Microsoft native: strengths and limitations
Out of the box, SharePoint provides useful page-level statistics including: unique viewers, total views, average time spent per user and page traffic by time. These can be reviewed over standard periods from 7 to 90 days, which makes them helpful for a quick check on an individual page.
Managing a large, interconnected intranet raises questions that page statistics cannot answer. Native reporting cannot show you:
- How your overall information architecture is performing
- Whether the right employees received a message
- Whether people moved to the intended next step
- Where and when a search took place
- How employees moved through a journey that crosses multiple pages or sites
- Performance over a period that matches an annual campaign, a multi-month transformation or a before-and-after comparison
Power BI build
Some organisations may choose to create their own analytics reports in Power BI.
This can work by downloading SharePoint CSV files at site level that contain: page-level statistics including unique viewers, total views, average time spent per user and page traffic by time.
The limitation of this is that you would need to download the CSV for ingestion into Power BI each time you want to see a new days’ worth of data. Alternatively, if you did this at a regular cadence e.g. monthly, you would not be able to respond to activity in the first few weeks of each monthly cycle as you would only be reviewing the data every 4 weeks. This means the reader of the Power BI could not use the insights to drive action unless the CSV was downloaded daily – or very regularly.
If you have access to a developer the extraction of this CSV can be automated.
Whether you automate the extraction or do it manually, the user insight limitations of a Power BI persist in that managing an interconnected intranet raises questions that page statistics cannot answer. Native reporting cannot show you:
- How your overall information architecture is performing
- Whether the right employees received a message
- Whether people moved to the intended next step
- Where and when a search took place
- How employees moved through a journey that crosses multiple pages or sites
- Performance over a period that matches an annual campaign, a multi-month transformation or a before-and-after comparison
Specialist product: Addin Analytics
We designed Addin Analytics for the broader questions about employee experience, communication effectiveness and long-term digital workplace and communications platform performance.
Flexible scope. Report on a page, one site, selected sites or all of SharePoint. You can also bring together pages from different sites to measure a complete campaign or employee journey.
Flexible time periods. Match reporting to a launch, campaign, transformation programme or comparison period rather than a fixed reporting window.
Audience insight. Filter every view by audience, department and location to reveal gaps hidden by organisation-wide totals.
Employee journeys. Journey Explorer shows entry and exit pages, common paths, drop-offs and progression towards calls to action, across an unlimited number of steps.
Search insight. See popular searches, searches with no results and abandoned searches, as well as where people searched within a journey and the results they were shown.
Viva Connections and Viva Engage. Measure how employees use Viva Connections dashboard tiles, alongside Viva Engage participation, reactions, questions, answers, sentiment and hot topics.
Live, shareable reporting. Save views and share them with authorised colleagues, so everyone sees current data rather than a static export.
Specialist product: Addin Analytics
| Capability | SharePoint out of the box | Addin Analytics |
| Reporting scope | One page at a time | Page, site, selected sites, all of SharePoint or pages grouped from different sites |
| Time periods | Fixed periods of 7 to 90 days | Flexible, matched to your campaign or comparison period |
| Audience insight | Not available | Filters by audience, department and location |
| Employee journeys | Not available | Entry and exit pages, common paths, drop-offs and call-to-action progression |
| Search | Not connected to analytics | Popular, no-results and abandoned searches, plus search within journeys |
| Viva | Not included | Viva Connections dashboard tiles and Viva Engage activity |
| Reporting | Quick page checks | Saved, shareable live views across engagement, ranking, people and traffic |
Ownership
Addin Analytics can be owned by communications teams, IT and other digital workplace stakeholders.
Best fit
Native SharePoint statistics remain valuable for quick page checks. When you need to prove that communications reached the right people, understand how employees move through your intranet and decide what to improve, Addin Analytics gives you the context to act by providing data you can base decisions on.
Talk to us
Contact us to arrange an initial conversation. We’ll discuss what you are trying to achieve and show you how Addin Analytics can meet your requirements.