Automatically export usage stats in a central location

PhraseExpander Enterprise lets you automatically gather the data from all users and lets you have a view of how PhraseExpander is used inside your organization.

Every day, PhraseExpander generates a CSV file containing the usage stats for each user and puts it in a specific folder for further processing.

What data is exported?

For each user, you'll be able to see:

• how many templates/autocorrects are triggered
• how many keystrokes are saved
• how much time is saved

The CSV data for each user is formatted as follows and contains:

• Date: the reference date for the stats info
• Executed: the number of templates / autocorrects executed
• Time saved (m): time saved in minutes, based on the typing speed (WPM) set by that user
• Type: indicates if the entry refers to a template or an autocorrect (in most cases, you'll want to filter out autocorrects and only work with templates)
• Username: the username associated with the user the stat file refers to
• Machine name: the name of the machine where the stats were generated
• WPM: the typing speed of the user (words per minute)

How to set up automatic data exporting

To set up automatic exporting, you need to use the PhraseExpander static configuration file PhraseExpander.exe.config, and ensure it contains the line AutoexportStatsPath that specifies the folder where the data will be exported to.

Here's an example of a PhraseExpander.config.exe file that contains the instruction and exports the data to the folder z:\shared

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
   <appSettings>
    <add key="AutoexportStatsPath" value="Z:\shared"/>
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

The file must be copied into the installation folder of each machine (or put in a single place where the application is located, if you are using Citrix or Terminal Services).

CSV File Format

Every day, PhraseExpander will create a CSV file for each user containing the new data.

The filename is in the format

ExportDate - Username - Machine - PhraseExpander usage stats

like

20220612 - Andrea - SWORDFISH - PhraseExpander usage stats

Analyzing the data

You can then easily combine your files in Excel into a single file. Here's a video on how to automatically merge all CSV files contained in a folder.

Once you have all your data in a single table, you can refresh it when new data is added and build a Pivot table to display the data in the way you want.

Verify that the data is exported properly

1. Click on File → Usage Statistics
2. Click on Export all data

If the static config file is set up properly, PhraseExpander will export all the data up to the day before into the folder specified. If you see an error message or a window asking for the file location is shown, it means that the autoexport hasn't been set up properly.