Hello! I’m a fairly new user of OJS but I have been combing your forum and tutorials, which are fantastic! Thank you! I’m currently working on article level reporting and I wondered if there was instructions on how to differentiate views vs downloads.
When I look at the article details report and configure filter to previous months, I see views for abstract views, file views, PDF, HTML, Other and Total.
I’m totaling each of the PDF and HTML columns for views of HTML pages and PDF pages for Feb 1-the current date and I get a total of 1,987 PDF views and 420 HTML article views.
Then, I’m exporting a custom report for Article File Downloads. To connect it with the above report, I’ve selected a date range from Feb 2021-March 2021.
In the Advanced options, I’ve selected ID, File Type, Article , Month
Filters: Article
I’m totaling the Count column and I get 5,094
What am I doing wrong or not understanding because I’m not sure how my downloads can be so significantly higher than my PDF views when you have to view the PDF to download it?
Attaching screenshots of my reports below. Thanks very much!
I am not very familiar with the Custom Report Generator, so I’m not sure how the different options interact. It looks like the “Article File Downloads” configures the advanced options. So when you change the Advanced Options and Filters, it may no longer be an Article File Downloads report.
I did a quick test using your options/filters, and then another one just selecting Article File Downloads and leaving it as-is. The one with your options/filters included higher counts.
So I think, if you want just article file downloads, you should leave Advanced Options alone after selecting the Default Report Template.
Hope that works.
(We are hoping to bring the features of the Custom Report Generator into the visual stats page eventually, so there shouldn’t be any discrepancies.)
Thank you so much @NateWr
And just so I fully understand the terminology, when we’re referring to “article file downloads” in OJS, does this mean the HTML or PDF files pulled up on the website (ie downloaded for viewing) but not necessarily someone actually downloading to their local machine? (Does this make sense?)
In my previous role, I would view a download report as the number of files (pdfs, articles, images) that visitors physically downloaded to their machines via a “download” button, but this seems more like a total view report of which files have been pulled from the server for viewing on the local machine? Am I understanding this correctly?
I don’t know for sure what the Custom Report Generator does, but I think it would count any time the file has been delivered for download in the browser. It may be confusing, but I would assume this includes if someone is viewing the PDF or HTML file in the browser (even if they never get a “save” prompt).
(This is why the new stats UI dispenses with the terminology of views/downloads in favor of abstract/files. From a technical perspective, viewing a PDF in your browser is the same as a download and we can’t really know what the user does with it on their end.)
Hope that works.