Webtrends - Data missing from Reports

[whan3]

Hi all, I have done research on this issue for a long time, but i still could not find a suitable solution yet. It is getting on my head now as I have been staring on the monitor screen for 7hrs now.

Ok, I have just been assigned as the point man for Webtrends in my company today. And the problem is that I have not even used it in my life before. And now the client is complaining that some data are missing in the generated report. So my question is how can I retrieve back the missing data. I have had a look at the log folders and I believe that everything is in place as they have the logs for the last two years. Another question is how can I generate a report for only a specific dates, for example only for 1st of July to 30th of July.

By the way, my company is using WebTrends Analytics 8 (version 8.0, I think).

I will be deeply gratitude if any of the experts here can help me out. Thanks in advance. And I am sorry if these are newbie questions.

Cheers

[cgrantski]

Hi Whan,

First, try taking the online web-based training that WT offers.

Second, download documentation. Go to Customer Center >> Resources >> Product Documentation >> Full Product Documentation. Download Report User's Guide, Guide to Web Analytics, and Installation and Configuration Guide. And the Advanced Configuration Guide, which hopefully you will not need for a long time.

Third, use the online help. It's pretty good.

Fourth, apply to be admitted to the WebTrends users forum, forums.webtrends.com.

Fifth, just in case, make sure your logon on WebTrends is an administrative level one. I assume it is.

>> how can you retrieve back the missing data when all the logs are there.

---- You will either need to find a backup file from before the missing data period, or create a new profile and analyze the logs from the start. To find a backup file, from the main screen ("Administration Console") in the left nav go to Administration >> System Management >> Backup/Restore >> Restore Backup. Look for the profile in question and if you find it look for a Last Analyzed date that predates it. If you find it, restore it. The profile will then lose all data after that date and you can run an analysis to analyzing everything since then.

>> how can I generate a report for only a specific dates, for example only for 1st of July to 30th of July

--- When you are looking at the results of a report, the calendar in the upper left is your key. It works like most web-based calendars. If you click on the name of the month "July" then the data will refresh with July's data.

Final comment: An analytics program is much harder to use properly than your boss thinks (or whoever put you in this position). WebTrends is very powerful and has many choices. I strontgly suggest you find a WebTrends consultant in your area who will do some on-site training and tweaking with you for a couple of days. The WebTrends site's Partners area has Solution Partners (for really complicated stuff) and Insight Network Partners.

[whan3]

Hi cgrantski, thanks for the reply. Your reply has been helpful and now I am planning to take the online training as well as downloading the documentation. I have also signed up for the WebTrends forum, but still awaiting confirmation from them.

For the time being, I have a question:

>> how can I generate a report for only a specific dates, for example only for 1st of July to 30th of July
--- When you are looking at the results of a report, the calendar in the upper left is your key. It works like most web-based calendars. If you click on the name of the month "July" then the data will refresh with July's data.

What I want is not to display report for the month of July. I want to generate a report from WebTrends for only the month of July. Is it possible for Webtrends to ignore the other log files and only look at the logs from July. Probably, I can do that by copying only the July log files and create a new data source pointing to that copied logs. Or is there any other easier way to achieve this?

Thank you.

EDIT: How can I access the online web-based training?

[cgrantski]

Oh okay. Got it.

You can specify the date of the starting point of a report analysis. When you edit a profile, it's on the first screen (the "General" tab) - look for a place where you can choose between analyzing all the logs in the Data Source and logs starting on a particular date. Set the date in mm/dd/yyyy format (i.e. January 1 would be 01/01 not 1/1).

You can't specify the end point. It will analyze until it has run out of data.

When analyzing a big chunk of logs like this it's a good idea to set Analysis Throttling to 1 day (and check both boxes under the setting).

[whan3]

Thanks for the reply cgrantski. I have already found out that there are supposed to be traffic coming in on that time. Anyway, I had created a new profile and re-run the whole logs again, it turned out that the original profile missed these entries.

But, I have another problem, on the new profile that I just created, the key metric summary graph and the "new vs returning trend" graph are not available. My question is how can I enable the key metrics performance graph on the new profile?

I know this may be easy but the client has been nagging me so I need a quick answer.

Thanks in advance.

[cgrantski]

If the other profile showed those things and this one doesn't, then this profile must be using a different report template. Change to the same template, or edit this template to add the missing dashboard(s).

[whan3]

That is strange. I have already checked the templates for both the profiles and they are using the same templates (which is Complete View V8, which contains the Key Metrics Summary graph). But somehow, the Key Metrics Summary graph does not appear in the new profile. Any idea why this is happening?

Thanks

[cgrantski]

I'm stumped. No idea.