View and configure usage analytics reports in SharePoint Server
APPLIES TO: 
2013 2016 2019 Subscription Edition 
SharePoint in Microsoft 365
The previous article in this series, Use recommendations and popular items on websites with anonymous users in SharePoint Server, explained how to display recommendations on a website with anonymous users. In this article you'll learn:
Note
The examples in this series are based on an on-premises SharePoint Server deployment.
Learn about Viewing usage data for your SharePoint site in Microsoft 365.
About the usage analytics reports
The usage analytics reports show statistics of how visitors have interacted with the content on your website, for example which item is viewed the most. The reports are broken down per usage event. By default, this report breakdown means that you'll be able to see:
The number of views for an item
The number of recommendations displayed per item
The number of recommendations clicked per item
SharePoint Server creates two usage analytics reports:
Most Popular Items shows usage event statistics for all items in a library or list
Popularity Trends shows usage event statistics for an item, a site, or a site collection
The reports are automatically updated every 24 hours, when the Usage analytics job is run.
View the Most Popular Items report for a catalog
In a cross-site publishing scenario where you are displaying catalog content on a Publishing site, you view the Most Popular Items report on your authoring site. Here are the steps:
On your authoring site, go to your catalog.
Click the LIST tab -> Most Popular Items.
On the Most Popular Items page, use the menu to select the usage event for which you want to view statistics.
Note
You can view statistics for the Recommendations Displays usage event in the View the Popularity Trends report for an item.
Change the Recent time period for a usage event
On the Most Popular Items page, there are two time periods: Recent and Ever.
The Ever time period shows statistics from the first day a usage event was recorded. By default, the Recent time period is set to the last 14 days. T Here are the steps to view the default settings of a usage event:
On the server where SharePoint Server is installed, open the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell.
At the Microsoft PowerShell command prompt, type the following commands:
$ssp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplicationProxy
$tenantConfig = $ssp.GetAnalyticsTenantConfiguration([Guid]::Empty)
$event = $tenantConfig.EventTypeDefinitions | where-object {$_.EventTypeId -eq <EventTypeId>}
$event
EventTypeId is the numeric View the usage event definitions of the usage event that you want to view. In the following example, we'll view the Views event. Therefore, we'll enter 1.
The Recent time period is defined by the RecentPopularityTimeframe property. We can change the Recent time period to anything between one and 14 days. Here are the steps to change the time period:
- In the SharePoint 2016 Management Shell, at the Microsoft PowerShell command prompt, type the following commands:
$ssp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplicationProxy
$tenantConfig = $ssp.GetAnalyticsTenantConfiguration([Guid]::Empty)
$event = $tenantConfig.EventTypeDefinitions | where-object { $_.EventTypeId -eq <EventTypeId> }
$event.RecentPopularityTimeFrame = <TimeFrame>
$tenantConfig.Update($ssp)
EventTypeId is the numeric View the usage event definitions of the usage event that we want to change. TimeFrame is the new time period we want to set for the usage event.
In the following example, to change the Views Recent time to a week, enter 1 and 7.
- To verify the change, at the Microsoft PowerShell command prompt, type the following command:
$event
Notice that the value for the RecentPopularityTimeframe parameter has changed to 7.
Narrow the Most Popular Items report to a specific attribute or category
Viewing usage reports per usage event is useful when we want to see how visitors are interacting with our site. But many times we want to narrow the report to a specific attribute or category, for example all items that are on sale or all Laptops. To narrow the report, we can use Keyword Query Language (KQL) If you don't know KQL, don't worry. You can easily narrow your Most Popular Items report without having much knowledge of the KQL syntax.
In our Contoso catalog, we have a site column called RetOnSale. For each item, the value of RetOnSale specifies whether the item is on sale or not.
To narrow the Most Popular Items report to only show items that are on sale, we'll use the managed property that represents the RetOnSale site column. In our Contoso scenario, this is RetOnSale (see How to find a managed property name).
