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


What's my plan?





All Suites

Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus









Support with

Explore Professional or Enterprise





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.

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 reports
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 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.



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 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.


{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "TechArticle",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409389062682",
"url": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409389062682-Explore-recipe-Help-center-article-views-within-30-days-of-creation",
"headline": "Explore recipe: Help center article views within 30 days of creation",
"description": "You can create reports and a dashboard to analyze article views within 30 days of creation in your knowledge base, using calculated metrics and filters to focus on relevant data.",
"articleSection": "Help center reporting recipes",
"datePublished": "2021-10-25T16:06:29+00:00",
"dateModified": "2025-09-06T00:06:32+00:00",
"inLanguage": "en-US",
"mainEntityOfPage": {
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409389062682"
},
"author": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com"
},
"isPartOf": {
"@type": "WebSite",
"name": "Zendesk Help",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/"
},
"about": {
"@type": "SoftwareApplication",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com",
"softwareAddOn": {
"@type": "SoftwareApplication",
"name": "Explore",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/4405298856346"
}
}
}