About Aurora Analytics
To have a successful community, you need to know what’s working and what needs improvement. Aurora provides a robust set of analytics so you can get actionable insights to drive traffic and member engagement. You can determine what kinds of content needs improvement, what your members steer away from, and what they want more of from your community. These metrics help you learn where your members come from, what type of content they engage with, and where to focus on to reach new people. Having clear data enables you to plan towards community goals and make informed decisions to change course when things aren’t working. Aurora Analytics provides visual dashboards and interactive reports to provide you with high-level and detailed data on how your community is performing. Note: Currently, users can see the metrics up to the previous day in Aurora Analytics.. Data is reported in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Accessing Aurora Analytics To access Aurora Analytics, open your Account menu and click Analytics. Note: Members must have anAdmin or Analytics role to access Aurora Analytics From the Analytics page, you can access Dashboardand Reports. The Dashboardprovides you with an “at-a-glance” view of the activities that best indicate the overall health of your community and member engagement across your community. You can customize Dashboard settings to your requirements and get the most out of your data analysis. Reports present you with key metrics on content, boards, categories, and members in a tabular format. Related topics: Accessing Analytics Dashboard Dashboard Settings Aurora Analytics Metric Definitions Aurora Analytics Reports Refer to the Khoros Communities Analytics Essentials course for training on Communities Analytics.Aurora: Getting started as a Community Analyst
Welcome to Aurora! This introduction guides you through the most commonly used features specific to various tasks you can perform as a community analyst, linking each of them to articles on how you can use the Aurora Analytics to achieve these tasks. Measuring the data, tracking your success, and using it to prove how your community is advancing the organization’s broader initiatives will give your community a strong strategic footing. Your primary task as a Community Analyst is to prove your online community’s engagement and value with strong data. Before you begin You need to work with theCommunity Managersto have a thorough understanding of your community requirements: What are your organization’s goals? What are your team’s goals? What are your community’s goals? Once you have answered these questions, you come up with the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure against these goals. KPIs represent how your community is performing against strategic goals. So, the KPIs must be relevant to the business and community goals. Choose only those few KPIs that will help move your business forward. For example, the KPIs to increase revenue or increase retention or increase loyalty, and so on. You track and measure these KPIs with benchmarks for each at launch, six months later, nine months after, one year, and so on. Tracking KPIs in this fashion helps you make changes, as necessary, to meet your company’s vision. While KPIs represent how you’re performing against strategic goals, metrics are your “business as usual” measures that still add value to your organization but aren’t the critical measure you need to achieve. Every KPI is a metric, but not every metric is a KPI. Example:Let's say Increase inCustomer Engagementis one of the identified KPIs. To measure this, you need various metrics, likeMonthly Active Users (MUA) that tracks the number of unique users who visit your community over some period of time andDaily Active Users (DAU)that tracks the total number of people who open and engage with your community in a given day.The DAU to MAU ratio is a useful metric to measure the stickiness of your community. Also, if you see that MUA has dropped since last month, you have something to investigate. Whatever is your goal in hand for business or for the organization, you’ll need to figure out a way in advance how you plan to calculate where you are standing now and how you will achieve the goal. Khoros Community Analytics helps you measure and improve the performance of your community by gaining insights into your community's health. Through a unique combination of performance metrics and web analytics, we offer the deepest insights into customer engagement across your community. Khoros Community Analytics The Khoros Community Analytics dashboard collects data and displaysmetricsfor your community. Note:You must have theAccess Reports in Community Analyticspermission to access the Khoros Community Analytics dashboard. Getting Started Getting around Khoros Community Analyticsto familiarize yourself with each section on the dashboard Enable and access Community Analytics on how to use the dashboard Accessing, downloading and scheduling different reports to understDownloadand the different community metrics you can view Community Analytics metric definitions Viewing data for specific dates Apply filters to Community Analytics reports Schedule Community Analytics reports to be emailed to you Manage scheduled reports Download or schedule member-related reports Engagement drilldown data for different content types Ideas specific reports Khoros Academy Khoros Communities Analytics Essentials courseAurora Analytics Metric Definitions
