In this Explore recipe, you’ll learn how to create several different reports on article views in your knowledge base, including views within 30 days of article creation. You’ll also learn how to create a dashboard with filters that help you quickly focus on the information you’re interested in.
This article contains the following topics:
- What you’ll need
- Creating the standard calculated metric
- Creating the reports
- Creating the dashboard
What you’ll need
Skill level: Moderate
Time required: 30 minutes
- Zendesk Explore Professional or Enterprise
- Editor or Admin permissions (see Giving agents access to Explore)
- Article data in Zendesk Guide
Creating the standard calculated metric
The reports in this recipe use a standard calculated metric that returns the number of views within the first 30 days after an article was created. This information is helpful if you have articles that are most relevant immediately after publication, like announcements or product release notes.
You can still follow this recipe without creating the standard calculated metric. In that case, you’ll report on total article views instead.
To create the standard calculated metric
-
In Explore, click the reports (
) icon.
- In the Reports library, click New report.
- On the Select a dataset page, click Guide > Guide - Knowledge Base, then click Start report. The report builder opens.
-
Click the Calculations (
) menu > Standard calculated metric.
- Name this metric Days between creation and view.
- Click Save.
-
Click the Calculations (
) menu > Standard calculated metric.
- Name this metric Views within 30 days of creation.
-
In the Formula field, enter the following:
IF DATE_DIFF([Engagement - Date],[Article created - Date],"nb_of_days") <= 30 THEN VALUE(Article views) ENDIF
Tip: If you're working in a language other than English, read this article to help you enter Explore formulas in your language. - Click Save.
Creating the reports
This recipe covers the following example reports:
- Summary of views by article
- Views by article over time
- Monthly views for all articles
- Views by article
Summary of views by article
This report is a table that lists the articles in your help center, how many views each article has, and how many of those views happened within 30 days of the article’s creation.
To create the report
If you created the metric above and are already in the report builder, skip to step 4.
-
In Explore, click the reports (
) icon.
- In the Reports library, click New report.
- On the Select a dataset page, click Guide > Guide - Knowledge Base, then click Start report. The report builder opens.
-
In the Metrics panel, click Add and select:
- Knowledge base engagement > Article views, using the SUM aggregator
- Calculated metrics > Views within 30 days of creation, using the COUNT aggregator
-
In the Rows panel, click Add and select:
- Articles > Article ID
- Articles > Article title
- Time - Article created > Article created - Date
-
Click the Result manipulation (
) menu > Result metric calculation > Add a new metric.
- Name the metric % of views within 30 days.
-
In the Formula field, enter the following:
COUNT(Views within 30 days of creation)/SUM(Article views)
- Click Add.
- Name your report Summary of views by article.
- Click Save.
![](https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/Explore_result_manipulation.png)
Views by article over time
This report is a line graph that shows, for a selected article, how many views the article received each month (light blue), and how many of those views happened within 30 days of article creation (dark blue).
To create the report
-
In Explore, click the reports (
) icon.
- In the Reports library, click New report.
- On the Select a dataset page, click Guide > Guide - Knowledge Base, then click Start report. The report builder opens.
-
In the Metrics panel, click Add and select the following:
- Knowledge base engagement > Article views, using the SUM aggregator
- Calculated metrics > Views within 30 days of creation, using the COUNT aggregator
-
In the Columns panel, click Add and select:
- Time - Article engagement recorded > Engagement - Year
- Time - Article engagement recorded > Engagement - Month
- In the Rows panel, click Add and select:
- Articles > Article ID
- Articles > Article title
- Name your report Views by article over time.
- Click Save.
To see results for an article, click an article ID to the left of the line graph and then click the corresponding article title (it will be the only one in black text) beneath it.
Monthly views for all articles
This report is a column chart that shows how many views all of the articles put together in your help center received each month (light blue), and how many of those views happened within 30 days of article creation (dark blue).
To create the report
-
In Explore, click the reports (
) icon.
- In the Reports library, click New report.
- On the Select a dataset page, click Guide > Guide - Knowledge Base, then click Start report. The report builder opens.
-
In the Metrics panel, click Add and select:
- Knowledge base engagement > Article views, using the SUM aggregator
- Calculated metrics > Views within 30 days of creation, using the COUNT aggregator
-
In the Columns panel, click Add and select:
- Time - Article engagement recorded > Engagement - Year
- Time - Article engagement recorded > Engagement - Month
- Name your report Monthly views for all articles.
- Click Save.
Views by article
This report is another column chart that shows how many total views each individual article in your help center received (light blue), and how many of those views happened within 30 days of article creation (dark blue).
To create the report
-
In Explore, click the reports (
) icon.
- In the Reports library, click New report.
- On the Select a dataset page, click Guide > Guide - Knowledge Base, then click Start report. The report builder opens.
