Shorthand's analytics service provides story engagement data via your Shorthand dashboard.
If you have Shorthand Analytics enabled, you'll see a basic story view count within the story cards on your dashboard for published stories. The view count appears in a coloured strip directly below the title image of published stories:
The view count represents the number of times the story has been loaded. The count is updated every few minutes and will increment for each load or reload of the story.
Open the menu on the story card and click Analytics to open a panel dedicated to analytics for the story.
This panel provides greater detail on story views, including all-time (since publication) counts for:
Total views — the number of times the story has been loaded to date.
The percentage of views from Desktop-sized devices. This includes all views with a resolution wider than 900 pixels (those that see the 'landscape' or 'wide' versions of your story sections and images, and can include laptop and tablet views).
The percentage of views on Mobile-sized devices. This includes all views at resolutions narrower than 900 pixels (those that see the portrait or tall versions of your story sections).
Percentage completion — the percentage of all views that scrolled or swiped to the last section of the story.
Time on story — the average length of time for which readers had the story open (in the active tab of a browser that has focus).
Below the summary data, you can see statistics graphed for a time period of your choosing. Two date input boxes let you select any date range. By default these are set to dates from story publication to the current date. Dates are expressed according to your own timezone (this is worth noting if comparing statistics with colleagues in different timezones).
Hover over any date in the graphs to highlight the data for a particular day:
A Download button beneath the graph lets you export the data as a CSV file.
Downloading workspace analytics
Workspace owners and administrators can download their Shorthand Analytics data as a CSV file.
To access this option, select Settings from the left-hand menu on the dashboard, then select Analytics from the Workspace Settings section of the menu. Under Workspace Analytics, adjust the report date range as needed, and click Generate Report. This will queue your report to be generated.
This report will include all published stories, even if the stories were published outside of the given date range, although the page view data will only correspond to views within the date range (for example, if a story was published after the end date, it will still show on the report but there will be no page view data for it).
Once ready, you'll receive an email letting you know the report can be downloaded, and a link to the file will appear beneath where the report was queued.
You can only generate a new report after the current report has finished. You can generate up to 10 workspace reports in a 24-hour period.
The data that Shorthand collects
To provide story analytics, Shorthand collects anonymised data from the browsers of your readers. You may need to consider whether this impacts your requirements to disclose to your readers the collection or use of data. The data we collect includes:
URL used to access the story
Referrer URL
Date and time of access
Times of progress through the story (scroll and section events)
Device type (for example, iPhone, Pixel)
Operating system and version
Browser and version
Browser window size and orientation
Language (for example, en-US)
Click events on the story
Outgoing links clicked from the page
Key differences to other analytics services
Shorthand Analytics has been designed to work without setting cookies in the browser of your readers. This removes the need to manage cookie consent, but introduces several important differences to services like Google Analytics:
Shorthand Analytics (by design) cannot identify new versus return visitors. Each hit on the story, whether new or repeat, generates an additional view. If a reader reloads the story, they will generate multiple views.
Shorthand Analytics does not track user sessions across multiple pages or stories. The time on story metric is tracked in isolation for each story.
Shorthand Analytics does not currently support exclusion of bot traffic in the same way as more fully-featured analytics platforms, so you should expect view counts to be somewhat higher.
Limitations
Shorthand Analytics is currently a Beta feature, so it's important to be aware that some functionality remains to be implemented. This includes:
Comparative or combined analytics for multiple stories.
Pulling data into reports in third-party tools such as Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio).
Setting conversion goals or actions.
If these things are important to you, we would be happy to advise on how you can best integrate fully-featured third-party analytics tools — or see below for our recommended complementary analytics tools.
Note: Shorthand Analytics has not been enabled for all workspaces. If you don't have access to this feature but would like it turned on, please contact us.
Using complementary analytics services
For most customers who are looking for advanced reporting and engagement metrics, we recommend using Shorthand Analytics in together with a third-party analytics platform to gain a well-rounded picture of engagement. Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager provide good complementary solutions for customers who aren't already using other analytics providers.
We recommend installing a Google Tag Manager container into your Shorthand stories and then managing a Google Analytics installation through the container — see Adding Google Tag Manager and Adding Google Analytics for the options on your plan.
For the Google side, see Google Analytics 4 installation instructions, and how to add conversion and engagement events via Google Tag Manager.