Analytics & Search Data
The plugin logs document views and searches (and, if you switch it on, PDF downloads) to help you understand how staff use your document library. This data appears on the Analytics dashboard and helps you improve your library over time.
The Analytics dashboard
Go to Policy Management → Analytics in the WordPress admin. Administrators and Policy Auditors can open this screen.
At the top of the dashboard you can filter every report by:
- Quick Period — Last 7, 30, 90 or 365 days
- User Role — Show activity from one role only, or All Roles
- From / To — A custom date range
Click Apply to update the reports, or Reset to clear the filters.
The dashboard is divided into cards:
Search reports
- Search Overview — Total searches, unique queries, and the success rate (the share of searches that returned at least one result)
- Search Trend — Daily search volume over the selected period
- Searches by Role — How many searches each role made (logged-out visitors appear as Guest)
- Top Searches — The most common search terms, with how often each was searched, total hits, and the average number of results
- Failed Searches — Searches that returned no results
- Content Gaps — Zero-result searches that recur (searched two or more times), with Create Document and Create FAQ shortcuts so you can fill the gap straight away
Document reports
- Most Viewed Documents — Which documents are read most often, by total views and by unique visitors
- View Trend — Daily document views and unique visitors over the selected period
Unique-visitor counts are only available when Track View User Identity is switched on (see below).
Download reports
When Track PDF Downloads is switched on, two more cards appear:
- Most Downloaded Documents — PDF downloads per document, split into single and bulk downloads
- Download Trend — Daily PDF downloads and unique users
Each chart has a View as Table option for an accessible, text-only version of the data.
🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.
When AI features are in use, administrators also see an AI Costs tab on the Analytics screen, showing AI usage and spend. The tab needs the Manage settings permission, so Policy Auditors don’t see it.
FAQ and document feedback
Helpful/not-helpful ratings are not part of the Analytics dashboard. You can see them in the Feedback column of your FAQ and document lists, and in the User Feedback box when you edit an FAQ or document.
Analytics settings
All analytics settings live in one place: Policy Management → Settings → System Configuration → Analytics & Data Retention.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Search Logging | Records search queries for the search reports | On |
| Exclude Roles from Analytics | Hides searches and views made by the selected roles from every report | No roles excluded |
| Search Log Retention | Days to keep search log entries | 90 days |
| View Log Retention | Days to keep document view log entries | 90 days |
| Track View User Identity | Records which user viewed each document | Off |
| Track PDF Downloads | Records PDF downloads, including the user’s account | Shown as off, but downloads are logged — and the download cards appear — until you save this settings screen for the first time. Save with it unticked to stop logging. |
What is tracked
Document views:
- The document
- The viewer’s role (logged-out visitors are recorded as Guest)
- The date and time of the view
By default views are recorded anonymously — against the viewer’s role only, not their user account. If you switch on Track View User Identity, each view also records the user’s account. This enables unique-visitor counts and the Recently Viewed panel in the Document Hub. Leave it off for stricter privacy.
New views are collected in batches, so they can take up to an hour to appear in the reports.
Searches:
- The query text
- The number of results returned
- The searcher’s role
- The date and time of the search
Searches are not linked to individual user accounts.
PDF downloads (only when Track PDF Downloads is on):
- The document
- The user’s account and role
- Whether it was a single or bulk download
- The date and time of the download
Download logging always records the user’s account, so only switch it on if your privacy policy covers download tracking.
Excluding roles from reports
To keep your own team’s activity out of the numbers — for example, administrators checking documents while they write them — go to Settings → System Configuration → Analytics & Data Retention and select those roles under Exclude Roles from Analytics.
Excluded activity is still logged; it is simply left out of every report and the User Role filter. Remove a role from the list and its activity reappears in the reports (for anything still within the retention window).
Using zero-result searches
The Failed Searches and Content Gaps reports are the most useful for improving your library. When staff search for something and find nothing, it usually means one of:
- The document exists but is named differently — Staff search “sick leave” but the document is titled “Personal/Carer’s Leave Policy”. Rename the document or add the common term to its content.
- The document exists but is not visible to that role — The document’s audience doesn’t include the staff member’s role. Review its Confidentiality and Target Audience (Roles) settings.
- The content genuinely doesn’t exist yet — Use the Create Document or Create FAQ shortcut in Content Gaps to start it.
Review these reports monthly and act on the most common gaps.
View counts on document pages
Document pages show a view count next to the reading time. To hide it, untick Show View Counts under Settings → Features, or remove the view count from Settings → Content Management → Frontend Document Meta Display. Views are still tracked either way.
The Document Hub’s Popular Documents list ranks documents by views and shows each one’s view count.
Data retention for analytics
Search logs and view logs are kept for 90 days by default. PDF download logs are kept for 90 days; that period can’t be changed from the Settings screen.
A weekly background clean-up (scheduled for Sundays) deletes records older than each retention window. Because it runs weekly, records can be up to a week older than the window before they are removed.
Changing the retention window:
Go to Settings → System Configuration → Analytics & Data Retention and set Search Log Retention and View Log Retention (in days, up to 3,650). Set either to 0 to keep that log indefinitely.
Manually purging analytics data:
Go to Settings → System Configuration and scroll to Maintenance → Data Management. Choose Search Logs, View Logs, Download Logs or All Analytics Data, tick the confirmation box, and click Purge Data. This is a permanent deletion and requires full administrator rights — use with care.
Background tasks for analytics:
| Task | How often | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| View batch | Hourly | Moves newly collected document views into the reports |
| Log clean-up | Weekly | Deletes search, view and PDF download records older than their retention window (along with the plugin’s other retention clean-ups) |
Both run through WP-Cron, which needs visits to your site to trigger it. If WP-Cron is disabled on your server, set up a real cron job for wp-cron.php.
Troubleshooting analytics
New views aren’t showing yet. Views are collected in batches and added to the reports about once an hour. If they still don’t appear after a couple of hours, check that WP-Cron is running.
Unique-visitor numbers are missing or zero. Track View User Identity is off. Unique visitors are only counted for views recorded while it was on.
My own activity is skewing the numbers. Add your role under Exclude Roles from Analytics.
A role is missing from the User Role filter. It is listed under Exclude Roles from Analytics.
The search reports are empty. Check Enable Search Logging is on, and that your date range covers a period when staff were searching.
Download cards appear although Track PDF Downloads looks off. The setting hasn’t been saved yet. Open Settings → System Configuration, leave the box unticked and save the settings.
Old records are still there after I shortened the retention window. The clean-up runs weekly. To remove them now, use Maintenance → Data Management.
Worked example: closing content gaps after an intranet launch
Leah manages the staff intranet for a regional council. A month after launching the Document Hub, she wants to know what staff can’t find.
- She goes to Settings → System Configuration → Analytics & Data Retention and adds Administrator and Editor to Exclude Roles from Analytics, so her team’s testing doesn’t distort the results.
- On Policy Management → Analytics she chooses Last 30 days and clicks Apply. Search Overview shows a success rate of 78%.
- Content Gaps lists “working from home” (searched 14 times) and “car allowance” (searched 6 times) with no results.
- She finds the council already has a “Flexible Work Arrangements Procedure”, so she adds the phrase “working from home” to its content. For car allowance there is nothing, so she clicks Create FAQ and writes a short answer pointing to the payroll team.
- Searches by Role shows that the field-staff role searches far more than anyone else, so she checks the field staff can actually read the documents they’re searching for.
- A month later she reruns the report: the success rate has risen to 89% and neither phrase appears in Content Gaps.