Configuring Visitor Data Mart User Rights, Profiles, and Events

This article shows you how to set up Webtrends Visitor Data Mart for your user community. The covered tasks include: granting user rights, creating Visitor Data Mart profiles, and configuring custom events to get the most out of your SmartSource data collection and analysis.

Webtrends Configuring User Rights for Webtrends Visitor Data Mart

If you are a Webtrends administrator, you must grant users the necessary user rights for using the Webtrends Visitor Data Mart, Webtrends Explore, and Webtrends ODBC Driver. You can change user rights individually, or you can grant user rights to a group of users by editing a role.

To configure user rights for individual Visitor Data Mart users:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Application Settings > User Management > Users.

2. Edit a user.

3. If the user is assigned to a role, select No Role from the Role menu.

   Note

   When you select No Role the user’s rights do not change. All of the rights associated with the user’s previous role remain active, but they can be changed under User Rights. If you update the previously assigned role, the user’s rights will not change because the user is no longer assigned to the role.

4. Under User Rights, click Action Rights.

5. Assign the user the appropriate rights. Refer to the table below for a description of each user right.

To configure user rights for groups of Visitor Data Mart users assigned to roles:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Application Settings > User Management > Roles.

2. Edit a role.

3. Click Action Rights.

4. Assign the user the appropriate level of access to Webtrends Visitor Data Mart components and features. Refer to the table below for a description of each user right.

Visitor Data Mart User Rights

Defining a Data Source for a Visitor Data Mart Profile

Creating a SmartSource Data Collector (SDC) data source in Webtrends Administration generates a JavaScript tag containing the unique DCSID for your site. If you have already defined an SDC data source, and you know your DCSID, you can skip this procedure. If you do not know the DCSID for an SDC data source that has been defined, edit the data source in Webtrends Administration to find the assigned DCSID value.

Creating a Data Source for Webtrends SoftwareTo create an SDC data source for software:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Application Settings > Data Sources.

2. Click New.

3. In the Data Source Type dialog, select Web: SmartSource Data Files. Click Next.

4. In the Data Location dialog, identify the location of the log files, which are your SmartSource Data Collector data files. Use the location you would identify for standard Webtrends analysis.

5. Provide information about the time zone for the data file. Click Next.

6. In the SmartSource Site ID dialog, click Generate a new SmartSource Site ID and specify the domain name or IP address of the SmartSource Data Collector. Click Next.

7. Read the Summary to ensure your settings are correct, and save the data source.

8. To configure and download JavaScript tracking code associated with this data source, return to the Data Sources list and click Build Tag (Tracking Code). Webtrends Tag Builder opens and is populated with information for the current data source. Tag Builder is a web site that automates JavaScript tracking code creation. You can use the code you create with Tag Builder to tag your web site.

Creating a Visitor Data Mart Profile

When you create a Visitor Data Mart profile, Webtrends creates a Microsoft SQL Server-based Visitor Data Mart that allows custom querying of web activity data. After Webtrends analyzes your data and loads it into Visitor Data Mart, you can work with your data using Webtrends Explore.

As a best practice, after you deploy your new Webtrends JavaScript tag you should create and then enable your profile as soon as possible. You should also consider creating and enabling your profile so that the time when it is enabled coincides with a time frame boundary such as the first day of the week or the first day of the month. This strategy helps reduce differences between visitor counts for larger time frames that can occur when you deploy the Webtrends JavaScript tag days, weeks, or months before creating the profile.

Webtrends checks for new activity at frequent intervals. As new SmartSource data becomes available, Webtrends analyzes your data and loads it into Visitor Data Mart and your SmartSource file delivery mechanism determines how frequently new data is available. For more information, see “Managing SmartSource Files for the Visitor Data Mart” in the Visitor Data Mart User’s Guide. If you are working with Visitor Data Mart data in Webtrends Explore, you are notified when new data is available.

To create a Visitor Data Mart profile:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Web Analysis > Reports & Profiles.

