iPhone Application Developers, this post is for you. Don’t be scared away by the length of this post. The results are going to be extremely useful 🙂
If you are an iPhone Application Developer, iTunes Connect provides you daily and weekly sales trends for your application(s) as a CSV file. Sure, you can open that up with Excel or Zoho Sheet and do some basic analysis. But we have a better solution for you in Zoho Analytics.
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If you really want to see this in action, I made this sample database public with some reports created.
Now that I got your attention (hopefully), let me drill down into the details on how you can create similar reports for your iPhone applications. Before we get started though, make sure you download all your daily reports (.CSV files) downloaded from iTunes Connect.
Obviously, the first step is to create a Zoho Account and enter http://reports.zoho.com. Once you are in, Create a Database from ‘Import from Files and Feeds.’ option. Give your Database a name like ‘iPhone Reports’ and select the ‘Data Location’ as ‘Local Drive’. Now browse and select one of the downloaded CSV files (you can add others later) and click ‘Next’ and then select the ‘Create’ option in the next screen. This will create a table from the CSV file with multiple rows.
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Now that we have the data in Zoho Analytics, we can now start building different types of reports. Let us start with a simple report that shows ‘Daily Sales’. For this, select the ‘New Report’ option (top left) and choose the ‘Chart View’ option and select the database we just created. Here, you’ll see a simple drag & drop interface where you can drag the columns from the left to the right to generate the report you need. Let’s try this together.
Application Daily Sales
Drag the ‘End Date’ column from the left to the ‘X-Axis’ column on the right. Similarly, Drag the ‘Units’ column from the left to ‘Y-Axis’ column on the right. After you dragged the ‘Units’ column, change the ‘Actual (M)’ option to ‘Sum’ for ‘Units’ and ‘Actual (M)’ to ‘Actual(D)’ for the ‘End Date’.
Now select the ‘Click Here to Generate Graph’ option and you’ll see the Graph created for you with the daily sales of your application.
You can change your graph type with the ‘Other Charts’ option. There are many options available including the 3D Graphs. The nice part about the Graphs in Zoho Analytics is, these are clickable. Which means you can click on the graph to view the underlying data.
Now, Save the Graph, give it a name (like ‘Daily Sales Report’) so that you have this graph saves permanently that updates automatically whenever you import the data.
You can also make changes to the Graph. For example, if you want to see the number of units you sold every day displayed on the graph, simply drag the ‘Units’ column from the left to the ‘Text’ section on the right and you’ll see the number of units sold in the graph.
But there is an issue with this graph. As we added the ‘Units’ column to ‘Y-Axis’, it counts every downloaded unit as a sale which may not be the case as your application might have several versions and users download it as a free upgrade. It is important to filter this data out to get the correct numbers. To filter out the right information from this graph, let us do this…
Select the ‘Filter’ tab (the vertical tab) and drag the ‘Royalty Price’ column to the ‘Filter’ section and select the ‘Actual Values’ from the drop-down. In the next column (Royalty Price), select ‘Individual Values’ and select ‘0’. Select the ‘Exclude Items’ in the drop-down in the next column. What we are basically doing here is excluding all the units where ‘Royalty Price’ is 0. Now Refresh the Graph and you should see the correct values for daily sales in your graph.
Now, let’s try another graph. This time, let us analyze the daily sales and separate them based on country. For this, it’ll pretty much be the same graph with one simple modification. So let us use the ‘Save As’ option to save this Graph as another graph and call it ‘Daily Sales By Country’.
Daily Sales By Country
Now that we created a new Graph, simply drag the ‘Country Code’ column from the left to the ‘Color’ column on the right and refresh the graph. You’ll see the daily changes color-coded by country. Again, you can mouse-over or click on the colors to see the underlying data for this graph.
Let’s quickly try some more graphs.
Application Sales By Country:
Create a New Report from ‘Chart View’ option and drag the ‘Country Code’ from ‘X-Axis’ and ‘Units’ to ‘Y-Axis’ and voila, you have a sales report by Country. But then, don’t forget to filter the upgrades. For this, select the ‘Filter’ tab and drag the ‘Royalty Price’ column to the ‘Filter’ section and select the ‘Actual Values’ from the drop-down. In the next column (Royalty Price), select ‘Individual Values’ and select ‘0’. Select the ‘Exclude Items’ in the drop-down in the next column.
You can change the graph type to fit your taste. Here is how it looks.
