Knowledge base

What is the date offset for automatic reports?

First of all, is the date offset something you are going to need? Probably not. It has been developed for a specific purpose and is generally not relevant for most of our customers, but in some instances, it is. 

Let's start with explaining how the date offset works and then look at some potential use cases.

How does the date offset work?

The date offset does not affect the data in the automatic report. If you have selected the report date range "Last 30 days", the report that is delivered to you will still have data from the last 30 days, regardless of whether you used the date offset or not. 

The date offset only changes the chart legend. If your report contains data from 1 Nov - 30 Nov and you offset the date by 7 days, the legend will instead say "25 Oct - 23 Nov". But the data was still collected 1 Nov - 30 Nov.

When is the date offset useful?

As mentioned, it generally isn't as most of the data Extellio collects is from website visits on the date that they visited. However, if you have a survey that asks about something in the past, say a purchase, a visit, or contact, you may want the report to show the date of the event and not of the data collection.

For example, your company held an event on November 10, and two days later, the participants were emailed a link to a CX survey. The participants answered the survey on the 12th, but the event was on the 10th. You therefore want the report to say 10 Nov as that was the date of the event, instead of 12 Nov which is just the date the participants filled out the survey. In that instance, you can offset the date by 2 days.