Learning about customizing reports

About customizing report information

ContentReporter gives you two powerful methods of customizing reports by:

Controlling the information placed in a report with Report and Query filters.
ContentReporter provides you with a filtering mechanism to control the level and type of log file information included in a report when it is processed. By default, all the information from a log file is available for a report. By filtering that data, you can exclude extraneous data and zero-in on specific information to create a meaningful report.
Controlling the visual presentation of information in reports by modifying the look and feel of the tables and graphs that appear in your reports.
You can change the manner in which the table and graph queries are displayed in a report. You can modify tables by changing the number and order of columns that are displayed in a specific table.

In a graph, you can modify its visual appearance by displaying it as a two or three-dimensional pie or bar chart. You can also change the data elements displayed in the X and Y axes of a report graph.

Visual overview of customizing report components

The following diagram illustrates the ContentReporter customization features. Each of the numbered items are discussed in the paragrahs following this figure.

Using Report and Query filters

When you create a report definition, you must attach a log file source (1.) By default, all data for this source will be available for this report definition unless you filter it with a Report filter (2) and/or Query filter (5).

With Report filters (2,) you can filter log file data based on time, site names, IP addresses, or file types.

Once you have decided which queries you want to include in a report (3, 4,) you can filter data at a more specific level, you can filter information on a single data element in a specific table or graph in a report. These filters are called query-level filters.

The difference between the Report and Query filters is the that the Report filter affects all queries in the report. Report filters take presendence over query filters. In other words, the report filter is applied to the database records first, then the query filter. Query filters only affect values in the query.

For example, if you set report Time Filter time range for January 1 - 5, 2001 and set the query filter for 1/3/2001-1/10/2001, the query will only contain data for January 3-5.

By default, all the information in this data source is included in the report unless you exclude it filters. with Report filters (2). You can also limit the amount of information displayed in the report by attaching specific queries to the definition (3, 4). In this example, the Reference by URL and Client queries are the only ones used.

Using pre-defined queries

ContentReporter ships with over 50 pre-defined queries. You can include any or all of these queries in a report definition (3).

Pre-defined queries are organzied into the following categories:

Category	Queries
Streaming	Top Viewed Clips Top Viewed Clips (Graph) Top Viewed Clip types Top Viewed Clip types (Graph) Top used Media Player Top used Media Player (Graph) Average Playtime By Clip	Top Clients by downloads Top Clients By Connect Time Packets Transferred by Clip Packets Transferred by Clip (Graph) Packet Analysis by Hour of Day
Http	References By URL References By Client References By User Name References By Site References By Method	References By Transaction Code References By Status Code References By Abort Code References By Content Type References By Cache
Http and streaming	Error Query Client Error Statistics Client Error Statistics (Graph) Server Error Statistics Server Error Statistics (Graph) Total Successful Hits Total Failed Hits Total Cached Hits Error By Category File Not Found Errors Technical Statistics And Analysis Table	Summary Of Activity By Day Summary Of Activity By Day (Graph) Activity Level By Hour Activity Level By Hour (Graph) Activity Level By Day Of Week Activity Level By Day Of Week (Graph) Activity Level By Month Bandwidth By Day Of Week Bandwidth By Day Of Week (Graph) Bandwidth By Day (Graph) Bandwidth By Month Bandwidth By Month (Graph)

Using customized queries

Customized queries are those that you have created. These can either be modifications of existing, pre-defined queries that you have modified or new queries that you have constructed from scratch. For information on customized queries, see Customizing the tables and graphs that appear in reports.