Technical > Audit Log, then filter by user, action, or date. | Audit Logger tracks user sign-ins and failed sign-ins. It is best for recent login-event investigation, not long-term login trend reporting. |
Why did a user fail to sign in? | Audit Logger | Filter Audit Logger for sign-in failures. | Failed sign-in details can include reasons such as invalid password, user not found, banned user, or missing Sign In permission. |
How many users visited the community? | Vanilla Analytics | Create a custom chart using the Page Views data source. | Page Views can report traffic metrics such as unique visits, sessions, and active logged-in users. |
How many visits did a specific user have? | Vanilla Analytics | From a specific User Card, select “Check Analytics Data” from the ellipsis in the top right corner. This will give you the analytics for that user. | Visits are directional rather than exact. Vanilla describes visits as a “fuzzy statistic” because activity cannot be measured perfectly from device behavior. |
Which users are active? | Vanilla Analytics | Use active logged-in users, sessions, or user-based grouping. | This is useful for engagement reporting, but anonymization settings may affect whether activity can be tied to individual usernames or user IDs. |
How many users joined or left Groups? | Vanilla Analytics | Create a custom chart using the Group data source and filter by userJoin or userLeave. | The Group data source tracks when groups are added, updated, deleted, and when users join or leave groups. |
How do I report on Group growth over time? | Vanilla Analytics | Group data source plus periodic exports if needed. Use Group activity events for joins/leaves over time. | Group activity shows events. If you need month-end membership totals, take recurring exports or snapshots so you can compare point-in-time counts. |
How many users registered? | Vanilla Analytics | Use the relevant user/registration chart or export available in your Analytics setup. | For individual account creation events, Audit Logger can show user registration and admin-created users. |
How many users signed in with SSO vs direct login? | Audit Logger for investigation; SSO/provider data for long-term breakdowns | Use Audit Logger to inspect recent SSO connection/debug events. Use your identity provider for authoritative long-term authentication reporting. | Audit Logger records SSO debug information when users connect over SSO, but it is not a full long-term authentication analytics warehouse. |
Can I report on failed SSO attempts? | Audit Logger / identity provider logs | Check Audit Logger for recent SSO-related debug details and compare with your IdP logs. | For deeper SSO failure analysis, your identity provider logs are often the source of truth. |
How do I report on traffic from campaigns? | Vanilla Analytics | Add UTM parameters to links, then group or filter Page Views by referrer or UTM values. | Referrer and UTM data are available for Page Views reports. |
How many users followed or unfollowed categories or tags? | Vanilla Analytics | Create a chart using the Subscriptions data source. | Subscription-related events are logged in Analytics and can be broken down into more granular subscription details. |
Can I report on server throughput, bandwidth, response time, or hosting infrastructure? | Not in Vanilla Analytics | Use your hosting, CDN, infrastructure monitoring, or observability tooling. | Vanilla Analytics focuses on community activity and engagement. Infrastructure metrics are not standard Vanilla Analytics reports. |
Can I use gdn_session as a historical login report? | No; use Audit Logger or Analytics instead | Use Audit Logger for recent sign-in events and Analytics for engagement reporting. | Session data is not a reliable long-term login ledger for business reporting. |
Common Recommendations
Use Audit Logger when the question is about a specific recent user/admin/security event, such as sign-ins, failed sign-ins, role changes, access denied events, spoofing, or configuration changes.
Use Page Views when the question is about traffic, visits, sessions, active users, user-level visit activity, referrers, or UTM campaign performance.
Use Group when the question is about group activity, including group creation, updates, deletion, joins, and leaves.
Use Subscriptions when the question is about follow/unfollow activity and subscription-related events.
Use external tools when the question is about infrastructure, throughput, bandwidth, uptime, server response timing, CDN behavior, or identity-provider authentication logs.
Troubleshooting
If you see this | Check this |
|---|
A user appears missing from activity reports | Analytics anonymization may prevent activity from being tied to username or user ID. |
Login data does not go back far enough | Audit Logger retains 30 to 60 days, depending on plan. |
Group totals do not match expected membership totals | Group activity reports show events; use periodic exports for point-in-time membership totals. |
SSO data is incomplete | Compare Vanilla Audit Logger with your identity provider logs. |
Traffic source is missing | Confirm that UTM parameters were added to the link before users clicked it. |