-
In the Metrics panel, click Add and select:
- Knowledge base engagement > Article views, using the SUM aggregator
- Calculated metrics > Views within 30 days of creation, using the COUNT aggregator
-
In the Columns panel, click Add and select:
- Articles > Article ID
- Articles > Article title
- Name your report Views by article.
- Click Save.
Creating the dashboard
Now that you’ve created your individual reports, you’ll create a dashboard where you can see all of the reports in this recipe together. Then you’ll add dashboard filters and bookmarks that let you quickly hone in on specific segments of your results. Finally, you’ll publish your dashboard and share it with others.
To create the dashboard
-
In Explore, click the dashboard (
) icon.
- In the Dashboards library, click Create dashboard.
- On the Start a dashboard page, select Blank dashboard, then click Select.
- In the blank dashboard that opens, click + > Report.
-
Find and select the four reports you created earlier:
- Summary of views by article
- Views by article over time
- Monthly views for all articles
-
Views by article
The reports are added to the dashboard.
- Reposition the reports so they’re arranged how you want them on the dashboard. For help, see Adding and arranging dashboard components.
To add dashboard filters
- With your dashboard still open, click + > Data filter.
-
Find and select the attributes you want to be able to filter the dashboard’s results by. Some recommendations are:
- Article section ID
- Article locale
- Engagement locale
- Article created - Date
- Reposition the filters so they’re arranged how you want them on the dashboard. For help, see Adding and arranging dashboard components.
To publish and share the dashboard
- With your dashboard still open, give it a descriptive name.
- Click Publish changes.
- Share your dashboard with others as needed. For help, see Sharing dashboards.
15 comments
Anjie Nambiar
Hi I tried creating the metric Views within 30 days of creation but received an error.![](/hc/user_images/d_iIlZD_oD8jWh1oqycs6A.png)
0
Erin O'Callaghan
Hi Anjie Nambiar, that error message (The set of calculations isn't valid) typically means that you need to be in a different dataset for the metric you're building to work. Can you check to make sure you're in the Guide: Knowledge Base dataset?
0
Anjie Nambiar
Hi Erin, yes I am. The metric 'Days between creating & view' works but not the 'Views within 30 days of creation'.![](/hc/user_images/QW3byvNt3Pcz2aYGPWM6mw.png)
0
Dane
As I can see you are indeed using the correct dataset. I would like to look into this further and I'll create a ticket for you. Let's continue our conversation there.
Cheers,
Dane
0
Ryan Oakman
Hi Erin,
Thanks for sharing this—it's very helpful.
I'm wondering if the reverse is possible, too: Articles that haven't been viewed within X time of creation?
0
Erin O'Callaghan
Hi Ryan Oakman, I'm glad these reports are helpful! Your question raises an excellent point—how to find articles with no views. So I put together a new recipe, Finding articles with no views, that addresses this.
But to answer your question more specifically, to find articles that haven't been viewed within X time of creation, follow the instructions in the recipe linked above, but instead of using the Views computed separately calculated metric from that recipe, use the Views within 30 days of creation calculated metric from this recipe (and also make sure to select the Compute separately check box). That should show you exactly the articles you're looking for!
0
Camila
Hey,
I have different help centers, when creating the reports I couldn't find a way to filter per help center, is there any way I can do that?
Thanks!
0
Brett Bowser
I was taking a look at our Metrics and attributes for Guide article and it looks like you should be able to use the Article Brand attribute to filter by Help Center brand. Let me know if this isn't what you're looking for.
Thanks!
0
Sylvain Buttazzoni
Hi,
For the this part Creating the standard calculated metric, Here are some corrections:
Does not work:
Work :
Does not work:
Work:
0
Mark Glinski
Sylvain, Erin, these corrections are helpful. Can you updated the article with them?
0
Erin O'Callaghan
Yes, absolutely! Thank you for the comments, Sylvain Buttazzoni and Mark Glinski! I've updated the formulas and a few other places throughout this recipe to reflect the current metric and attribute names.
0
Mark Glinski
Cool, Erin! The recipe works great. I love this use-case-based guidance for Explore. Really clarifies how to use it and also suggests possibilities for variations. Props!
1
Scott Wallace
I've been trying to recreate this report as we're posting new articles at the moment on the back of platform improvements we're rolling out and this information would be useful. Unfortunately, I'm unable to create the second metric as I get an error message appear (see below). Has something changed or am I doing something fundamentally wrong?
![](/hc/user_images/X45lg7_oB_vdmER78WD0xw.jpeg)
0
Suelem Oliveira
I have replied to your Support ticket about this. Let's keep the conversation in the ticket so I can help you further with the report!
0
Carlee Peszko
Im looking for a way to report on article views by month by article but want to include views for articles that existed in the past but not in the current month. I can't seem to find a way to do this. Example: In January we had 30 articles and in Feb we only had 20 (10 were unpublished). If I run the report in March, I'd like the January numbers to show those 10 articles, including views that no longer exist.
0