Contact form reporting

See hits, searches, self serves/exits, submitted tickets, and search activity in your Contact Form.

If you're using the Contact Form, all contact form hits, searches, self serves/exits, submitted tickets, and search activity are tracked in Reporting > Contact Form.

Sample Contact Form Reporting view

The Report is broken into three major sections:

Contact Form Activity

The Contact Form Activity report is at the top of Reporting > Contact Form.

 It lets you know how well your knowledge base is deflecting support emails. Here's a quick guide to help you use this feature:

  1. Use the Date Range dropdown at the top to adjust the time period for the chart and the summary sections below. Options here include:
    • Today
    • Past week
    • Past two weeks
    • Past month
    • Past two months
    • Past six months
    • Custom
  2. Once you've made your Date Range selection, click Update Chart to update the chart and the summary sections below.
  3. The chart displays the number of instances of each section (Hits, Searches, Submitted Tickets, Exits, and Confirmed Self Serves). It adjusts based on the Date Range selected at the top.
  4. Hits: The number of readers who clicked on your contact form. Basically: the total number of times the contact form was opened.
    • Total Hits: All visits to the contact form (with and without search)
    • Total Hits With Search: Visits to the contact form that went through the search process (used the /contact-us URL).
    • Total Hits Without Search: Visits to the contact form that bypassed the search process (used the /contact-feedback URL).
  5. Searches: The number of searches performed.
    • Total Searches: The total number of searches completed (generally matches Total Hits With Search)
    • Searches Per Hits: Total Hits With Search / by Total Hits * 100%.
  6. Self-Serves / Exits: The number of readers who did not submit a ticket following the initial search.
    • Self-Services: After performing the initial search, the number of readers who clicked the button to confirm they found the answer and did not need to submit a ticket. This number is used for Total Confirmed as well as Confirmed Per Searches calculations.
      • Total Confirmed: The number of total confirmed self-services.
      • Confirmed Per Searches: Total Confirmed / Total Searches * 100%
    • Exits: The number of readers who didn't confirm they found the answer but exited the form.
      • Total Exits: The number of total exits
      • Exits Per Searches: Total Exits / Total Searches * 100%
  7. Submitted Tickets: The number of hits that went on to submit tickets through the contact form.
    • Total Tickets: Total number of tickets submitted from all hit types
    • Total Tickets With Search: The number of tickets submitted through the full contact form with search (using the /contact-us URL). The total potential number of these tickets is equal to the Total Hits With Search.
    • Total Tickets Without Search: The number of tickets submitted that bypassed search (using the /contact-feedback URL). The total potential number of these tickets is equal to the Total Hits Without Search.
    • Unpreventable Tickets: Tickets manually marked unpreventable / Total Tickets * 100%
      For tickets to be included in this calculation, you need to manually mark certain searches/tickets as having been unpreventable by using the Search Activity section (see below). KnowledgeOwl automatically marks all tickets as Preventable.
    • Preventable: Tickets marked as preventable / Total Tickets * 100%
      KnowledgeOwl automatically marks all tickets as preventable, so unless you've been manually marking tickets as unpreventable, this percentage will be 100%.
    • Tickets Per Searches: Total Tickets with Search / Total Hits With Search * 100%

Search Activity

The Search Activity section lets you see where searches and tickets are coming from, drill into the searches to see more details, and export a CSV containing the details for all searches in the selected Date Range.

  1. Use the Date Range dropdown at the top to adjust the time period for the table below. Options are the same as the dropdown at the top of the Contact Form Reporting:
    • Today
    • Past week
    • Past two weeks
    • Past month
    • Past two months
    • Past six months
    • Custom
  2. Once you've made your Date Range selection, click Update Results to update the table.
  3. You can Export Searches to CSV to view the full details of all searches for the selected Date Range. You'll need to regenerate the export if you Update Results to use a different time period. See Search activity: Export searches to CSV for more info.
  4. The table displays the pages where the search was performed from, the total number of searches made, and the number of tickets submitted.
    • *Your Knowledge Base are searches performed through the Contact Form directly within your knowledge base (either using /contact-us or /contact-feedback).
    • All other URLs are from searches performed from one of our contextual help widgets: Contextual Help Widget (2.0) or Contextual Help Widget (Modern & Legacy), and show the relative URL of the page where the embedded widget was opened and the search run.
  5. Click the Page Breakdown link to view more detailed data for each page.

Export searches to CSV

Want to review your search phrases and tickets across search locations? You can download a CSV file containing all Contact Form searches and their resulting info. To do so:

  1. In the Search Activity section, select the Date Range you'd like to export.
  2. Be sure you select the Update Results button once you've made your date selection. This ensures that the table display and the CSV export will pull the correct data.
  3. Click the Export Searches to CSV link just below the Date Range dropdown:
    This will generate a CSV file containing all searches in your current Date Range.
  4. Once the CSV has generated, you'll see a Download Export link. Click that link to download the CSV export.
  5. If you Update Results to use a different Date Range, you'll need to re-export the searches to CSV and redownload the export.

