Data Explorer

Last Updated: December 06, 2023 17:19

Data Explorer is a custom reporting tool that helps you analyze how your customers interact with your product using visualizations and breakdowns of usage data in a single report.

With the ability to customize measurements, compare behavior by segments and properties, and compare behavior over time, Data Explorer helps you uncover usage behavior and patterns and utilize these insights to make improvements to your product and customer experience.

This article reviews how to build and analyze a report in Data Explorer.

Decide what you want to explore

As a more robust, customizable complement to out-of-the-box dashboard widgets and other behavioral reports in Pendo Engage, Data Explorer helps you get answers to deeper or more complicated questions that aren’t immediately answered elsewhere in the application.

Data Explorer helps you dive more deeply into product usage to understand how users engage with your product. We thus recommend that you start with an idea of what question you would like to answer or what area of the product you would like to investigate.

Events are the central part of Data Explorer. Events refer to tagged Feature clicks (Click Events), Page views, Track Events, and guide views. Consider how you want to analyze visitor or account usage related to one or more specific events.

Common ways of approaching Data Explorer include:

Analyzing a large set of events, such as what the most-used or least-used feature is in an app.
Comparing usage, whether by timeframe or segment, for a subset of events, such as differences in behavior associated with an event, like feature usage by region.

You can come to Data Explorer with general visitor/account questions (for example, how many clients do I have in each industry using my application?) or specific event-based questions (for example, what industry uses a specific feature the most or least?).

Some additional examples include:

Which revenue tier uses the “CSV download” feature the most?
Which roles used the Dashboard page the most in the past 30 days?
What are the five most-used features by different browsers in the past 90 days?
What features are most commonly used by paid users?
What are the top 10 buttons used across my application?
What are the most used Features, Pages, or Track Events within a specific product area?

Once you have an idea of what you want to explore, it's time to build your report. Open the Behavior menu from the left-side menu, and then select Create report > Data Explorer.

Alternatively, you can navigate to Behavior > Data Explorer to view all existing Data Explorer reports in your subscription, and then select Create Data Explorer report in the top-right corner of the page.

Add event groups

The first step of building your report is defining your query inputs with one or two “event groups.” An event group can represent any of the following:

All activity across one or more apps
All activity across one or more events
All views across one or more guides

To get started, select Add Event Group. Once selected, the Add Events side panel opens with several filters to choose from. Each is reviewed below.

Events and Event Types. If you want to view data specific to tagged Feature clicks (Click Events), Page views, or Track Events, this is the filter to use. Select the Event Types dropdown menu to apply further filters related to the type of events available for selection, and select the Apps dropdown menu to view events for a specific app or group of apps. Events are sorted by product area.
- Use case example: Assess app-wide behavior differences between segments or device type (an event property) over time.
Any Activity. If you want to explore data for all activities associated with a specific app, select the first dropdown menu to choose this option, then select one or more apps.
- Use case examples: Choose select events showing a given product team's adoption rates for a new feature by user segmentation. View what device types are trending over time (rather than as an aggregation in the existing device type dashboard widget).
Guide Views. If you want to view data specific to one or more guides, select the first dropdown menu to choose this option, then select one or more guides.
- Use case example: See if there's a potential correlation between guide views having an impact on existing feature adoption versus before a guide was launched.

Once you choose your events, select Apply in the bottom-right corner of the side panel. All selected events populate in the Query section as part of group A.

You can also add an optional name to the event group to help improve data contextualization for other Pendo users who view your report. To name your event group, select Name event group, enter your desired text, and then press < Enter > on your keyboard or select outside of the field to save your entry. This name appears on axes labels, in the breakdown table, and in the formula (beta) selection.

Note: Data Explorer supports up to two event groups for data comparison. Multiple event groups are typically used if you want to view multiple metrics on a report. For example, you might want to know how visitor usage is growing over time with respect to the total number of Feature clicks. In this case, you would create two groups and use both the Total and Number of Visitors measurements, which are explained in detail below.

If you’d like to add a second event group, select Add Event Group and repeat the guidelines above to create group B.

