Thank you to everyone who has joined our Community Group, as mentioned here is the output from our final session “APIs, Integrations and Analytics” with Luke & Taras.
Below you will find a link to the recording to download the on demand recording as well as a transcript of our Q/A.
Webinar ondemand: SC Foundations - APIs, Integrations and Analytics
Session Q/A Transcript:
- When will Sensor Data be able to be imported into the Analytics Dashboard?
We don’t currently have plans to integrate sensor data into the realtime SC Analytics dashboards. The sensors history page can give you a list of historical readings for a sensor.
If you have a use case for integrating Sensor data with the other data sets in SC Analytics, please raise a feature request at https://community.safetyculture.com/ and let us know the types of insights you’re trying to get, and other community members can also weigh in.
- Can you see images in the Analytics dashboard?
Good question, but not currently. But most charts/graphs will allow you to click and see which responses make up this data. From here you will be able to see any related images, meaning they are typically only a click or two away.
- Is there future improvement to be able to select "exclude" from analysis filters rather than having to "include" ? e.g. I want to exclude a couple of templates from a long list
Thank you for your question; apologies I don’t have a direct answer at this time. We will consult with our team following the webinar and post a follow up in the SC Community - https://community.safetyculture.com/
- Can you share analytics to someone outside of the organisation ?
Thank you for your question; apologies I don’t have a direct answer at this time. We will consult with our team following the webinar and post a follow up in the SC Community - https://community.safetyculture.com/
- Can you create a chart for actions based on their label?
Hi Sean, yes you can. The ability to use Actions “Label” was recently added as an Attribute you can now select within Analytics to build a chart or graph
- Can we trend specific inspection points which "fail"?
Your best option to see data in this way would be to > select Report on Inspections > select Flagged Responses as your metric > then you can filter down further by Attributes such as Template, Question or Asset etc.
- Can you combine all the data from the different dashboards into one download CSV?
Unfortunately you can’t embed multiple tables in one CSV. The CSV format allows for a single, structured table to be contained per file.
You can export chart data from analytics to CSV one chart at a time. By clicking the Download icon at the top right of each chart.
You can also use the SC Exporter to get an automated export of all of your data into one CSV per table (e.g. inspections, users, actions, etc), which might save some time if you’d like to export all of your data from the platform.
https://developer.safetyculture.com/docs/safetyculture-exporter
- Can you set an automated export based on a set or saved export, say for example you want to export analytic data at the end of each month?
SC Analytics data can be exported manually, but automated export is not currently available.
We offer alternative solutions for automated data export if you need a single source of truth: the SC Exporter Tool or SC API. These export raw data, not analytics, and are suitable for ingestion into databases, data warehouses, etc/.
SC Exporter comes in two options:
- Desktop App (simple to use, user friendly): https://help.safetyculture.com/en-US/000070/
- Command Line Interface - CLI (technical): https://developer.safetyculture.com/docs/safetyculture-exporter
SC API: https://developer.safetyculture.com/reference/introduction
- Does the exporter tool update previous historical rows of an inspection if it was modified from the last refresh and only show the latest version of data, or will there be multiple rows for the same inspection?
There will be multiple rows for the same inspection. The exporter keeps track of the date of the latest exporter but doesn't update the old rows. If this is happening frequently it may be worth deleting the SQL file and exporting the data.
- What export function is best for Sensors?
Hi Andrew, this article details the options available for exporting Sensors data - https://help.safetyculture.com/en-US/000119/
- How do you select a date range in the SC Exporter tool? It appears the exporter exports the date selected up to today's date.
The SC Exporter allows you to choose a ‘modified after’ Date/Time. The Exporter will then Export any records which were modified after that Date/Time. If you would like to filter the data further than this, you can use the rich columns available from the export to refine your analysis. E.g. you could use Excel or a SQL database to exclude records which were modified after your desired window.
Learn more about the available columns from the exporter here:
https://developer.safetyculture.com/docs/understanding-the-data
- Do API tokens and the data you can get from them respect the access rules we set up?
Yes they do, which is why we always recommend using an account with the ‘Data Access’ permission for Data Warehouse integrations and the Exporter, as this permission overrides any access rules. That way all of the data will get exported!
- Will you be looking at how API tokens are managed within the platform? Ability to have only admins create them and have them not associated with an individual but a "System" token with specific permissions or abilities?
Yes, we will be revamping the API token generation process over the next 6 months. One of the concepts we are exploring is separating the API keys from user accounts :)
- As the token is based upon the user login. What happens to the token the user login is revoked ?
If you deactivate a user who has an API key, it will stop working while they are deactivated.
If you re-activate the user, the token will start working again (as long as it hasn’t expired due to the 30 day window)
We always recommend using a service account to drive things like integrations to make sure that they don’t break when a person leaves the business.
We’re also exploring separating user login from API tokens, and may have more to share in the area over the next 6 months or so. Stay tuned!
- How do you schedule exporter downloads please?
Is there any way to Automate the Export ?
Guide on how to set-up scheduled exports on Windows or Mac OS/ Linux: https://developer.safetyculture.com/docs/safetyculture-exporter-scheduling
- How do you deal with repeat sections in a PBI and want to compare each repeated section?
We’d recommend having a look at this developer document, it explains how repeat sections work in the data:
https://developer.safetyculture.com/docs/data-repeat-sections
- Can you send out a monthly email update to managers of data?
Unfortunately at this time you can’t schedule an automated export of reporting from Analytics. This is a great suggestion though which we will pass on to our team.
In the meantime the best options would be to provide access to a “manager dashboard” within the SC platform. Or you can export relevant data/graphs and send via email or a presentation deck https://help.safetyculture.com/en-US/003824/
- Is there any enhancement being done to extend the Token expiry from 30 days to unlimited ?
We do have plans for a new type of token. Until then, we need to use the existing ones.
The new tokens would be scoped to access certain areas of the application and will have a different way to manage them. Will be sure to share when this update is on the platform.
