A

Anonymous

Question

Hit Counter in WebHelp?

Forum|Forum|17 years ago
September 23, 2008
5 replies
1787 views

One of my bosses just asked me if it would be possible to create a hit counter within RoboHelp topic that could track the number of times that the topic in helped is accessed.

Does anyone have any ideas about that? Can I put the javascript just behind the scenes in the HTML editor portion of RoboHelp? I have noticed that RoboHelp doesn't always play nice with code that is placed in the HTML editor...

Thanks!

-Jenn

HTML

This topic has been closed for replies.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Probably. You could ask Sitemeter if their method can be made to work on an intranet.

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RoboWizard

Inspiring

Hi Jenn

Just speculating here, but if you are hosting WebHelp on an internal Web server, you may wish to ask your Web admins if they offer reporting of this type. They may well already have something in place you could use.

Assuming they don't, you should also be aware that Adobe also offers something called RoboHelp Server. This is a product you would purchase, hand to your Web Admin folks and have them install and configure on their Web servers. You would then create WebHelp Pro or FlashHelp Pro and publish to the RoboHelp Server. One of the features that RoboHelp Server provides is reporting of the type you seem to be seeking. Right from inside RoboHelp.

I often hesitate to mention it because there seems to be so much confusion surrounding it. Many mistakenly believe that it is an absolute necessity in order to place WebHelp or FlashHelp content on the web or an intranet and make it available to others. That's incorrect. Basic Web Servers work just fine. It does add to the complexity of what you do and how you operate as well as adding to the workload of your Web Admin folks. It also introduces a new failure point for issues to arise. So it's up to you to decide whether you feel it's worth it.

Cheers... Rick

J

johnmccallum

Inspiring

Rick,

Why do we use it? Mainly to see where inquiries are coming from. Sitemeter gives us worldwide maps of hits to our site and what pages are being looked at. We are a small company, with under 50 sales worldwide per year across a wide variety of industries. Many who seek information are potential customers, so this is useful information for us - it is more of a marketing issue than a help issue. It really has nothing to do with me - I was just asked to insert the code.

Mike,

I don't think Sitemeter would work on an internal server, since their code is a direct link to sitemeter.com. I would think that you would have firewall problems if you have a true intranet.

John.

M

mtricomi

Known Participant

To answer John's question as to the trouble I am having this is what I've been doing:

I went to Sitemeter copied the HTML Code for the counter & pasted it in a Template. When I used the viewer all that was showing up was the Code & not the Counter. Now my Help Site is on an internal server so I'm not sure if that may be the issue.

Any help would be great.

Mike

MergeThis

Inspiring

...and bean counters are just so-o-o-o-o-o-o content when they have beans to count, they can generally stay out of your way so you can get some real work done!

Leon

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I think if the results are used carefully they can help. I use one on my site to give an idea of the areas of RH that give people trouble. I don't pull the other topics or hold back from writing about something that perhaps will only interest a few people. However, at back to the wall time, it can help prioritise the order of writing.

In the case of help for a software application, a topic being accessed a lot could indicate the screen or the workflow are badly designed and users need help. If that results in product improvement, then it seems worthwhile.

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Captiv8r

Legend

Hi Jenn

The answer here is that it's possible, but in my own mind a larger question looms. Why would your boss care? What truly meaningful information would be provided by knowing that a particular topic has been visited X number of times?

In my mind this is more of a novelty than anything else. Big deal if topic A has been viewed 30,000 times and topic B has only been viewed twice. If the information in topic B totally solved a user's issue, that topic is infinitely more helpful than topic A!

Cheers... Rick

A

Anonymous

I believe the WHY is to justify my position and worth... :) They just want to know if anyone is looking at help. I'd be okay with the answer "no, it's not possible". But if it is possible, they just want to see how many hits our main topic gets...

Fun, fun...

-Jenn

M

mtricomi

Known Participant

Hi Jenn,

It is definitely possible. I registered with sitemeter.com to copy there HTML code to paste into RoboHelp. I believe that you can even generate reports on their site as well.

Unfortunately, I am having difficulty having the hit counter show up on the page, but this is how I went about doing it:

Create a new Template, insert a footer with the copied HTML code from Site Meter & then apply the footer to the appropriate page(s). As I mentioned I am having some trouble having the counter show up on the page, but atleast this should get you started.

I was actually coming to the site to post this problem.

Mike

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