Thread

Hi there,

I’m going to be setting up a forum for a client, and would like to know what sort of stats / reporting is available on the Forum Module? Is there information such as most popular thread, most popular category etc? Can Google Analytics be easily integrated into it, and would the stats in Analytics be meaningful?

Sorry if I’m being a bit vague, but I guess what I’m getting at is what will the client be able to look at in the Forum administration area, and be able to work out which sections are more effective / used etc, and get a very clear idea of the member’s usage within the forums.

Cheers
Jacob

You can output in different ways on the home-page, and this is shown in the developer theme.  That said, ExpressionEngine is not a statistics package (those are *very* processor intensive and also really worth a dedicated solution) so if you are looking for such statistics, an external product is a good idea.

Yes, you can call GA into the forums.  Would they be meaningful? How meaningful are any stats?  That depends on your needs and what you’re measuring.

For your customer to see what is most effective, the GA route would be my preferred way to go here.

Thanks Lisa. I can’t see what is shown on the Developer Theme, as it’s not included in the Theme Change option at the bottom of these forums (and incidentally, the Theme Change option is NOT working for me anyway!). There’s also no thumbnails of it in the Themes section of the site, so I’m guessing the only way would be to take the trial, which I’d prefer not to do.

I think GA would more than suffice in terms of comprehensiveness, but it can be a bit overwhelming for a newbie 😊

I think we’ll most likely just run with it anyway!

** I stand corrected - after I submitted my reply, the theme changed to one of the ones in the Theme drop down, so it is working.

You can see a small screenshot of the Developer Theme here =)

Also, you could always use something like Mint instead of GA.

Thanks Lisa 😊 I did see that thumbnail on the Themes page - I meant to put screenshots, not thumbnails, hehehe as my eyesight isn’t good enough to make out any detail on that thumbnail!

Also, thanks for the tip about Mint - I’ll have to re-visit it again, as it’s been some time since I’ve looked at it.