We get many questions here that amount to custom queries. I.E. somebody wants to know a this, somebody wants to know a that.

Just some recent examples include questions like:

* How many Classmates in Virginia are on Class Creator?

* How many schools in Virginia use Class Creator?

* What Classmates have their private contact info set to display to other Classmates?

* What percentage of my Classmates never left the town our high school is located in?

Questions like this are very common and there's currently no good way of getting answers, so we're going to add a new feature at the bottom of the Statistics page. It will be a little box with the title "Ask The Database". Inside it we'll put a simple dropdown menu of all the questions people commonly need answers to, such as the examples above.

So, what exactly what you all like to ask your database? I'll gather up a list of common questions here, we'll put them all in the Ask The Database box, and people will then be able to do their own database mining.

Will this be for all the classmates, or just the admins?

Since only ADMINS have access to the "Statistics" page, it would just be for Admins.

Brad Switzer wrote:

Great idea Brad! I think since the question already asked, this should be for Admins only and not the full class, but I could possibly be convinced.

I know very recently I had a couple things that I would like to pull out of the data. Just can't remember what they were right at the moment. I'll contribute off and on over next few days.

1. Who did NOT check the box "Allow only fellow Classmates to view my Profile details. This will block the public and search engines from accessing your Profile. Leave this box unchecked if you wish to allow the public (friends, co-workers, family members, etc.) to view your Profile details." In my opinion they SHOULD check that, and I would like to discuss with them why.
2. Who has NOT created a profile and joined the website?
3. Who is NOT attending the Reunion or has not made an indication yes or no? This should be website registered only.
4. Who has chosen to Turn Off IM?

Excellent new feature for us 'number freeks!'

Thanks,

Steve

Excellent Derrell. Thank you, that's exactly the kinds of questions we're looking for. I will let this thread play out over the next couple weeks, and then review it in its entirely to formulate the final questions list.

I luv that feature!!!!! What a great
It will sure help out us Admins. who need to grasp this information.
Thanx Again, Brad.

How about "Last logon date for classmate" Provide a printable report listed most recent to oldest and listing all registered classmates, which might go back to registered and never came back (I have at least one of those).

Anyway, someone who has not logged on for over a month for instance, I might use such a list to email those folks to "instill" some interest again.

Speaking as an admin and not a ClassCreator employee....

also - those who initially signed up but never returned - their last login date is the date the profile was created.

I think you have already said there was going to be a report on Message Center usage (or if you are Canadian, "Message Centre") - number of messages sent/received by each classmate

I would like to know who is who is using the different Profile Subscriptions - maybe just the number of classmates using that feature. (probably intrusion of privacy if I know who is interested in which classmates, but that would be interesting, too)

When the new ANYTHING SUBSCRIPTIONS are implemented, who is getting the "Home Page Changed" e-mails, "New Member signed up" e-mails, etc.

Brad Switzer wrote:

Boxers or briefs.

Wow, I hope when the "Home Page Changed" option becomes available, admins are able to decide when notices go out. Can't tell you how many times I go in to add punctuation or wording of a sentence, but it would amount to a LOT of notices!

Would an accounting of how many times individual topics are getting hits fall into the question you are asking Brad? It just doesn't seem like people on our site are even opening the message forum, pictures, and tribute page...anyway they seldom comment on them. It sure would be encouraging (or discouraging ) to KNOW if they are actually visiting.

Things like visitorship are not what I'm talking about here, no. There's already functions like plugging in Google Analytics to see that. I'm also not talking about the upcoming "Notify Me!" feature here either, where Classmates will be able to opt in to emails when various events happen on the site, such as a home page update (yes we'll give Admins a box to NOT consider it an update if you're just fixing a typo or something).

This topic specifically pertains to mining data from your database. When Classmates move about the site, enter various things, update Profiles, Details pages, etc. they're saving data to a database. You can ask the database pretty much anything by using queries. Well, you can't, but we can. So I'm trying to generate a list of canned queries that Admins would like to have so they can ask the database various questions by simply clicking on the question from a dropdown list. For example, "Give me a list of all Classmates who are married." That's a query. Whenever you need a summary of collective data from the database we can run a query and provide a report with the answers.