To edit or delete an event group, select the Edit or Delete icon to the right of the group.

Set measurements

Once you select all relevant events, you can choose a specific measurement for the report to use for each event group.

Each measurement option is defined as follows:

Total. Calculates the total number of event activations related to the event group. For example, total Feature clicks, total Page views, total Track Event calls.
Visitor Event Average. Calculates the average number of activities per visitor associated with the event group.
Account Event Average. Calculates the average number of activities per account associated with the event group.
Median. Calculates the median number of activities related to the event group.
Number of Unique Visitors. Calculates the total number of unique visitors who have generated activity related to the event group.
Number of Unique Accounts. Calculates the total number of unique accounts that have generated activity related to the event group.
Percent of Visitors. Calculates the total percentage of visitors who generated activity related to the event group. Includes all visitors (within the specified segment) who used any of your subscription's apps during the specified time period.
Percent of Accounts. Calculates the total percentage of accounts that generated activity related to the event group. Includes all accounts (within the specified segment) that used any of your subscription's apps during the specified time period.

Note: Measurements vary based on the filters chosen in the Add Events side panel.

Apply event property filters

Event property filtering is one way to filter usage data by specific properties that are captured at the time an event is generated.

For further context, event properties are data attached to Feature Click Events, Page View Events, and Track Events. Browser name, browser version, device type, and operating system are event properties collected by default on all events. You can also define custom event properties when editing a Feature in the Visual Design Studio, such as cart value, location/region, visitor source, or any other custom value available in your application at the time of a click.

With event property filters, you can look at or compare a subset of usage data. This could be for a specific device (like mobile or desktop), specific browser (like Chrome or Firefox), or specific event property (which are specific to your product and the event you’re trying to filter over—a car rental company might want to filter by airport, whereas a retail store might want to filter by product types in cart at purchase time).

For example, event property filters can help you answer what the most-used features are for visitors who used Chrome over the past 90 days or how many visitors viewed a specific page on their mobile device over the last 30 days.

You can add event property filters at the event level or at the report level—both methods are detailed below.

Note: Custom event properties aren't supported with "Any Activity" filters.

Add event-level filters

If you want to apply different filters on certain events or only want to apply filters on a subset of the selected events, you should apply event property filters to each individual event.

To add an event-level event property filter, select the Filter icon located to the right of the relevant event.
Select an event property from the dropdown menu that populates below the event, then select the operator (= by default) if you need to change it from “equals to”.
Select one or more property values from the dropdown menu. Note that any additional values selected for this specific filter are considered an “or” rule.
To add another event property filter, select Add Filter, then repeat Steps 2–4 for each new filter. Note that any new filters added to the event are considered an “and” rule.
Repeat steps 1 to 4 for each event you’d like to filter with specific event properties.
If you need to remove an event property filter, select the Close button to the right of the filter.

Add report-level filters

Report-level filters allow you to apply event property filters to all events selected for the query. Any filters applied at the report level override event property filters applied on individual events.

To add a report-level filter, find the Report Filters section, and then select Add Filter.
Select one or more event property values from the dropdown menu.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 for each filter you'd like to add to the report.

Add formulas (beta)

Formulas (currently in closed beta) allow you to apply sum and division functions to your selected events. This lets you calculate total usage per product area and compare usage between product areas. To learn more about common use cases for formulas, see Formula use cases.

When you apply a sum or ratio function, all usage counts across the specified event group are totaled or divided up and presented as a single line in the chart visualization and a single row in the breakdown table.

When you apply a relative percentage division function, the usage count for each event within each relevant event group is totaled and presented as multiple lines in the chart visualization and multiple rows in the breakdown table.