This article provides definitions for all the metrics available in Aurora Analytics. Aurora Analytics approximates user behavior and therefore these metrics exclude almost all nonhuman requests (Web crawlers, robots, RSS feeds, REST API calls). About how Community visit metrics are calculated When viewing visits metrics, you might see small variants in the reported numbers. This is expected when you compare visits metric for a period within a month versus a sum of months in that period. The main reasons for these differences include: Overlapping visits across months "Visits" are defined as the number of unique user sessions. A session is defined as a group of interactions one user takes within a given time frame. Sessions time out in the case of 30-minute inactivity. Assume someone browsed through a community during the last hour of a month (Month-1) and continued browsing through the first hour of next month (Month-2). In this scenario: When we measure visits for Month 1, this session is counted as 1 visit. When we measure visits for Month 2, this session is counted as 1 visit. So, when you sum up visits for Month 1 and Month 2, you see 2 total visits, whereas, if you measure visits over the 2-month period, this session is counted as a single visit. Algorithm approximation "Visits" and "visitors" metrics are an approximation algorithm in their calculations. As such, there might be a 1-2% variance in the calculations. Elastic search documentation mentions that sometimes the variance could be up to 6%. Aurora Analytics metrics and definitions Widget/Metrics Definition Page Views A page view is counted each time a browser requests a page regardless of the device type or whether the page is cached. Page Views approximate user behavior and therefore exclude non-human requests (web crawlers, bots, RSS feeds, REST API calls). Page Views (Trend graph) Page Views trend graph is a line graph that shows how the Page Views are trending for the selected time frame. Visits A visit is one or more page views over time by a uniquely identified visitor. A cookie set in the browser identifies visitors (anonymous or registered), so if a visitor has cookies turned off, each page view counts as a new visit. The visit counter increments as soon as the visitor views any community page; the visit ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. After the 30-minute timeout, the next page view counts as a new visit. The Mobile Visits metric is a subset of the Visits metric and includes requests from mobile web browsers only. Unique Visitors The number of unique visitors over the specified time interval. When a visitor (registered or anonymous) views a page, the application looks for a visitor cookie. If no cookie is found, a new cookie is created, and the visitor counts as a new unique visitor. If a visitor cookie is found, the Unique Visitor counter is not incremented. If cookies are cleared after a visit, the next visit sets a new cookie and counts a new unique visitor. Since cookies are browser dependent, so are unique visitors. Users who access the community from different browsers count as a unique visitor. The Mobile Unique Visitors metric is a subset of the Unique Visitors metric and includes visitors who used mobile web browsers only over the specified time interval. Page Views /Visit The average number of Page Views per Visit for the time frame selected. Visits vs. Unique Visitors The trend of the number of visits to the community site against the number of unique visitors for the selected time frame. Visits by User Type The number of visits made by anonymous users and signed-in users. Anonymous users also refer to community members who have not logged in. Learn more about Visits by User Type. Visit Referrals The number of community visits that originated from specific URL domains. This metric helps you understand how much traffic is coming in from different search engines, social networks, or links on your company website. Completed Registrations The number of member registrations completed during the selected time period (excludes partial/abandoned registrations). A registration is considered complete when the visitor finishes the sign-up flow and is given a unique user ID. If the visitor leaves the sign-up flow before being granted their unique user ID, the registration is considered to be abandoned, and the completed registration counter is not incremented. If the community uses Single Sign On (SSO), Khoros increments the completed registration count the first time it receives an authentication token that contains a unique User ID. Partial Registrations The number of user registrations abandoned during the selected time period. Completed and Partial Registrations The line graph shows how the completed and partial registrations are trending over the selected time frame. DAU/MAU DAU (Daily Active Users) is the number of unique members who engage with the community in a one-day window. MAU (Monthly Active Users) is the number of unique members who engage with the community over a month or 30-day window. The ratio of DAU to MAU is the proportion of monthly active members who engage with the community in a single day window. Member Time on Site The Member Time metric indicates the total number of minutes from first page request to last page request for each visit of all registered members in your community during the date range of the report. Member time does not capture the time of actions, such as likes, unless the member requests a new page after the action. Nor does it include the last 30 minutes after the last page request before the session times out. Member time is calculated from the time of the first page request, such that a session that started at 11:50pm on day 1 and ending at 12:15am on day 2 is counted as member time for day 1. New vs. Returning Members New members are members who have never visited the community and are visiting for the first time. Returning members are members who have visited the community before. This line graph shows the trend of new and returning members over the selected time frame. Note that this widget will show data for the last 30 days only, irrespective of the selected date range. Depending on the time range you choose in the dashboard settings, you may get partial data or no data. New vs. Returning Anonymous Users When a user views the community without signing in, the community looks for cookies saved on their device. If there is no cookie present, then the user is treated as a New Anonymous User. If cookies are present, then the user is treated as a Returning Anonymous User. Since members can also view the community without signing in, they are also considered Anonymous. Note that this widget will show data for the last 30 days only, irrespective of the selected date range. Depending on the time range you choose in the dashboard settings, you may get partial