Live Exports are custom reports within Google Sheets or Excel 365 that are powered and automatically updated by ChurnZero Segments. 

Using Live Exports, managers and individual contributors alike can create whatever custom visuals or metrics they need to communicate KPIs internally or to provide visibility externally. 

The article below provides a full breakdown of Live Exports, as does this webinar recording.

There are two types of Live Exports that can be created in ChurnZero, Global and Private

Private Live Exports will only be available to the ChurnZero User that creates it. Global Live Exports can be accessed by any user in ChurnZero, but they must have access to Global Live Exports in User Permission Groups.  If you plan on creating a Live Export that will be used for Executive Reporting, we recommend setting that up as a Global Live Export. This way, any live exports wont be lost if they are tied to a specific user who ends up leaving your organization.

Step #1: Authorize Google Sheets or Excel 365

In order to be able to export information to Google Sheets or Excel 365, you first must authorize ChurnZero to access to your account.  This authorization is distinct from other GSuite or Office 365 authorizations you may have in place (like Gmail or Outlook 365). 

Private Live Exports:

• Each ChurnZero user needs to authorize their own Google Sheets/Excel 365 account; admins can not authorize on behalf of others.
• Private Live Exports are ChurnZero User specific, and the Google/Microsoft authorization is User specific. 
• To authorize, click on your user name in the top right of the screen, and go to "My Account". You can then scroll down to the "Live Export Integration" section and turn on your desired option. Follow the prompts to authenticate using your Microsoft/Google credentials.

Global Live Exports:

• This authorization is tenant wide, so every Global Live export any user in you ChurnZero instance creates and connect to Excel or Google will be routed through this authorized user.
•  Navigate to Admin>General. Here you will have the ability to authorize your Global Live Export user for either Excel 365 or Google Sheets. 
• We recommend authorizing your Global Live Exports with a department specific Excel or Google Account (i.e CustomerSuccess@churnzero.net). This way, users will still be able to access this information even if an individual team member leaves your organization.

Step #2: Configure Your Live Export

Live Exports live at the bottom of the Segments section of the left-side navigation bar:

When you click "Create", you will first decide if you want to create a Global or Private Live Export. Remember, Private Live Exports will be tied to the individual user you authorized under "My Account", while Global Live Exports will be tied to the authorized user under Admin>General.

 

Next, you'll be taken to the settings of your Live Export.

 

• Name: This is the name of your Live Export, so you can identify it from a list of exports.
• Description: If you have multiple Live Exports with similar names/intents, you can provide more detail in the Description. 
• Target: This is where you choose whether the file will export to Excel 365, Google Sheets, or if the CSV file should be emailed to particular email address(es).

• Recurrence: If this setting is toggled to "Yes", then you can set the clip at which raw data will be automatically refreshed. This can be done Hourly, Daily, Monthly, Weekly, or Yearly. You can also set No Recurrence if you only want data to be updated when you manually publish.
  • On/Off- This option only appears if there is a Recurrence set up. If this is off, then the data will not be refreshed, even if you have the settings selected for recurrence

• Owner (Global Live Exports Only)-This setting appears only if you've created a Global Live Export. Because this is probably going to be authorized with a generic Microsoft of Google account, this setting will allow you to pick the user you want to receive the publish and failure notifications.
• Send Email: If you've selected "Email" as your Type, this is where you can enter the email address(es) that should receive the file each time it exports. If you have selected "Microsoft Excel 365" or "Google Sheets", this is where you can enter the email address(es) that should receive the file each time it exports in addition to the online workbook being updated. Use the "+" icon to add each email address. You can also type multiple addresses separated by a semi-colon to add many at once (ex: peter@fake.com; abby@fake.com). 

If your Live Export is writing to Google Sheets or Excel 365, you will have two options for sharing raw spreadsheet data and links for access

• Include Link: Provide a link to the Live Export in the email sent to the set of email addresses above. This setting is OFF by default. Note that you need to have sharing rights to the spreadsheet for this link to work.
• Include Raw Data: Provide a link to the Raw Data in the email sent to the email addresses above. This setting is OFF by default unless your Live Export was created before April 24, 2020

An example message that someone will receive if you share Links and/or Raw Data:

• Segments: Choose the Segment(s) that will be exported to your workbook. You can select Segments of any type (except Messages). Click the Add Segment button, then select from the list that appears. Then, click the Save button.

