Metrics Settings

In metrics settings window you can adjust all the settings for a metrics report. This window opens after using New report option from the sub-menu of My Metrics button in Bells & Whistles toolbar.

After clicking OK button Bells & Whistles will begin collecting data for the report with the progress displayed in a new window:

Metrics period

Bells & Whistles will include in the metrics report only the emails received/sent between the dates set in From and to. From and to dates are inclusive, the emails sent or received on those dates will be included as well. Additionally, the emails can be filtered by hour (the interval set in Emails sent or received between these hours) or days (select the days under Emails sent or received on these days).

Filters

To include only the emails from one account enable Generate stats only for this account and select the account. Starting with Outlook 2010 the emails for each account are saved in different data files and it's more efficient to select the email folders for the account you want instead of using Generate stats only for this account option with all the emails folders selected.

With Generate stats for all my accounts combined option selected the emails from all the accounts will be included. Bells & Whistles identifies emails as sent when the sender email address matches one of the email addresses for your accounts. When you have emails in data files not associated with an account (shared mailbox, public folders, etc.) you'll have to enter the email addresses used to send the emails in Consider these email addresses as my own separated by semicolons. Otherwise, Bells & Whistles won't be able to properly identify all sent emails and this warning will be given before starting collecting report data:

Enable Only emails in these categories option to include only the emails that have assigned at least one of the categories selected.

Filtering emails included in the report based on the email addresses present in From, To, Cc and Bcc fields can be done by enabling Exclude emails containing these email addresses or Include emails containing these email addresses options. Both options accept one or more email addresses separated by semicolons. The entries can contain * (matches any group of characters including no characters) or ? (matches any characters one time) special characters if you want to match similar email addresses. For example, *@outlook-apps.com will match all the email addresses from outlook-apps.com domain. An email is excluded or included when at least one of the email addresses in From, To, Cc or Bcc email fields matches an email address from the respective option. To apply the filters only to specific email fields prefix the entries with one of these prefixes: from:, to:, cc: or bcc:.

Stats

The following options control the charts included in a metrics report:

• Traffic: distribution of received and sent emails in the selected time interval.
• Daily hours traffic: distribution of received and sent emails in each hour of a day.
• Week Days Traffic: distribution of received and send emails in each day of a week.
• Conversation stats: show what are the most common conversation lengths.
• Word count: how long is the email content. For replies or forwards only the words up to the header separator are counted.
• Top email addresses: the email addresses that sent you the most emails and the email address you've sent the most emails to. Use All email addresses option to include all email addresses found otherwise with Up to option selected you can set a limit to the number of email addresses included in each group (received/sent).
• Reply stats: shows the time it takes to send or receive the first reply in a conversation. With Count only time during work hours option enabled the time difference will include only the intervals defined in Work hours list instead of the full difference between two dates. Enable Ignore CC email addresses to exclude the email addresses from Cc field when building the conversations.
• Emails age: how old are the emails included in the report relative to a given date set in Calculate emails age relative to this date. Use Count only time during work hours option to calculate the emails age using only the time intervals defined in Work hours list. To use only the first or last email in a conversation enable For conversations use only time for option.

Work hours list can be used in Reply stats and Emails age charts and allows you to define the time intervals for each week day when you are working. Clicking Add or Edit button on the right side of the work hours list opens the editor window for the time intervals in a day:

In the dropdown list labeled Day select the week day you want to add (only the days not used already will be available). For the week days already added to work hours list use Edit button to change the time intervals.

To add a new time interval enter a start time and end time in the controls labeled Interval and click Add button (the start and end time are inclusive).

Time intervals from a day already added to work hours list can be copied by selecting the week day in Copy from and clicking Copy button. The time intervals from the selected week day will replace the current intervals list.

Email processing

Emails received from online contact forms or automated notification systems usually come with the same sender email address and the actual email address of the sender is set as reply to address. If you have these types of emails enable the option Replace sender with reply-to address in emails received from these email addresses and input the sender email addresses that should be replaced with reply to addresses (separate multiple entries with semicolons).

Email folders

Bells & Whistles will look for emails matching all the conditions set on the left side in metrics settings window in every folder available in Outlook (Include all folders option) or it can search only in the folders you have selected (Include selected folders option). When manually selecting the folders, Include subfolders option can be used to automatically include all the child folders of a selected folder.