Explore recipe: Help center article views within 30 days of creation

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 and bookmarks that help you quickly focus on the information you’re interested in.

Tip: For another helpful recipe on article views, see Explore recipe: Reporting on article views for all languages.

This article contains the following topics:

• What you’ll need
• Creating the standard calculated metric
• Creating the queries
• Creating the dashboard

Note: The Knowledge Base dataset in Explore launched on January 18, 2021. Data from before that date is not available in Explore.

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 queries in this recipe make use of a standard calculated metric that returns the number of views that occurred within the first 30 days after an article was created. This information is useful 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 just be reporting on total article views instead.

To create the standard calculated metric

1. In Explore, click the query () icon.
2. In the Queries library, click New query.
3. On the Choose a dataset page, click Guide > Knowledge Base > Guide: Knowledge Base, then click New query. Query builder opens.
4. Click the Calculations () menu > Standard calculated metric.
5. Name this metric Days between creation and view.
6. In the Formula field, enter the following:
   

   DATE_DIFF([Views - Date],[Article created - Date],"nb_of_days")

   Tip: If you're working in a language other than English, read this article to help you enter Explore formulas in your language.
7. Click Save.
8. Click the Calculations () menu > Standard calculated metric.
9. Name this metric Views within 30 days of creation.
10. In the Formula field, enter the following:
    

    IF (VALUE(Days between creation and view) <= 30) THEN
    SUM(Views)
    ENDIF

11. Click Save.

Creating the queries

This recipe covers the following example queries:

• Summary of views by article
• Views by article over time
• Monthly views for all articles
• Views by article
•  

Summary of views by article

This query 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 query

If you created the metric above and are already in Query builder, skip to step 4.

1. In Explore, click the query () icon.
2. In the Queries library, click New query.
3. On the Choose a dataset page, click Guide > Knowledge Base > Guide: Knowledge Base, then click New query. Query builder opens.
4. In the Metrics panel:
   1. Click Add > Article views > Views, using the SUM aggregator.
   2. Click Add > Calculated metrics > Views within 30 days of creation, using the COUNT aggregator.
5. In the Rows panel:
   1. Click Add > Articles > Article ID.
   2. Click Add > Articles > Article Title.
   3. Click Add > Time - Article created > Article created - Date.
6. Click the Result manipulation () menu > Result metric calculation > Add a new metric.
7. Name the metric % of views within 30 days.
8. In the Formula field, enter the following:
   

   COUNT(Views within 30 days of creation)/SUM(Views)

9. Click Add.
10. Name your query Summary of views by article.
11. Click Save.

Note: If you want to see your articles in chronological order, with the most recently created articles appearing first, click the Result manipulation () menu > Sort and choose Z-A. This works only if you include Article ID as the first of your attributes.

Views by article over time

This query 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 query

1. In Explore, click the query () icon.
2. In the Queries library, click New query.
3. On the Choose a dataset page, click Guide > Knowledge Base > Guide: Knowledge Base, then click New query. Query builder opens.
4. In the Metrics panel:
   1. Click Add > Article views > Views, using the SUM aggregator.
   2. Click Add > Calculated metrics > Views within 30 days of creation, using the COUNT aggregator.
5. In the Columns panel:
   1. Click Add > Time - Article views recorded > Views - Year.
   2. Click Add > Time - Article views recorded > Views - Month.
6. In the Rows panel:
   1. Click Add > Articles > Article ID.
   2. Click Add > Articles > Article Title.
7. Name your query Views by article over time.
8. 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 query 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 query

1. In Explore, click the query () icon.
2. In the Queries library, click New query.
3. On the Choose a dataset page, click Guide > Knowledge Base > Guide: Knowledge Base, then click New query. Query builder opens.
4. In the Metrics panel:
   1. Click Add > Article views > Views, using the SUM aggregator.
   2. Click Add > Calculated metrics > Views within 30 days of creation, using the COUNT aggregator.
5. In the Columns panel:
   1. Click Add > Time - Article views recorded > Views - Year.
   2. Click Add > Time - Article views recorded > Views - Month.
6. Name your query Monthly views for all articles.
7. Click Save.

Views by article

This query 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 query

1. In Explore, click the query () icon.
2. In the Queries library, click New query.
3. On the Choose a dataset page, click Guide > Knowledge Base > Guide: Knowledge Base, then click New query. Query builder opens.
4. In the Metrics panel:
   1. Click Add > Article views > Views, using the SUM aggregator.
   2. Click Add > Calculated metrics > Views within 30 days of creation, using the COUNT aggregator.
5. In the Columns panel:
   1. Click Add > Articles > Article ID.
   2. Click Add > Articles > Article Title.
6. Name your query Views by article.
7. Click Save.

Creating the dashboard

Now that you’ve created your individual queries, you’ll create a dashboard where you can see all of the queries 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

1. In Explore, click the dashboard () icon.
2. In the Dashboards library, click New dashboard.
3. Click Add > Add query.
4. Find and select the four queries you created earlier:
   • Summary of views by article
   • Views by article over time
   • Monthly views for all articles
   • Views by article
5. Click Add queries.
6. Reposition the queries so that they’re arranged how you want them on the dashboard. For help, see Adding and arranging dashboard widgets.
7.  

To add dashboard filters

1. With your dashboard still open, click Add > Add data filter.
2. 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
   • Views locale
   • Article created date
3. Click Apply.
4. Reposition the filters so that they’re arranged how you want them on the dashboard. For help, see Adding and arranging dashboard widgets.
5.  

To add bookmarks

1. With your dashboard still open, apply the filters you just added so that the dashboard’s results are focused on a particular subset of the data that you’re interested in. For example, you might want to see only articles in a specific section, or only views that originated from a certain locale.
2. With your filters applied, click Add > Add bookmark.
3. Click Create bookmark from current state.
4. Rename the bookmark to something descriptive.
5. Click Close.
6.  

Tip: You can add as many bookmarks as you’d like. To do this, update your dashboard filters, click Edit on the bookmark widget you already added, and create a new bookmark from your current selection. For help, see Working with dashboard bookmarks. 

To publish and share the dashboard

1. With your dashboard still open, give it a descriptive name.
2. Click Publish.
3. Share your dashboard with others as needed. For help, see Sharing dashboards.
4.