Hope you are ready cause I've put my brain in gear--and YES these are items I really would like to scan the database for.

1. Besides the number of classmates that logon in any given 24 hour period, I would like to know how often each classmate logs into the site (similar to the message count on these forums).

2. I'd like to know the hours of the day (based on school's location) that the site is being used by a logged in classmate. This would be especially helpful when I want to schedule "testing" of a new page, since I don't have the same luxury when I'm maintaining my own commercial websites.

3. I'd like to know how many "lookie-loo's" (non-registered) persons are looking at my class website.

4. Re: Non-registered "guests" looking at my class website, I'd like to know the times of day these non-registered guests are on my site.

For all the above, is it possible to know where they are located (by state and/or country)?

I have (so far) two people who log-in around 8-10am PDT everyday and don't log off till 5-7pm PDT. Is there any way that the database can tell me if they are inactive (ordoing something--changing pages or sending messages) say after 15 minutes time? The only reason I know they are on is that my IM alert tells me so. The "Away" flag comes on, but that doesn't tell me anything. I really don't want to be testing a new page (Live) when there is a chance a classmate will click on it.

A little "wish-list" here:

A. I wish there was a way that I could test pages live, but keep them hidden (no live link visible to other classmates) until I'm ready to fully activate the page.

B. I wish there was a way we could "edit" or "add" items to the PROFILE GENERATOR without the page going live (visible) to classmates. In fact it would like to have a running "history" for the following Admin Functions (like those found in "Edit Site Pages"): Preferences; Profile Generator; Reunion Planner (at least 2 completely separate Reunions running/planning at the same time).

C. Within Reunion Planner, I'd like to see "Maps & Directions expanded to at least six items. Our Reunion coming up just over a year from now, we have five planned events in different locations with a sixth one becoming more likely as the days pass by.

I know this is long and I'm sure I will have more to add, but I need to get back to my "project" at hand.

Thanks, John, for posting your lists.

I vote for Christman's { sorry ~ too many John C's } #3!

Would love to Double vote for his Wish List A,B,& C!!

Would like to add:

When in the Message Forum, and using the Editor, when I want to include a Smiley Face, the choices are NOT 'labeled' as they are here in the Help Forums { ie: 'wink', 'smile', 'laughing', 'very happy', etc. }

Yes, some of the faces are self-evident, but some of the expressions I have trouble recalling what they mean exactly.

Could these be labeled also?

Appreciate the opportunity to give feedback! N

Thanks John. Will go through everything in this thread in a couple weeks when the ideas play out. Many of your suggestions are not related to this feature but good suggestions we can consider for inclusion in other areas.

Nancee S. Lougheed wrote:

I can certainly agree with you there Nancee. Sometimes I think I'm it, but since the other John C has already gone off to lah-lah land, I won't talk about him behind his back

Would love to Double vote for his Wish List A,B,& C!!

Would like to add:

Quote:

See Brad, here's someone who has a head on her shoulders. I'm sure glad I stopped when I did, or Nancee just might not have come up with the same ideas I had about smiley's. Also there would have been no one who would be there to support my ideas--even if they don't belong in this thread. My trouble is that when I get on roll, I just can't stop and say I've got to create a new topic cause my Wish List isn't in the same category.

Well I see there are current 140 active users right now and I'm the only "Registered User Online" right now...I sure would like to see that little feature on my website, but how come you other 140 users ain't online with me? Too scared to show your faces? I dare you!!! No, I double DARE you~!

A bunch of chickens they are--now down to 89 "so called ACTIVE users" I can wait you out--I'm on an all nighter all by my lonesome!

I would love to see added:
Classmates who have opted out of receiving emails

The ability to create a report (week, month, range of dates, etc) of the history of classmate activity. Who logged in, date, time, duration, etc., not necessarily what they looked at.
An extension of the statistics we get now of users and last login.

I concur with Derrell's suggestions.
I would also be interested in the ability to look up other sites in specific states, and other classes of the same year.

Since I'm very new to CC (a few days), I see on statistics the number of active users and inactive users, but wondering if there is a way to get the number of "in memory" names. By the way, mine is an alumni site. I guess what I'm looking for is the total number of classmates (including deceased) and if I then know the number of deceased I could figure a percentage. Sounds odd, but since the school is no longer open, our alumni banquet numbers will continually go down - so it would be interesting to track. If there is already a way to track this, I am missing it.