To add a formula to your query, select Add Formula.
Using the dropdown menu, select the formula that best matches the question you're trying to answer. The available options vary depending on the number of event groups and the specific measurements you selected for each event group.
Select a formula from the dropdown menu. Each formula is worded based on the question that the formula helps you answer, and the available options vary depending on the number of event groups and the specific measurements you selected for each event group.
- Sum. Sums help you get an aggregate understanding of how a specific set of events are used. A common use case is summing the clicks of multiple buttons that have the same or similar functions, such as an email app that contains three different buttons to send an email. You can also calculate the number of users who interact with all events within a specific Product Area.
- Ratio. This division function helps you understand the relationship between two events. A common use case for this division involves aggregating your selected events and performing ratio calculations. This allows you to examine the ratio of users who interact with a specific Feature when they view a specific Page.
- Relative percentage. This division function helps you understand individual event usage in relation to a larger group of events. It takes the total measurement (Totals, Unique Visitors, or Unique Accounts) of each event within an event group and divides that by the sum of all events within an event group. A common use case for this division involves looking at the relative number of Page views or Feature clicks over the total number of active visitors within an app if you have multiple apps.
If you selected a division function, the division is calculated as a percentage by default. If you'd prefer a decimal as the output, select Decimal from the dropdown menu.
If desired, enter a name for the formula. This name appears in the legend and as a table row. If you don't enter a name, the formula name shows as it's displayed below the question.
To add a new formula, repeat steps 1 to 4.

Apply segments

By default, the Everyone segment is selected. You can change this to view data for a specific set of users by selecting the Segment dropdown menu, then choosing the appropriate group of users you’d like to analyze.

If the segment you’d like to use doesn't currently exist, you have two options:

Create New Segment. This appears at the bottom of the dropdown menu, and once created, the segment is added to the list of segments under People > Segments.
Create Draft Segment. This appears next to the Segment dropdown menu and creates a draft segment that is only used for this report, making it unavailable to use outside of this Data Explorer report.

To learn more about creating segments, see Segments.

Create draft segment

Draft segments allow you to build a segment and run your report without adding a new segment to your subscription or changing an existing segment in the subscription. Depending on other selections in the query builder, you can add up to five draft segments.

To get started, select Create Draft Segment to populate the segment rule builder.

By default, the segment is named Draft Segment A. If you’d like to change the name of the segment, select the name and enter a new value. Make your selections in the rule builder, and then continue to the next section.

Tip: If you decide that you want to save the draft segment to your subscription to use outside of this report, tap the Save as Segment icon in the top-right corner of the segment builder. Once selected, you can update the segment name and visibility before saving it to the subscription.

Compare segments

If you have only one date range specified and five or fewer events selected, you can add up to five segments for further comparison. When you apply multiple segments, the query is repeated for each segment.

To add an additional segment, select Compare Segments and choose the appropriate segment or create a new segment.

To remove a chosen segment, select the X located to the right of the segment.

Categorize with groupings

The Group By option allows you to group your data by visitor metadata (like role or region), account metadata (like industry or account tier), or an event property (like browser name or device type). This is typically used to easily understand usage trends across different cohorts based on metadata or event properties. With groupings, you don’t need to create a separate segment for each group of visitors/accounts you want to compare—allowing you to uncover insights quickly and efficiently.

Without a grouping applied, the report summarizes your usage data by combining all metadata and event properties for each event. If you apply a grouping, the report shows you separate usage quantities for each grouping/event pair. For example, if you have one event group for a Feature called “Add New button” that is measured by “Total” and you use the Group By visitor metadata option to show user role, the breakdown table contains a row with each unique visitor’s role and tells you how many times they clicked the Add New button in the given time period.

To categorize your data with a grouping, select Group By.
From the dropdown menu, choose the type of data you'd like to group by.
- Visitor Metadata. Visitor-level metadata and Account ID. Available fields are listed under Settings > Data Mappings.
- Account Metadata. Account-level metadata. Available fields are listed under Settings > Data Mappings.
- Historical Metadata. Visitor or account metadata that's enabled as historical. To learn more, see Historical metadata (beta).
- Event Property. Data associated with a Feature click, Page view, or Track Event at the time that event was interacted with. Available fields vary depending on the type of event property.
- Parent Account Metadata. Parent Account-level metadata. Available fields are listed under Settings > Data Mappings.
Select the specific field you'd like to group by from the second dropdown menu.
If you'd like to add multiple groupings, select Add Group By and repeat step 3 for each new grouping. Up to five groupings are supported.
- To adjust the order of the columns as they appear in the table, simply select the dotted icon to the left of the grouping and drag the field to your desired placement. Multi-column sorting isn't currently supported in the breakdown table.
- When you run the report, each grouping value is added as a separate column in the breakdown table.
- If you have 10 or fewer events selected, the breakdown table shows up to 10,000 rows per event. If you have more than 10 events selected, the table shows up to 10,000 rows across all events. This means that we'd show up to 50,000 rows of data for one event with five groupings.

