In this article, we look at how to use data collected via the Ideas tool for reporting on your consultation. Detailed below are options to either view the Tool Report on screen or download the Detailed Report or use a Text Analysis report.

Before you begin reporting, ensure that you've archived the tool, so you are certain that you are working with the final data set. Of course, if you choose, you can begin working on your data before the end of the consultation period, you just need to be aware that you may not be working with the final data set. Looking at your data before the consultation ends can be a good thing to do if you would like to pull out some preliminary insights.

In order to archive your Ideas tool in preparation for reporting, visit the project page where you have set up the Ideas tool.

In your project page, navigate to the Tools section to view Idea topics you have created.

Use the dropdown menu next to the topic you would like to archive and select Archive.

If you want to include a custom archival message write it in the Archival Message dialogue box and click Save to confirm.

You have now ensured that your Ideas topic is closed from further contributions and you can begin to analyze your data.

One of the best ways to explore and work with the data collected from your Ideas activity is to use the Detailed Excel Report.

To generate this report, click on Reporting > Project Reports. The Summary page is displayed.

In the Summary page, select the project and time period to filter data for your report. If your consultation has been archived, you can use the All-Time option to select the whole period of your consultation. Click on Update.

Next, click on the Download Report dropdown menu and select the Excel option for the Detailed Report section. If the button is not clickable, ensure that you have not selected more than 5 projects for the report.

Access the downloaded folder and open the excel file of the project you wish to analyze. The downloaded detailed report will have a separate file for each project selected. Open your project file.

Locate the tab at the bottom of the excel sheet which corresponds to the Ideas activity you would like to analyze. You may have several tools activated on this project so each tab will represent a different tool instance on your project.
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There are three main sections for exploring the excel data.

Summary information about your activity. You can see this pane on the left-hand side in blue. This gives you an overview of participation and a breakdown of the user status of participants. e.g. Registered, Unverified, Anonymous.

Contribution information is displayed in the blue section. This information includes the following; The Contributors Details (date and time, login and contributor summary), the Idea Details (title and description), Votes (number of votes received in favour and against) and the number of visitors. Links to images submitted by participants will show up in a column labelled Media Url. This allows you to easily download the images submitted by the participant.

Sign-up form questions are shown in the blue section and allow you to filter through your responses based on sign-up form questions. This information will only be complete for participants who have signed-in to complete the activity. Sign-up form information won't be available in the excel sheet if you have selected unverified participation.

Another way to explore the feedback collected is to use the Tool Reports section of Reporting. This will allow you to generate some useful graphs and further explore your Ideas data.

To begin using Tool Reports, go to the Reporting > Tool Reports section of your site. Click on Ideas on the left panel in the Tool Reports section.

Use filters to select the project you would like to look at and also select the data range. Click on Update to generate your report.

The page will be refreshed with the newly generated report for the projects and time period selected. Below is a description of the data represented in each of the sections seen on the report.

Use the Overview section of the Ideas Report page to compare different idea activities.

As you can see in the image above, the Overview section presents your data as a scatter bubble, allowing you to easily compare the amount of engagement between each of the Idea activities.

To filter the data based on an Ideas tool, use the dropdown to select an Ideas Tool and view the data you would like to look at, in detail.

This section also displays the unique summary information about the activity in the call-out box on the right-hand side. Here you can see the number of visitors, number of unique contributors and contributions as well as information about whether the participants were registered. Read our article on How site visits and visitors are captured to understand this number further.

To include this graph in your report, export it by clicking on the hamburger icon (see below). Simply choose the format for your export and download your selected option.

The Overview section is a great way to quickly check on this activity, compare it to others and quickly download a chart.

Using the demographics section is an easy way to quickly report on who was involved in your Ideas activity.

The demographics information presented is gathered from your site sign-up form, so it's important that this form reflects the demographic questions you require for reporting. For more information read our article on Developing a registration form to understand how the sign-up form should be created so that the required information is gathered for reporting.

Sign-up form questions are used to show demographic insights. Any of the sign-up form questions can be selected from the dropdown box.

The button on the left can be used to print or download the graph.

Demographics information is useful for reporting as it helps you better explain the profile of people who have contributed to your ideas activity. 

Ideas Visitor Statistics panel allows you to easily compare your activities in a table. This information is particularly useful for comparing the number of contributors to an activity.

This section shows the detail of each instance of the Idea tool from each project selected for reporting. It details the number of visitors, contributors, new ideas, likes and comments.

Insights allow you to see all submissions on your Ideas activity.
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This section displays the Idea submissions from the participant along with any votes received. You can select the Ideas that you would like to anlayse by selecting it from the dropdown list.

You can also filter the submissions displayed based on the sign-up form questions, for example, you can filter on the suburb, to only see the contributions from a particular locality.

As the Idea's submitted and the Idea tool comments are free form text, it will be useful to analyse the topic discussion using the Text Analysis tool and then extract a report. Read our article on Text Analysis to get detailed instructions.

What's Next?

Why not circle back and take another look at our article on how to Add the Idea Tool to review the information you are collecting to generate the required report.

Contact our support team if you need any further assistance via chat or email support@engagementhq.com