It's now really easy to track your stories' statistics over time

[8letters]

I haven't been visiting the AH too much recently, so pardon me if this has already been discussed.

I noticed today on the right side of the "Sort By" bar of the My Published Works page a download arrow. With that arrow, it's super easy to track your stories' statistics over time. I'm going to give these instructions using Firefox and Excel 2003, but they should be similar for any browser and spreadsheet.

Steps I follow to save my stories' statistics
1. I click on the download arrow
2. Firefox throws up a dialog box asking me what to do with the myPublishedStories.csv file. I accept the default, which is to "Open with Microsoft Office Excel" and click the OK button
3. Excel opens with a bunch of data in it. The first line starts with "Name" and there's a line for each of my stories. The data is all crammed together, separated by semicolons. I need to unpack the data
4. I highlight all the cells with data and then from the Excel menu, select Data -> Text to Columns...
5. The Convert Text to Columns Wizard starts. I click Next, check the box for "semicolon" and click Finish
6. Ta-da! I have all my story statistics! Now, I just need to add a date and save them off for trend analysis
7. To add a date, I put in J2 the following formula, =DATE(YEAR(NOW()),MONTH(NOW()),DAY(NOW())). I copy that to every row with story data
8. To save them off, I open a spreadsheet that I'm saving my story statistics in. I copy all the story data and then use Paste Special to paste only the values. If I don't do that, the date for the statistics will change over time

 

[SimonDoom]

I haven't been visiting the AH too much recently, so pardon me if this has already been discussed.

I noticed today on the right side of the "Sort By" bar of the My Published Works page a download arrow. With that arrow, it's super easy to track your stories' statistics over time. I'm going to give these instructions using Firefox and Excel 2003, but they should be similar for any browser and spreadsheet.

Steps I follow to save my stories' statistics
1. I click on the download arrow
2. Firefox throws up a dialog box asking me what to do with the myPublishedStories.csv file. I accept the default, which is to "Open with Microsoft Office Excel" and click the OK button
3. Excel opens with a bunch of data in it. The first line starts with "Name" and there's a line for each of my stories. The data is all crammed together, separated by semicolons. I need to unpack the data
4. I highlight all the cells with data and then from the Excel menu, select Data -> Text to Columns...
5. The Convert Text to Columns Wizard starts. I click Next, check the box for "semicolon" and click Finish
6. Ta-da! I have all my story statistics! Now, I just need to add a date and save them off for trend analysis
7. To add a date, I put in J2 the following formula, =DATE(YEAR(NOW()),MONTH(NOW()),DAY(NOW())). I copy that to every row with story data
8. To save them off, I open a spreadsheet that I'm saving my story statistics in. I copy all the story data and then use Paste Special to paste only the values. If I don't do that, the date for the statistics will change over time

Thanks for doing this!

When I try to do this, when I click on Text to Columns I get this message: Microsoft Excel can convert only one column at a time. The range can be many rows tall but no more than one column wide. Try again by selecting cells in one column only.

I don't know how to respond to this.

 

[8letters]

Thanks for doing this!

When I try to do this, when I click on Text to Columns I get this message: Microsoft Excel can convert only one column at a time. The range can be many rows tall but no more than one column wide. Try again by selecting cells in one column only.

I don't know how to respond to this.

You have too much data highlighted. You have 20 stories, right? So only cells A1-A21 should be highlighted when you select Text to Columns from the menu.

 

[NotWise]

Thanks for doing this!

When I try to do this, when I click on Text to Columns I get this message: Microsoft Excel can convert only one column at a time. The range can be many rows tall but no more than one column wide. Try again by selecting cells in one column only.

I don't know how to respond to this.

I use LibreOffice Calc rather than Excel. The settings in my installation make Calc interpret the semicolons as column breaks, so when I open the file it's already broken into columns and I don't need to do more to it. Maybe that's what's happening. In that case it just saves you a step or two.

 

[SimonDoom]

You have too much data highlighted. You have 20 stories, right? So only cells A1-A21 should be highlighted when you select Text to Columns from the menu.

I figured it out. There were some glitches in the way the Excel document downloaded. I fixed them and the conversion works. Thanks.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Nifty. Thanks for this!

 

[49greg]

edited.

should. have read the OP instructions all the way through.

Doh.


Thanks for this.

 

[rockchaser]

Yeah, thanks for pointing this out!

For kicks, I calculated a time series (attached) of individual ratings on related story chapters, as the ratings came in. This took a little sneaky programming to extract; the more data, the easier it is to figure out the whole series. Fractional ratings are for average votes (when the algorithm's unsure or because more than one vote came in during an interval). Time axis is in seconds. Different colors are for different stories/chapters.

Pretty obvious when someone dropped by who didn't like my stories.

 

[MindsMirror]

It is easy, but why doesn't Lit track it for us? That'd be easier. They've got all the data... they just need to put it in a time-series and plot it. We'd thought that was how the little bar graph icons would be used.

-MM