This export will give you most fields included in the Page Breakdown view:

  • Date: The date of the search
  • Location: The location of the search
    • Searches that occur from within the knowledge base itself show "Your Knowledge Base"
    • Searches from within the Contextual Help Widget (2.0) will show the page path where the widget was opened
  • Search Phrase: The original phrase the requestor searched
  • Action Taken: The action (if any) taken as a result of the search. Values include:
    • Confirm self serve: The search requestor clicked the button to indicate they found what they needed and didn't submit the form.
    • No ticket created: The search requestor didn't submit a ticket but also didn't click the button to confirm they found what they needed.
    • Ticket created: The search requestor submitted the contact form.
    • Unpreventable ticket: You can mark any search as an Unpreventable Ticket in the Page Breakdown section to indicate that there was no way this request could have resulted in a self-serve.
  • Requestor Name: If a ticket was submitted, the name the requestor provided in the contact form. If no ticket was created, this is left blank.
  • Requestor Email: If a ticket was submitted, the email address the requestor provided in the contact form. If no ticket was created, this is left blank.
  • Ticket Subject: If a ticket was submitted, the actual subject that was submitted (which may differ from the original Search Phrase). If no ticket was created, this is left blank.
  • Ticket Body: If a ticket was submitted, the body of the contact form. If no ticket was created, this is left blank.


Page Breakdown

Once you click Page Breakdown from the Search Activity section, you'll see a breakdown of searches completed on that particular page. For widget contact form searches, this can help identify articles you might want to set up as recommended for the page.

  1. Use the Date Range dropdown at the top to adjust the time period for the table below. These options match the time selectors in the rest of Contact Form Reporting:
    • Today
    • Past week
    • Past two weeks
    • Past month
    • Past two months
    • Past six months
    • Custom
  2. Once you've made your Date Range selection, click Update Results to update the chart and the summary sections below.
  3. Hits: The number of readers who clicked on your contact form. Basically: the total number of times the contact form was opened.
    • Total Hits: All visits to the contact form (with and without search)
    • Total Hits With Search: Visits to the contact form that went through the search process (used the /contact-us URL). For *Your Knowledge Base breakdowns, you may see differing numbers here, but for widget URLs, this number generally matches the Total Hits.
    • Total Hits Without Search: Visits to the contact form that bypassed the search process (used the /contact-feedback URL). For *Your Knowledge Base breakdowns, you may see differing numbers here, but for widget URLs, this number is generally 0.
  4. Searches: The number of searches performed.
    • Total Searches: The total number of searches completed (generally matches Total Hits With Search)
    • Searches Per Hits: Total Hits With Search / by Total Hits * 100%.
  5. Self-Serves / Exits: The number of readers who did not submit a ticket following the initial search.
    • Self-Services: After performing the initial search, the number of readers who clicked the button to confirm they found the answer and did not need to submit a ticket. This number is used for Total Confirmed as well as Confirmed Per Searches calculations.
      • Total Confirmed: The number of total confirmed self-services.
      • Confirmed Per Searches: Total Confirmed / Total Searches * 100%
    • Exits: The number of readers who didn't confirm they found the answer but exited the form.
      • Total Exits: The number of total exits
      • Exits Per Searches: Total Exits / Total Searches * 100%
  6. Submitted Tickets: The number of hits that went on to submit tickets through the contact form.
    • Total Tickets: Total number of tickets submitted from all hit types
    • Total Tickets With Search: The number of tickets submitted through the full contact form with search (using the /contact-us URL). The total potential number of these tickets is equal to the Total Hits With Search.
    • Total Tickets Without Search: The number of tickets submitted that bypassed search (using the /contact-feedback URL). The total potential number of these tickets is equal to the Total Hits Without Search.
    • Unpreventable Tickets: Tickets manually marked unpreventable / Total Tickets * 100%
      For tickets to be included in this calculation, you need to manually mark certain searches/tickets as having been unpreventable by using the Search Activity section (see below). KnowledgeOwl automatically marks all tickets as Preventable.
    • Preventable: Tickets marked as preventable / Total Tickets * 100%
      KnowledgeOwl automatically marks all tickets as preventable, so unless you've been manually marking tickets as unpreventable, this percentage will be 100%.
    • Tickets Per Searches: Total Tickets with Search / Total Hits With Search * 100%
  7. The search term section will show the actual terms your readers searched.  Contact form searches can be completed from both the full knowledge base (using the contact-us page) or from within the embeddable web widget's Contact Support link, so the source dropdown lets you select which source(s) you'd like to use. Options include:
    • All Sources (searches from the knowledge base AND the widget)
    • Knowledge base only
    • Widget only
  8. You can filter results to show any combination of Self Serves, Unpreventable, Tickets, and Exits.
  9. Once you've changed sources or filters, click the Update Filter button.

Search phrase lists

The Search Phrase results will show:

  • The exact Search Phrase that was entered
  • The Time of Search (using the time zone identified for your entire knowledge base in Settings > Basic)
  • Whether the search was completed in the widget or in the full knowledge base's Contact Form (Widget Submission)
  • The Action Taken. Actions include: Confirmed self serve, No ticket created, Ticket Created, Unpreventable Ticket, with these icons:
    Available actions taken

For submitted tickets using search, you can click on any hyperlinked search phrase to view more details for the ticket:

This will open a pop-up where you can view the original search phrase, ticket subject and body, requestor location (if from the widget), name, email, IP address, browser, and OS. These last few options are only populated if you have not checked the "Do not include sender meta data in the email" checkbox in Knowledge Base > Contact Form.

In this ticket info pop-up, you can also check the box in the lower left corner to identify the ticket as "Unpreventable", which will factor into the unpreventable tickets percentage:

Sample Ticket Info pop-up