data or no data. Forum This widget shows the engagement on the selected Place for the date range selected. Shows the number and trend line of the number of discussions created, number of likes received, number of replies for the time frame and selected Place. Click View Detailsfor further insights. Blog This widget shows the engagement on the selected Blog for the date range selected. Shows the number and trend line of the number of posts created, number of likes received, and the number of comments for the time frame and selected Place. Click View Detailsfor further insights. Knowledge Base This widget shows the engagement on the selected Knowledge Base for the date range selected. Shows the number and trend line of the number of articles created, number of likes received, and the number of comments for the time frame and selected Place. Click View Details for further insights. Places - Follows The total number of followers for the selected Place. Topics - Follows The total number of followers for the selected Content. Observing vs. Participating vs. Contributing This widget shows the engagement between members who are observing, participating and contributing in the community for the place and time frame selected. Observing members are those who have signed into the community and their engagement is limited only to viewing the contents. Participating members are those who reply or like posts in the community. Contributing members are those who create content or provide solutions in the community. Private Messages This widget shows the number of private messages sent, its trend line and the messages per conversation in the community for the time frame selected. Messages sent The number of private messages sent from the inbox by all the community members during the selected time frame. Messages sent (trend graph) The trend line graph showing the number of private messages sent from the inbox by all the community members during the selected time period. Discussions The number of Discussions in the selected Place during the selected time frame. Likes The number of likes received for the Discussions and replies in the selected Place during the selected time frame. Replies The number of replies received for the Discussions in the selected Place during the selected time frame. Engagement Shows the trend line for number of Discussions, likes, and replies in the Place during the selected time period in Forums Details. Shows the trend line for number of Blog posts, likes, and comments in the Place during the selected time period in Blogs Details. Shows the trend line for number of articles, likes, and replies in the Place during the selected time period in Knowledge Base Details. Shows the trend line for number of ideas, votes, and comments in the Place during the selected time period in Ideas Board Details. Time to First Reply The time taken (average) for Discussions in the selected Place to receive its first reply after it has been initially submitted. It is typically measured from the moment the Discussion is published to the moment someone replies to it. First Replies The total number of first comments on all the Discussions in the selected Place during the selected time frame. If for the selected time frame there are 10 Discussions in the selected Place, and only 4 have received a reply, then the total number of first replies is 4. If for the selected time frame there are 10 Discussions in the selected Place and only 1 Discussion has replies, even if that one Discussion has 5 total replies, the First Replies is 1. Marked As Solved The number of Discussion replies that are marked as an accepted solution for the selected Place and for the selected time frame. There is only 1 solution per Discussion. Marked As Solved Trend Shows the trend line for the number of replies that are marked as an accepted solution for the forums in the selected Place and for the selected time frame. Time to Solution The average time taken for the replies in Discussions for the selected Place to be marked as an accepted solution. It is measured from the moment the Discussion is posted until one of its replies is marked as an accepted solution. Solution Views A count of page views of Discussions with an accepted solution after the Discussion has had a reply marked as an accepted solution. Forum - Follows The total number of followers for the selected Forum during the time frame selected. Discussions - Follows The total number of followers for the Discussions in the selected Place during the time frame selected. New and Trending Discussions The total number of new Discussions and trending Discussions in the Forum selected during the selected time frame. The metric values for Trending Discussions depends on the minimum number of views set in the Engagement dashboard settings. Posts The number of blog posts in the selected Place during the selected time frame. Comments (for Blogs and Ideas) The number of comments the blog posts or Ideas in the selected Place received during the selected time frame. Articles The number of Knowledge Base articles in the selected Place during the selected time frame. Blog - Follows The total number of followers for the Blog in the selected Place during the time frame selected. Posts - Follows The total number of followers for the Blog posts in the selected Place during the time frame selected. Knowledge Base - Follows The total number of followers for the Knowledge Bases in the selected Place during the time frame selected. Article - Follows The total number of followers for the Knowledge Bases articles in the selected Place during the time frame selected. TTFR Time to First Reply TTFS Time to First Solution Helpful Votes The number of votes the Knowledge Base board or article received stating that they were helpful. Unhelpful Votes The number of votes the Knowledge Base board or article received stating that they were unhelpful. Members Joined The number of members who joined the Group. Members Left The number of members who left the Group. Invitations Sent The number of invitations sent to members to join the Group. Invitations Accepted The number of invitations that were accepted by members to join the Group. Ideas Snapshot (widget) This widget contains the metrics related to Ideas Board. The metrics are number of ideas, number of comments received, number of votes received during the selected time period for the Place selected. Ideas Total number of ideas created during the selected time period for the selected Place. Votes Total number of votes received during the selected time period for the selected Place. Lead-up to the Event. This widget shows metrics on all the activities that occurred on the event before it started. Note: In Classic Analytics, a summation of all posts in the community (root topics and replies across discussion styles) is presented as the 'Posts' metric in the Categories report. However, in Aurora Analytics, the root topics and replies across content types (Forums, KB, Blog, Idea and Events) are presented as specific/independent metrics, instead of adding them together and presenting as 'Posts' metric. Related topics: About Aurora Analytics Dashboard Settings Aurora Analytics ReportsAurora Analytics Reports
The article provides an overview on how to access reports configure reports download reports schedule reports Accessing the Reports page To view the list of available reports: Go to your Account menu and click Analytics. Click Reports. The Reports page opens. Next to each report name, you can see a brief description of the contents for each report. Click a report name to view a report. Here’s a Forum report: Modify settings for a report You can customize report settings to display the exact data you're looking for. Specifically, you can scope reports to a specific place and time period. To scope a report to a specific place: Open a report. Open the Options menu and click Report Settings. Select a specific place (board or category): Click Save. The Forum report shows the Place selected (in this example, the Products category) and displays the metrics for the Forums under the selected place during the selected date range. To scope a report to a specific date range: To view data for specific date ranges, you can select the date range using the dashboard date-range menu. Select one of the following from the menu. By default, the date range is set to Last 30 days for all reports. Here’s an example of a Forums report for the Last 7 days under the Product category: Learn more about date range settings Download reports You can download and analyze data by exporting them to a CSV file. Members with Admin and Analytics roles can schedule reports and have them emailed to them. Notes: Aurora Analytics report exports include up to 2000 rows. In cases where there are more than 2000 rows in a report, only 2000 rows will be exported and the rest will be truncated. Scheduled reports allow for the download of up to 50,000 records. Schedule reports You can schedule reports to be generated and emailed directly to your registered email ID. You can also view the reports that are scheduled to be generated. Understanding Aurora reports To understand the structure of these reports, let's explore a Forums report. All reports share this general structure. In this example, we’ve chosen the “Products” board and have selected to view the metrics for the Last 30 days. The Summary section at the top for the report provides a quick glance at key traffic and engagement metrics. Depending on the report you view, the metrics shown in the Summary section will vary. Learn more about what each of these metrics means. Below the Summary section, the report is displayed in a table. You can view a maximum of 50 records. If there are more than 50 entries, you can export and download the report as a CSV file. In this example, summary metrics are broken down to show the metrics by board. By default, the report is sorted by the number of Page Views. To reverse the sort order (ascending or descending) of a column, click the metric in the heading. To sort the report by a different metric, click the name of that metric. For example, to sort this table by Likes received, click Likes in the header row. Related topics: About Aurora Analytics Dashboard Settings Schedule reports Aurora Analytics Metric DefinitionsAurora: Download reports
You can download analytics data in a couple ways: Export to CSV Download scheduled reports Export to CSV You can download and analyze data by exporting it to a CSV file. To down the report, go to the report you want to download and click the options menu. Then click Download Report Note: CSV exports include up to 2000 rows. In cases where there are more than 2000 rows in a report, only 2000 rows are exported and the rest is truncated. Download scheduled reports After a scheduled report is complete and ready, you will receive an email notification. The report is attached as a CSV file in the same email. You can also download the report from Analytics Reports page by following the steps below: Go to your Account menu and go toAnalytics >Reports. Click Download to download the report. If there is more than one report ready to download: ClickDownload. From here, you can download each report separately. Note: For scheduled reports, you can download up to 50,000 records. In cases where there are more than 50,000 rows in a report, only 50,000 rows are downloaded and the rest is truncated. Related topics: Schedule Analytics reports to be emailed to you View scheduled reports Advanced Analytics Role to extract member specific informationAurora Analytics Dashboard Settings
Depending on your role or what actionable data you are trying to gather, what you need from your community dashboards may vary. With Aurora Analytics, you can customize Dashboard settings to your requirements and get the most out of your data analysis. Analytics users can: customize Aurora Analytics Dashboard settings to scope data to the entire community or to a specific place in the community choose the time frame for which they want to view metrics for compare and analyze data with another time period set the parameters for trending discussions. set parameters for the maximum time limit to apply in the Ideas by Age Chart Related topics: About Aurora Analytics Aurora Analytics Metric Definitions Aurora Analytics ReportsAurora: Accessing the Analytics Dashboard
