Discussion Counts Using Excel Instead of Google Sheets

[cgray5]

We have been using this great solution by James for counting discussion posts in Canvas. A number of our faculty members like this overview file.

Our school is switching from Google to Microsoft - and I wondered if there was an Excel version of this.  Or another way to accomplish the same thing.

@James? Anyone?  Thank you.

[Code-with-Ski]

@cgray5 

In the Canvas LMS Mods (Basic) Chrome extension I developed, I built some course reports.  One of the reports is a Discussion Replies Report.  It provides data for all the discussion replies within a course and the data in the table can be downloaded to CSV.  At present I don't have the counts included, but I may consider this in a future update.  In the meantime, your instructors could open this CSV file in Excel and use formulas and/or Pivot Tables to determine the counts. 

Custom Course Reports 

[cgray5]

This is very, very cool. Thanks!

[Code-with-Ski]

@cgray5 

You're welcome and thank you!  I also released version 3.2.0, which now has discussion reply counts in the Discussion Replies report too.  If you have any feedback, please let me know.

[AmosLewis]

When our team switched to Microsoft, I found myself scrambling for similar solutions too. For counting posts in Excel, you can use formulas like COUNTIF to tally up discussion contributions. Just set up a column for post dates or names, and that formula can pull in the data you need. If you're looking for a more visual approach, consider creating a pivot table. It’s super helpful for summarizing data without diving deep into spreadsheets. If you're new to Excel or need some fresh ideas, the Excel blog from MyExcelOnline Academy has tons of tips and tricks that really helped me when I was figuring things out.