While percentage of deceased Classmates is not a tracked number, you can do this:

1) Click Manage Classmates
2) Click Download Class List
3) There you will see all Classmates both living and deceased. It would be pretty easy from that point to run the calculation.

Here's the report I'd really like to get from the class database:

View Here

Shouldn't be too difficult. In fact, I think it should be available on a real-time basis under "Statistics"!

This is, after all, why most of us are using CC -- to get the maximum number of class members to participate and attend the next reunion!

I'd also like to be able to have the system constantly update the names of classmates planning to attend -- and perhaps automatically do a slide show of their yearbook photos - using a photo album which can be toggled on and off.

08-22-2010 - updated link to show most recent proposed report.

That's beautiful. We will most definitely lead off the Statistics page with that. Many thanks John, now THAT kind of thing right there is really contributing to making the system better and more useful.

On the attending reunion yearbook photo slideshow let me play Devil's Advocate: Wouldn't it be a lot more useful to go to the Classmate Profile pages, click Attending Reunion in the key and just toggle on yearbook photo display? It would be far faster to see everybody coming at a glance than it would be to sit through a long slideshow.

Here's a thought thought: What about a home page module called "Show Classmates Attending Reunion"? Then we could take the Yearbook Photos and maybe display them at half of their current size. Maybe we could get 8 across or something like that, so the grid wouldn't be too huge on the page. This way right on the home page people could see yearbook pics of all who are attending without having to narrow down the list themselves or sit through slideshows. I think this would be the best way to attract attention; as you said yourself the goal is to get the maximum number of class members to participate and attend the reunion.

Brad Switzer wrote:

And perhaps, like the registered user "pie chart", we ought to be able to place that report not just in the widget column, but anyplace we want for our members or just our admins to view.

While I can do this by tracking these results month-by-month, it might be nice to show changes in the past 30 days by adding a column:

30 day changes:
+12 Registered
+25 Profile updated
+1 Deceased
-3 Missing
-5 Reunion "Maybe"
+3 Reunion "Yes"
+2 Reunion "No"

And I showed the report date in the header; you might also want to display the website launch date (with CC) and track the number of days the site has been up to show progress over time in registrations, etc.

Quote:

Yep, that would work, you Devil you:

Quote:

Rather than a 'home page' module, how about a module that we can place on any page we want? For example on the Reunion Registration page? or on a dedicated page: "Who's planning on attending" with a choice of displaying a table of pictures, a list of names or pictures+ names? (Think of it like the mp3 widget we can embed on any page we want.)

(My pictures each have names embedded in the photos.)

While my brain is on a roll...

I propose that those numbers reported in the table should be clickable which brings up a list of the names of those people included in that count.

And I might as well go out on a limb and ask that there is a link on that list that will allow me to jump to the "Email the Class" with those names being automatically selected for emailing.

(Except, of course, for the deceased ones.)

I've updated my report layout to incorporate the subsequent suggestions I added above:

CLICK HERE

Beautiful.

Any idea on when this might be up? I have a committee meeting in mid-September.

We'll do what we can but during the ongoing system restructure we can't promise anything. Other than that we're working on the restructure.

A sudden surprise showed up today in the Statistics Report area: Hooray!

Just a few suggestions and corrections: (See my proposal below)

1. Add the extra column and base most of the percentages off the number of living members. ie.A percentage of Reunion "Yes" that includes deceased members isn't logical.

2. The figures in red don't match up with what I see at the top of the Profile page.

3. Calculate the "Reunion No Ans Yet" based on the living members minus the counts of those giving all of the three possible answers on the profiles. (This will include those who are not online.) Not sure where the 385 came from.

4. Add the "As of Date" -- which would make this an easy item to screen print, crop and post on the site or share with the Reunion Team.

Question? How will the Reunion figures be calculated for a site that is already selling tickets?

Great progress! Thanks.

This isn't quite finalized and will be announced momentarily once it is. Few more tweaks here and I'll pass along your notes above too John, thank you.

Commented out until finalized.