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Knowledge center service updates & support  > CSV Reports

New reporting tool gives you access to download counts

Originally posted: 1/30/2019. Updated: 2/18/2020.

This page includes information about modifications and enhancements to the knowledge center service, Candid’s institutional repository solution for the social sector.

analytics-tool-updates-dec-2018

You now have a new path to understanding the number of times content you share through your Knowledge Center has been downloaded. Starting today, you can access download-related data in a comma-separated-value (.CSV) file that you can take and use as you see fit.

Generate a report for one property or all of your properties combined and constrain your report by date range. Once you submit your report parameters, a .CSV file labeled: “IssueLab Downloads Report YYYY-MM-DD.csv” will download to your computer.

Here’s more about the data you’ll receive including information about what is counted as a download request.

The three sections of the .csv file

Section 1

Section 1 provides the following types of data is supplied over eight columns:

  • Resource title – the title of the report, case study, evaluation, etc.
  • Total downloads – number of times a title was downloaded within the time frame you inputted
  • Date added to IssueLab – date format: MM/DD/YYYY
  • Date downloaded – date format: MM/DD/YYYY
  • Detail page URL – the page where the download was initialized
  • Download URL – the URL used to access the downloadable content
  • Property title – the title of the Knowledge Center or Special Collection where the downloadable content is housed
  • Property URL – the URL of the Knowledge Center or Special Collection

Please be aware that the URL available in the “Download URL” column will be one of two types:

  • 1) When a resource is downloaded directly from a property it will have a “Download URL” formatted like so: http://property-name.issuelab.org/resources/12345/12345.pdf
  • 2) When a resource is downloaded from an external site it will have a “Download URL” that doesn’t reference “issuelab.org”. Eg., https://bccf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/report.pdf

Section 2

Section 2 provides cumulative counts of downloads by title. The following types of data is supplied over two columns:

  • Resource Download Totals – the title of the report, case study, evaluation, or other document type that has a download count.
  • Total Downloads – the cumulative number of downloads for a particular title.

Section 3

Section 3 provides cumulative counts of downloads by day of download. The following types of data is supplied over two columns:

  • Downloads Per Day – the download date date format: MM/DD/YYYY
  • Total Downloads – the cumulative number of downloads on a particular date

What is counted as a download request

The data provided in the “Download Data (.CSV)” report includes clicks on download links available in your Knowledge Center. These links are made available to your Knowledge Center visitors on content description pages when they click into the “DOWNLOAD” select menu.

Knowledge Center visitors obtain downloadable content by clicking on one of the following links available in the download menu:

   “via Publisher”
   “via IssueLab”
   “via DOI”

When a visitor clicks on one of these links, that “click” is registered in Candid’s Google Analytics account as a download request.

When you request that a Download Data (.CSV) file be generated for your review, we extract this “click” data from Candid’s Google Analytics account and use it to generate the .CSV file. The data is stored on Google’s servers.

To note: a click on a “via IssueLab” or “via DOI” link will always result in a file being downloaded to a visitors computer. However, a click on a “via Publisher” link may or may not result in a file being downloaded to a visitors computer. For example, the full-text content being requested may be delivered as a web page or a database and not as an actual file. Regardless of the full-text delivery method (file, web page, database, etc.) we count clicks on the “via Publisher” link as a download request because that is what the visitor’s intention is when she clicks this link.

Questions? Contact us.