Application Sales By Currency:
Drag the ‘Customer Currency’ to ‘X-Axis’ and ‘Units’ to ‘Y-Axis’. You can also drag the ‘Units’ column to the ‘Text’ section to see the number of units displayed. Select the ‘Filter’ tab and drag the ‘Royalty Price’ column to the ‘Filter’ section and select the ‘Actual Values’ from the drop-down. In the next column (Royalty Price), select ‘Individual Values’ and select ‘0’. Select the ‘Exclude Items’ in the drop-down in the next column.
Application Sales By Currency & Country:
This graph is pretty much similar to the above graph with one additional step. Drag the ‘Country Code’ to the ‘Color’ section. This chart also lets you see which country accepts what currency.
Application Sales By Royalty Price
Drag the ‘Royalty Price (Actual (D)) to ‘X-Axis’, ‘Units (Sum)’ to ‘Y-Axis’ and ‘Country Code’ to color. If the ‘Royalty Price’ is 0, they are upgrades.
Application Total Sales
To see the total sales of the app, simply drag the ‘Vendor Identifier’ to the ‘X-Axis’ and ‘Units’ to the ‘Y-Axis’ and ‘Text’ sections. Select the ‘Filter’ tab and drag the ‘Royalty Price’ column to the ‘Filter’ section and select the ‘Actual Values’ from the drop-down. In the next column (Royalty Price), select ‘Individual Values’ and select ‘0’. Select the ‘Exclude Items’ in the drop-down in the next column.
You’ll see a graph something like this.
Now that you some of these graphs created, what do you need to do to keep them updated? It is simple. Download your reports from iTunes Connect and Import them to the table. All the charts are automatically updated.
All the graphs I talked above assumes that you have a single app. If you have multiple apps, you can create other interesting graphs. More on that later.
Once you have these graphs created in Zoho Analytics, you have many other options too. For example, you can right-click on any graph and Export the graph as a PDF, Image, etc. You can also embed these graphs in your blogs or website like I did above which means, when the data changes in the DB, these images are also updated.
I hope you find Zoho Analytics, our BI & analytics platform, useful for this use case. As you play with it you’ll uncover more of its power. Looking forward to seeing how innovative you’ll get with Zoho Analytics.
BTW, did I mention that you can do all of this for FREE?
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Hi, thanks for all this information, very usefull. I am looking for some market studies on apss sales. Do you have any idea? apps sales, case studies, anything which tries to give more info about success and failure?Thanks for your help!
Hi, thanks for all this information, very usefull. I am looking for some market studies on apss sales. Do you have any idea? apps sales, case studies, anything which tries to give more info about success and failure?Thanks for your help!
Do you know, is there any iTunes report that provides one row per sales transaction? So, if you had 76 sales, you would have 76 rows? Ultimately what I am looking for is the ability to put an affiliate code in the sales record to report back the success of a performance marketing campaign.
Do you know, is there any iTunes report that provides one row per sales transaction? So, if you had 76 sales, you would have 76 rows? Ultimately what I am looking for is the ability to put an affiliate code in the sales record to report back the success of a performance marketing campaign.
Please teach us how to plot against sales (units * price), and also how to handle multiple apps! Thanks!!
Please teach us how to plot against sales (units * price), and also how to handle multiple apps! Thanks!!
@MarkThank you for your comments. Unfortunately, there is no direct way to pull the data from iTunes Connect. If Apple provides a way, we will support it.Regarding importing the data, it has to be imported one by one currently. Alternatively, you can import weekly reports, but you may not get daily sales reports etc (I am guessing on this one).I hope this helps.
@MarkThank you for your comments. Unfortunately, there is no direct way to pull the data from iTunes Connect. If Apple provides a way, we will support it.Regarding importing the data, it has to be imported one by one currently. Alternatively, you can import weekly reports, but you may not get daily sales reports etc (I am guessing on this one).I hope this helps.
This is great. Nice work all around.A couple of things:
1. Each month I get 6 reports from iTunes for the various regions, and I need to download the .txt file from iTunes Connect. Is there any way Zoho DB can pull the reports from iTunes Connect?
2. I have sales data from Aug and Sep. Is there some way I can import the reports from a month at one time and not one by one? I tried zipping the files but it doesn't work.
3. iTunes sales reports are in .txt, not .csv. Zoho DB imports the .txt perfectly, but you might want to update the post.Keep up the great work!Mark
Equinox Apps
www.equinoxapps.com
This is great. Nice work all around.A couple of things:
1. Each month I get 6 reports from iTunes for the various regions, and I need to download the .txt file from iTunes Connect. Is there any way Zoho DB can pull the reports from iTunes Connect?
2. I have sales data from Aug and Sep. Is there some way I can import the reports from a month at one time and not one by one? I tried zipping the files but it doesn't work.