To remove an applied grouping, select the X located to the right of the selected Group By value.

Considerations when grouping

When using Group By to group your report data, there are a few considerations to keep in mind:

Groupings are only supported if you select only one segment and one date range.
Metadata and event property values must be categorized as string or boolean. Data categorized as text, number, date, or list don't appear in the dropdown menu.
When grouping, the report returns all possible values of the selected metadata or event property field and includes that in the report, even if it doesn't have data within the given constraints.
When applying a segment and grouping together, all Group By values appear in the table regardless of segment. For example, if you're grouping by Account ID, then all Account ID values are shown. However, the values outside the segment display as 0s.
When you have more than 10 events selected, the breakdown table or CSV export only displays 10,000 rows of data. If you're dealing with 10 or fewer events, the breakdown table can show more than 10,000 rows of data, but for better performance, we recommend exporting to CSV for more efficient data analysis.
While there's no limit to the number of values you can group by, our data reporting stops once we detect more than 10,000 unique Group By values. This limit applies to all events if your query involves more than 10 events, and it applies to each event individually if you're dealing with 10 or fewer events. If this limit is reached, Pendo stops capturing unique values, and this data isn't included in the breakdown table to avoid displaying incorrect data. To avoid reaching this limit, or if you suspect you've already reached it, consider applying more precise filters or groupings and then re-run the report.

Define date ranges

From the Date Range dropdown menus, select the timeframe you’d like to analyze usage of the selected events and select the data breakdown within the date range. The data is aggregated according to the breakdown frequency in the data visualization.

Below are the date range options available in the first dropdown menu:

Today
Yesterday
Last 7 days (doesn't include today)
Last 30 days (doesn't include today)
Last 90 days (doesn't include today)
Last 180 days (doesn't include today)
Custom Date Range (max of 180 days)

For the data breakdown, you have the following options in the second dropdown menu:

Hourly. Default for one-day selection.
Daily. Available for 2–59 day date ranges.
Weekly. Available for 14–180 day date ranges (Sunday–Saturday).
Monthly. Available for 60–180 day date ranges.

Compare date ranges

If you have five or fewer events selected, you can add a second date range for further comparison. Comparing date ranges repeats the query for a different time period and allows you to compare your analysis for the same group at different times in one data visualization.

To do this, simply select Compare Date Ranges and choose the appropriate values. The second date range must be the same duration and breakdown as the first date range selected. The default selection is the date range immediately before your first date range.

To cancel the date range comparison, select the X located to the right of the dropdown menus.

Run your report

When you’re finished building your query, select Run to create your report.

Tip: The fewer events and filters applied, the quicker the report loads.

Once the report loads, the Chart and Breakdown sections populate with a visualization and the raw data used to generate the chart.

Continue reading to learn more about the data you see in both of these sections.

Analyze the chart

The left and right Y-axes correspond to the event group measurements defined in your query. If your query has only one event group, only the left Y-axis is used.

The X-axis of the chart corresponds to the selected date range.

The legend displays beneath the chart and populates up to 10 events. If you select an event from the legend, it hides the event data from the chart. To add the event data back into the chart, simply select it again. You can also modify which events appear in the chart using the table in the Breakdown section.

There are several ways to interact with the Data Explorer chart, which are reviewed below.

Change the chart type

In the top-right of the Chart section, you can update the type of chart that displays by selecting the dropdown menu and selecting a new chart type: line, area, column, bar, and donut. If you have two event groups selected, you can choose the chart type for each event group.

The available options vary depending on your query. If an option is grayed out, you can hover over the option to read why it’s unavailable for selection.

