Until 15 Oct 2022 we captured file view and download events from an undocumented Yammer API. This source has been deprecated in favor of more modern sources (eff 15 Oct 2022). This being said, our Yammer data models will retain this historic data to retain the baseline feature. To see what file views mean today see this article: What File Views are Captured
A file view event is triggered differently from Yammer depending on the file type. Each view event is subject to rollups which can cause views to be bundled essentially at random. This means that if many viewers are viewing the same file at the same time certain users will be omitted. For example William, Aidan, Maja, and 3 others have viewed this file. We have no way of retrieving who the "three others" are in that list.
Yammer File Views Captured by File Type:
As stated above, views are captured differently for different file types.
| File Type | Scroll Past | Clicking in Yammer | Accessing In Yammer Files Experience |
| Images (png, jpg, etc) | NO | SOMETIMES | NO |
| Videos | SOMETIMES | NO | SOMETIMES |
Image File View Behavior
Often Triple File Views will be registered for a single user when they view a file once. For this reason we strongly recommend you only measure unique file views or Unique File Viewers (people).
Video File View Behavior
Below are samples of when Yammer will report a video view:
When you navigate to a community Yammer will load the first three threads. This will often trigger a video view for all videos in those threads that ranked to the top.
One file view will be registered for each view action. Scroll pasts, hovers and commenting under a file image will not be captured as a file view.
Conclusion
Please analyze historic Yammer File view counts with caution. For details how we report of File Views and Downloads today please see this article.