3. iTunes sales reports are in .txt, not .csv. Zoho DB imports the .txt perfectly, but you might want to update the post.Keep up the great work!Mark
Equinox Apps
www.equinoxapps.com
Hi Eric,Making Zoho DB & Reports features available for Zoho Creator users is in the works. We have already done a first level integration which is available since last week and is described below.In the first step we have enabled Zoho Creator users to easily import their data from Zoho Creator into Zoho DB & Reports. You could also schedule this as a periodic import into Zoho DB & Reports. Follow the below given steps to achieve the above:1. Login into Zoho Creator
2. Select the View (List/Grid) whose data you would like to import into Zoho DB & Reports for report creation
3. Choose "More Actions -> Export Data" menu option
4. In the dialog opened, click on the link "To access the view without login, Click Here" seen on the top. This would make the data accessible to Zoho DB & Reports.
5. Select the CSV Feed option listed on the left
6. Copy the URL provided in the CSV Feed text area
7. Visit db.zoho.com and import the data using the "Import from CSV" option selecting the source as URL. Paste the URL copied in the field given.
8. This will import the latest data from Creator View in a Table in Zoho DB & Reports
9. You could also schedule this import process periodically using the "Import -> Schedule Import" menu option available for the table created.Once the data is imported into Zoho DB & Reports, users can create powerful reports on the application data collected in Creator using Zoho DB & Reports reporting features. These reports could be even embedded back into Creator in the New HTML Page view feature provided in Zoho Creator 3.0.Following the step 1 integration described above, very soon we will also be providing an option in Zoho DB & Reports to create a reporting database based on your Zoho Creator application. With this option users could easily map a Zoho Creator application into a Zoho DB & Reports database. Doing this will make Zoho DB & Reports to fetch the data from the corresponding Zoho Creator application automatically and make it available to the users for in-depth reporting and analysis.A much tighter integration is planned for the future, where we will be integrating the powerful report creation features available in Zoho DB & Reports into Zoho Creator, making it easy to create reports on the data your application generates in Creator. Time lines for this is not yet finalized.W.r.t. to Charts, we are already working on to enhance the presentation of the same. You should be seeing more improvements in Charts in the near future to come.Thanks,
Clarence
Zoho DB & Reports - Online Reporting and BI Service
Hi Eric,Making Zoho DB & Reports features available for Zoho Creator users is in the works. We have already done a first level integration which is available since last week and is described below.In the first step we have enabled Zoho Creator users to easily import their data from Zoho Creator into Zoho DB & Reports. You could also schedule this as a periodic import into Zoho DB & Reports. Follow the below given steps to achieve the above:1. Login into Zoho Creator
2. Select the View (List/Grid) whose data you would like to import into Zoho DB & Reports for report creation
3. Choose "More Actions -> Export Data" menu option
4. In the dialog opened, click on the link "To access the view without login, Click Here" seen on the top. This would make the data accessible to Zoho DB & Reports.
5. Select the CSV Feed option listed on the left
6. Copy the URL provided in the CSV Feed text area
7. Visit db.zoho.com and import the data using the "Import from CSV" option selecting the source as URL. Paste the URL copied in the field given.
8. This will import the latest data from Creator View in a Table in Zoho DB & Reports
9. You could also schedule this import process periodically using the "Import -> Schedule Import" menu option available for the table created.Once the data is imported into Zoho DB & Reports, users can create powerful reports on the application data collected in Creator using Zoho DB & Reports reporting features. These reports could be even embedded back into Creator in the New HTML Page view feature provided in Zoho Creator 3.0.Following the step 1 integration described above, very soon we will also be providing an option in Zoho DB & Reports to create a reporting database based on your Zoho Creator application. With this option users could easily map a Zoho Creator application into a Zoho DB & Reports database. Doing this will make Zoho DB & Reports to fetch the data from the corresponding Zoho Creator application automatically and make it available to the users for in-depth reporting and analysis.A much tighter integration is planned for the future, where we will be integrating the powerful report creation features available in Zoho DB & Reports into Zoho Creator, making it easy to create reports on the data your application generates in Creator. Time lines for this is not yet finalized.W.r.t. to Charts, we are already working on to enhance the presentation of the same. You should be seeing more improvements in Charts in the near future to come.Thanks,
Clarence
Zoho DB & Reports - Online Reporting and BI Service
When are we going to see DB & Reports merge with Creator? And when will apps share the same charting engine? Sometimes the charts look beautiful, sometimes they look Windows 3.1'ish!!!
When are we going to see DB & Reports merge with Creator? And when will apps share the same charting engine? Sometimes the charts look beautiful, sometimes they look Windows 3.1'ish!!!