You can use the community dashboard to get an overview on the performance of your community. By tracking page views, visits, member registrations, and more, you can easily monitor the performance of your community. With the dashboard, you can also monitor the growth of your community over time. By tracking the number of new members and the rate of growth, you can assess the stickiness of your community members. You can also track and analyze user and member behavior and identify trends across boards and content. It provides valuable insights that can be used to improve community engagement strategies and content. Note: You must have anAdminorAnalyticsrole to access to Aurora Analytics. To view the community dashboard: Open the Account menu and click Analytics. Click Dashboard. The Dashboard opens: Preset Views for dashboards display details for specific content types. To view one of the dashboard Preset Views: Open the Account menu and click Analytics. Click Dashboard. Open the Dashboard menu and click one of the Preset Views. Related topics: About Dashboard Settings Scope Analytics data to specific place in the community Set date ranges and data comparison time frame for Aurora Analytics Dashboard Set the Trending Discussions options for Aurora Dashboard View metrics by content type Apply filters to Aurora Analytics Aurora Analytics Metric Definitions Aurora Analytics ReportsAurora: Scope Analytics data to a specific place in the community
You canadjust the Aurora Analytics Dashboard settings to scopethe metric results to the entire community or to a specific place in the community To set a specific place: Go to the dashboard. Open the Options menu and click My Dashboard Settings. Select a specific place (board or category) Click Save. The dashboard displays metrics for the place selected. Also, the selected place is displayed. Related topics: About Dashboard Settings Set date ranges and data comparison time frame for Aurora Analytics Dashboard Set the Trending Discussions options for Aurora Dashboard View metrics by content type Apply filters to Aurora Analytics Aurora Analytics Metric Definitions Aurora Analytics ReportsAurora: Set date ranges and data comparison time frame for the Analytics Dashboard
Analytics users can: choose the time frame for which they want to view metrics for compare and analyze data with another time period Note: By default, dashboards display data for the entire community for the last 30 days. To set a specific date range or date: To view or compare data for specific date ranges Select the date range using the dashboard date-range menu. Select one of the following from the menu. By default, the date range is set to Last 30 days for all dashboards. Last 7 days: Data for the previous 7 days from the current date Last 30 days: Data for the previous 30 days from the current date Last month: Data for the first to last day of the previous calendar month Last 3 months: Data for the first to last day of the last 3 calendar months Month to date: Data for the first date of the current calendar month to current date Year to date: Data for the first date of the current year to current date Specific date: Data for any specific date Custom: Data for any range of dates. To select a specific date range, click Custom from the date picker. On the window, select the starting and ending days on the calendar. After you select the dates, click Set Date Range. The dashboard displays data for the date range selected. To set a comparison time frame: Use the Data Comparison Time Frame settings to gain insights into how your community has performed over time. Previous period: Compares the currently selected period in the dashboard settings to the previous matching period. For example, if the current period is Last 30 days, the comparison is to the previous 30 day period. Previous year: Compares the current selected period to the same period last year. For example, if the current period is Last 7 days, the dashboard displays comparison data for the matching dates last year. Note: All the trend graph widgets have the checkbox for Previous Period or Previous Year, depending on the dashboard settings. When you select the checkbox, the data for the comparison time frame is displayed. Here’s an example to better understand the comparisons: Assume today is January 1, 2023, and the currently selected period for the chart is Last 7 days: Comparison Time Frame Current dates Comparison dates Previous period December 25, 2022 to December 31, 2022 December 18, 2022 to December 24, 2022 Previous year December 25, 2022 to December 31, 2022 December 25, 2021 to December 31, 2021 Related topics: About Aurora Analytics Aurora Analytics Metric Definitions Aurora Analytics ReportsAurora: Set the Trending Discussions options for the Analytics Dashboard
In thedashboard settings, you can define the number of views needed to qualify a discussion as trending. To set the Trending Discussions options: Go to the dashboard. Open theOptionsmenu and clickMy Dashboard Settings. On theEdit My Dashboardwindow, in the Minimum number of views field, enter the number of views needed to specify a discussion as trending. In the Over the period of field, select the number of days for which these discussions were made. Click Save. To view the New vs. Trending Discussions widget, click the Dashboard menu and select a content type from the PRESET VIEWSlist. For example, let's select Forums. The New vs. Trending Discussions widget in the shows the pie chart for Trending Discussions for those Discussions with at least 100 views over a period of 1 day. You can click the different sections of this pie-chart to view the list of discussions for that section. For example, click the section for With Replies on the pie chart. A window with the list of discussions with replies for the selected category and time period is displayed. From here, you can view Trending Topics with different combinations of reply options: Related topics: About Dashboard Settings Scope Analytics data to specific place in the community Set date ranges and data comparison time frame for Aurora Analytics Dashboard View metrics by content type Apply filters to Aurora Analytics Aurora Analytics Metric Definitions