• Select Columns: For each Segment you attach to your Live Export, you can control what field(s) are part of the export. Click the gear icon next to a Segment to adjust the included fields. 
  Note: Updating the column set from the Segment page will not adjust the columns in the Live Export. The column set must be updated via the gear icon in the Live Export settings.

Step #3: Work with Your Live Export

Live Exports Overview Page

On the Live Exports Overview page, you can see all of the exports you have created. Since Live Exports are connected to your specific Google Sheets/Excel 365 account, each user's Live Exports will be unique to them (i.e. Private). 

A Live Export can be in 1 of 4 status:

• Active: The Live Export is actively updating data at the clip you set. 
• Paused: The Live Export is not actively updating data because it has been set to OFF. 
• Manual: The Live Export is active but is not set up to automatically update data. Any updates would be the result of a manual push of data using "Publish". 
• Error: The Live Export is not actively updating because of some issue. Hovering over the red dot will show you the issue, so you can resolve it. 
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  • When a Live Export goes into error mode, you will receive an email notification with the reason for the error:
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From the Live Exports Overview page you can take the following actions:

• Edit: Click the name of the Live Export or the blue "Edit" button to edit the settings of your Live Export. If you need to delete a Live Export, edit it and use the "Delete" button in the lower left-hand corner of the edit screen. 
• Review Last and Next Published Dates: Quickly see the last time the export updated and the next time it is scheduled to update (if a recurrence has been set).
• Open your workbook: Click on the icon next to the Live Export name to open your live workbook in Google or Excel 365. If the Export is just an email export, this action will download the file. 
• Manually Publish/Push Data: Click on the "Publish" button icon to push the most up to date information from the segment(s) to their respective Google or Excel sheet. This can be used to manually push the most up to date information, rather than relying on the scheduled sync.
  • When you manually publish, you and any other listed email addresses will receive an email notification when the publish is complete:
• Folders- Click "Manage Folders" to easily categorize all of your Live Exports. From here you can create new Folders and add existing Live Exports to new folders.

 

 

Live Exports within Office 365 and Google

When the report is exported to the Google or Microsoft Document, each segment that you selected will be a separate sheet within the document. You can then make separate sheets with pivot tables and graphs to manipulate the data in whatever fashion you would like. Every time a scheduled job updates the information, or if you trigger a manual update, the raw data in each of the segment tabs will update. 

Note: If you change the name of the Segment tabs within the sheet to include any special characters (i.e !@#$%^&*), once you hit "Refresh Data", the sheet name will revert back to the Segment name.

The Info tab houses basic metadata of the export, including the Segments that were selected, last update time, etc. If you would like to manually refresh the data included in the export, click the "Refresh Data" button from this tab. This operates the same way as clicking the "Publish" button within ChurnZero.

Things to Know and FAQs

1. When working with live export data and making pivot tables, we always recommend that you only reference full columns, not specific cells. When Live Exports updates the data in your workbook, it completely rebuilds your data and the Segment tabs (i.e. it is clearing those tabs and repopulating the data entirely).
2. If you need to reference specific cells, you should use the INDIRECT function. =SUM(Accounts!E2:E373) should be =SUM(INDIRECT("Accounts!E2:E373"))
3. Google Sheets has a limit of 2 million cells per export. If you need more data than this, you’ll have to create multiple Live Exports and then in a new workbook use the Consolidate function to combine your multiple workbooks.
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4. If your email address changes, you will need to reauthorize Google Sheets/Excel 365 and recreate your Live Exports. Live Exports are specific to the email address that created them and cannot be reassigned.
5. If the user account that created a Live Export is deactivated, that Live Export will stop running.
6. When Live Export results are emailed, we only maintain the THREE most recent versions. Clicking on the download link for an older version will not work.
7. When setting up a recurrence we recommend not selecting the 29th, 30th, or 31st days, as those days do not exist for all months and can result in strange behavior.
8. Feel free to rename your Segment tabs within your workbook – but make sure your names are alphanumeric (underscore and parenthesis are also okay). Avoid other special characters.
9. When you rename your Segments in ChurnZero, this will NOT rename the tabs of your Live Export.

Tip for Excel 365: Want to your live export to live in a SharePoint folder? Use Flows to automatically copy your spreadsheet to a SharePoint folder!