Online Express Reporting

Danielle Allen 2

Does anyone have a good grasp on how Online Express reports on email campaign results? After having just completed our first major campaign using OLX, we are struggling to reconcile what Online Express reports directly and what the Appeal summary information in Raiser's Edge is providing.


For example;

Holiday Email #1 stats from OLX states in the top inforgraphic that there were 12 transactions. The Click map links at the bottom of that same summary window states there were 16 transactions. The appeal summary in Raiser's Edge states there were 31 transactions. Also worth noting - when we click on the 16 transactions link, no transactions load?


All of our emails for this campaign have similar discrepencies. Where is OLX getting this information?

Jen Claudy

First, OLX has been sluggish most of the time for about the past month and screens take forever to load, so you have to be patient.  At least, this has been my experience...  This is maybe what is causing the blank screen when you click to see the list of email addresses.  Wait until you see a message that says "no results to display" or until you walk away to grab a drink or do something else and come back several minutes later and it's still blank.


I tried in one of my messages:


As for the click map...I'm seeing that, too.  We had 3 transactions on an email message and the Click Map shows 4.  Clicked on the 4 and got one email address.  Tried exporting to Excel, still only see that one.  This could be a glitch, and may or may not be related to the sluggishness.  If you have the time, I would do a Support Chat (and mention that you're not the only one).  If there's a fix, or an answer and a fix coming soon (I've been chalking it up to end of year online giving volume), then please post back on this thread.  Amazingly, when I click on the 48 clicks, I see 2 of the transactions with "Gave" in the right-hand column, but I don't see the one transaction that shows in the 4 transactions at all...not even with "Clicked" in the right-hand column.


The Appeal data in RE can be easily skewed if you have the same email address on more than one Constituent Record.  So say that Robert Hernandez has a Record with an email address of HernandezFamily@email.com and his wife Wendy has a Record with an email address of HernandezFamily@email.com.  Your org sends a message and OLX counts it as one message sent.  You push over the data and look at the Appeal Tags in RE and see two Tags, one on each record.  Then say one of them clicked on the link...OLX will count as one click and RE Appeals will show two clicks, once on each record as an Appeal Response of Clicked.  The same with transactions...OLX will report one transaction but RE will show two records with that Appeal Tag and a Response of Gave.  This may not resolve your problem, or not completely, but it is something to keep in mind.  I set up a report that exports Appeal data from RE to MS Access, then removes duplicate Appeal Tags and thereby provides me with the same numbers that my colleague was pulling from the honeycomb report...so we match, finally.  (Well, until last week when I don't know where the heck she was getting her figures, but her last day was Friday, so we'll see what happens moving forward.  But I digress...)


I prefer using RE Appeal data rather than going thru the honeycomb reports and copying down all the stats to use in a comparative report.  It's easier to access, doesn't give you errors like not opening the report at all, and you can work with the data more easily...including sort, which OLX doesn't do at all, and seeing the ConstID.  Eventually, I'll get my duplicate email address data cleaned up and it'll be easy and clean.


The honeycomb report shows 12 transactions, so hopefully your database has 12 Gift Records that can be attributed to those transactions (I prefer to go add the appropriate Appeal to those gifts...which is a pain, but I'd rather the hassle of figuring it out now and properly tagging the data than sometime in the future needing the info and not being able to figure it out).  I currently use a Query to do this...and your post prompted me to remember to go add this to the OLX Idea Bank.


I'm not sure about the 31 transacations in the RE report.  I would use Query and locate those Records, tag the Gifts (either with the Appeal Tag or with something temporary that you can remove later) and compare to your detail report.


You've got multiple issues going on here...and hopefully I'm not muddying the waters.  Overall, I really like OLX, and it's still very much under development, so hopefully it'll just continue to get better.  But it is important to figure out what's happening and what's getting counted where and how.  And I think it's good to pick a method for gathering data to report on (OLX honeycomb stats or RE Appeal data) and stick with it.