Aglet

Triage Cohort Retention Report Meaning

Retention triage starts with the membership rule behind a row and the event rule behind each later column. Inspect entry dates, return activity, exclusions, and period labels in a small cohort fixture. Preserve a member who returns late and one who never returns so the table's cells cannot be read as simple counts.

Establish what is happening

  1. Name cohort membership

    Write the event or date that places a member in a cohort, the eligibility cutoff, and whether membership is counted once. Record re-entry, cancellations, and unknown dates as explicit cases. Keep entry period labels beside the underlying dates.

  2. Trace return windows

    Follow members through cohort assignment, retention-period calculation, activity filters, aggregation, and table or chart display. Compare eligible denominator, returning members, retained count, and percentage at each stage. Mark where a late return moves columns or a missing activity row becomes zero.

  3. Bound the report question

    List cohort tables, curves, cards, exports, and comparisons sharing the retention measure. Separate first-return, active-in-period, and cumulative definitions. Ask the metric owner to resolve whether the denominator is the original cohort, an eligible subset, or a surviving population.

What to carry forward

Triage is complete when cohort entry, denominator, return event, period window, first divergence, and metric owner are recorded before readers compare retention. Keep the result provisional when the report combines first-return and active-period meanings under one retention label.

Technical background: Metabase documentation.

Keep the decision with the work.

Use a Work Item in Aglet to record the problem, the evidence you have, and the next decision. Add an owner and priority, then keep updates in the discussion so the next person can follow the reasoning.

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