In the Search Schema, we can see that the RetOnSale managed property is Queryable. This means that we can use it to narrow the Most Popular Items report.
To see Views usage event statistics for items that are on sale, on the Most Popular Items page, select Most Views, and enter RetOnSale=True.
And just like that, only items that are on sale are shown.
You can also narrow usage event statistics to a specific category, for example all Laptops. In our Contoso scenario, the Item Category site column is used to specify the category for each item.
The managed property name of the Item Category column is owstaxIdProductCatalogItemCategory. The owstaxIdProductCatalogItemCategory managed property is queryable, which means that we can use it to narrow the Most Popular Items report.
To see which laptops are viewed most by visitors, on the Most Popular Items page, select Most Views, and enter owstaxIdProductCatalogItemCategory:Laptops.
By narrowing the Views usage event statistics to a specific category, we can verify that the Popular Items Web Part is working correctly on our publishing site. For example, on the Laptops page, notice that the three items that are displayed in the Popular Items Web Part are the same as those shown to have the most Views in the Most Popular Items report that we just narrowed to Laptops.
View the Popularity Trends report for an item
There are two ways that you can access the Popularity Trends report for an item:
On your catalog, select the item for which want to view the Popularity Trends report. In the ribbon, click ITEMS --> Popularity Trends.
On the Most Popular Items page, click Popularity Trends.
Both of these options will open a Microsoft Excel sheet where you can view the daily and monthly statistics for the item. Each usage event is shown in a separate tab.
About the TailTrimming parameter
While we're on the subject of usage analytics reports, one usage event parameter that is worth mentioning is TailTrimming. This parameter specifies when the numbers that are shown in the usage analytics reports should be updated.
Important
This parameter does not affect how recommendations are calculated.
For example, for the Views usage event the TailTrimming parameter is by default set to 3.
This means that the usage analytics reports will be updated for an item when the item was viewed a minimum of three times within the past 24 hours. For example, if the item Fabrikam Laptop16 M6000 was viewed two times within the past 24 hours, these two views won't be displayed in the usage analytics reports. If within the next 24 hours the Fabrikam Laptop16 M6000 item is viewed four times, the usage analytics report will be updated with four views.
The reason the TailTrimming parameter is set to 3 is to avoid having to update items that almost none of your website visitors are interacting with. By not updating these items, you reduce the load on your system. On the other hand, when the TailTrimming parameter is set to 3, the usage analytics reports can be somewhat inaccurate. In the example with the Fabrikam Laptop16 M6000, the two views in the first 24 hours won't be displayed in the usage analytic reports. The total number of views of Fabrikam Laptop16 M6000 over the last 48 hours will show 4, but in reality, it was viewed six times.
If you want the usage analytics reports to be updated regardless of minimum number of views within the last 24 hours, do the following tasks:
- In the SharePoint 2016 Management Shell, at the Microsoft PowerShell command prompt, type these commands:
$ssp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplicationProxy
$tenantConfig = $ssp.GetAnalyticsTenantConfiguration([Guid]::Empty)
$event = $tenantConfig.EventTypeDefinitions | where-object { $_.EventTypeId -eq <EventTypeId> }
$event.TailTrimming = <TailTrimming>
$tenantConfig.Update($ssp)
Where EventTypeId is the numeric View the usage event definitions of the usage event that you want to change, and TailTrimming is the minimum number of times the usage event has to occur within 24 hours for the usage analytics reports to be updated.
In the following example, we wanted the usage analytics reports for the Views usage event to be updated if a Views usage event occurs within 24 hours. Therefore, we entered 1 and 0.
- To verify the change, at the Microsoft PowerShell command prompt, type the following command:
$event
Notice that the value of the TailTrimming parameter has changed to 0.
So with that change, this series has come to an end. Hopefully you now have a better understanding of how recommendations and popular items work, and can start adding them to your website.