Interact with the data

To view additional information, you can hover over and select a data point in the plot area. When selected, a side panel appears that lists the specific visitors and accounts included in the quantity of that specific data point. By default, the table in this side panel shows data by Visitor ID and Account ID.
If you want to change the metadata values that display for visitors or accounts, select the Filter button next to the first column in the table.

This substitutes the Visitor or Account ID with the new value and doesn't recalculate the data or quantities displayed in the side panel. When changed, the setting applies until the report is closed or the metadata field is changed again.

If you want to export the data in the side panel, select Download CSV below the table.

If desired, you can include additional metadata to the CSV by selecting Add Metadata and selecting a value from the dropdown menu. Once you choose your desired metadata, select Generate CSV to download the file to your device.

You can also hover over a label in the legend, located below the chart, to highlight the associated data in the chart.

Download the chart

If you want to download the chart as a PNG image file, select the Download PNG icon in the top-right corner of the Chart section.

View the breakdown

The Breakdown section contains a table that summarizes the data shown in the chart. All possible values and quantities are shown in raw data, including empty fields.

Above the breakdown table, you can find a toggle to easily filter out rows with no activity or events. You can also find a search field that you can use to quickly find a particular data point.

Update chart view

In the first column of the breakdown table, you can find a Show in chart icon in each row that represents whether the associated data display in the chart. Up to 10 events populate in the X-axis of the chart. By default, these are the first 10 events sorted by the Summary column in the table in descending order.

To update which events display in the chart, select the Show in chart icon next to the appropriate event. If 10 events are visible, you must hide one of these events before you can select a new event to display.

Understand row summary

The values in the Summary column of the breakdown table reflect the total counts based on the Measure you selected for the event group across the selected date range.

It's important to note that the numbers in the columns located to the right of the Summary column might not add up to the Summary count since this count depends on the selected measure.

When measuring by Total, the Summary count includes all event interactions within the date range. The totals across the date range do total up to the Summary count in this instance.

When measuring by Number of Unique Visitors or Number of Unique Accounts, the Summary count might not match the total of each preceding column because it is looking at unique usage.

To better understand this, consider the following example:

You're reporting on the Number of Unique Visitors that used a specific Feature across a two-week date range.
In the first week, two visitors clicked the Feature: Visitor A and Visitor B. The total that shows in the breakdown table for the first week is 2.
In the second week, two visitors clicked the Feature: Visitor A and Visitor C. The total that shows in the breakdown table for the second week is 2.
Even though the totals over the date range sum up to 4, the Summary column shows a total of 3 since Visitor A is a single unique visitor and is only counted once.

Understand groupings

When organizing your data with a Group By value, the breakdown table returns all possible values of your selected grouping option (visitor metadata, account metadata, historical metadata, or event property), as long as the number of unique values doesn't exceed 10,000 (per event if you have 10 or fewer events selected, or across all events if you have more than 10 events selected). The results are filtered by the chosen segment.

Export table

If you want to export the full table of data as a CSV, select the Download CSV icon in the top-right corner of the Breakdown section. Once selected, the file automatically downloads to your device.

Save and share your report

Once you finish building and analyzing your report, you should save your report so that you can easily return to your findings or modify your query as needed. You can also share your findings with others at the time of saving.

To save your report, select Save on the top-right corner of the page.
Enter a Report Name.
If you’d like other users in your Pendo subscription to view and edit the report, update the Visibility to Everyone.
If you’d like to add the report to an existing dashboard for quick access, select the dashboard name from the Add to Dashboard dropdown menu.
Select Save Report. Once saved, you can access the report through Behavior > Data Explorer or Behavior > View all reports.

As long as you choose the Everyone visibility at the time you save the Data Explorer report, all Pendo users in your subscription can access the report through Behavior > Data Explorer or Behavior > View all Reports. If you need to update the visibility, simply select your report from the Saved Reports page, ensure Visibility is set to Everyone using the Share icon at the top of the report, then share the URL found in the address bar in your web browser or let them know it's available to view on the Saved Reports page.

As an alternative to direct sharing, you can also add the report to a dashboard using the Data Explorer widget and share the dashboard with that user.