2. In the Profiles dialog, click New.

3. In the Profile Name text box, type a name to identify your profile in the user interface.

4. In the Web Site Domain Name text box, type the domain name of your web site.

5. Select the Advanced Profile Options check box. Click Next.

6. In the Profile Class dialog, select Visitor Data Mart. Click Next.

7. In the General dialog, choose whether to use the Windows time zone and Daylight Savings Time offset used for report time, or click Specify Time Zone/DST Overrides to specify a different time zone or DST offset settings. Click Next.

   Caution

   You cannot change this time zone setting after initial profile creation because changing the time zone setting invalidates your data. Keep in mind that if you selected Windows, changing the Windows time zone can have the same effect. If you select the Windows time zone, make sure you do not change the Windows time zone on the Webtrends server after you analyze data.

8. In the Data Sources dialog, select the data source you have defined for your Visitor Data Mart data. If you have not yet defined a data source, click the Data Source link and define one. Click Next.

   Note

   The Log File Path setting is not used for Visitor Data Mart profiles.

9. In the Session Tracking dialog, specify whether you want to track visitor sessions using the Webtrends-populated WT.vt_sid parameter, or whether you want to override this parameter using an alternate visitor ID passed in WT.vtid or another query parameter.

10. In the Visitor Data Mart dialog, select the Database Location to use for this profile. Database Locations specify the location of the SQL Server where your Visitor Data Mart resides. This dialog also shows the names for the Event Database, Module Database, and Extended Attributes Database. If you have installed additional SQL Server databases for storing Visitor Data Mart data and those locations are not available in the Database Location list, you need to define the additional locations by clicking the Database Locations link. Click Next.

11. In the Events dialog, select the check boxes for the event data that you want to collect. The events you select here determine the kinds of data that are available in Webtrends Explore. They also determine the types of rules you can create in Webtrends Score. Your web site must be tagged to collect the events you want to track. For more information, see “Configuring Your Web Site to Collect Visitor Data Mart Data” in the Visitor Data Mart User’s Guide.

12. In the URL Rebuilding dialog, select the URL Rebuilding definition to be applied to this profile. URL Rebuilding determines which query parameters to include when constructing a page (for example, when constructing entry pages). In most cases, you should use the same URL Rebuilding definition that you use for your Webtrends profiles. For Webtrends On Demand, the default setting is the only option.

    Note

    The default URL Rebuilding definition is Exclude all parameters except those specified in the exception list.

13. Click Next.

14. In the summary dialog, review the profile details, and click Save. By default, the profile is configured to start analyzing data immediately. If you choose not to start analysis when you save the profile, you can start it at any time by editing the profile and selecting Analysis Enabled in the Event Analysis dialog.

15. After the profile is initialized, edit the profile and select Events > Event Attribution. Event attribution determines how Visitor Data Mart credits conversions to events such as searches and ad views.

    1. Select events such as the Ad Click and Organic Search that represent marketing efforts, and identify them as touch points.
    2. Select events such as scenario steps that represent the success of a marketing effort, and identify them as conversions.
    3. Select an attribution window for each touch point event. The attribution window determines how long conversions can be attributed to a given touch point.

16. Save the profile.

Deleting Visitor Data Mart Profiles

When you delete a Visitor Data Mart profile, it is removed from the Administration interface, but its databases will persist, occupying disk space on Event Database servers. A database administrator can use the instructions below to manually delete profile databases after a profile has been deleted in Administration.

To delete Visitor Data Mart profile databases:

1. On the computer where your Webtrends system database is located, run the following stored procedure against the wtMaster database. The procedure returns a list of event databases in the EventDatabaseName column associated with deleted Visitor Data Mart profiles and the servers and instances on which these databases reside:

   USE wtMaster
GO
EXEC prShrListDeletedMLWProfileDBs

2. On the Event Database server, find the databases in SQL Server by looking at the ServerName and InstanceName columns.

3. Delete the databases using SQL Server Management Studio.

   Note

   If you run the stored procedure again, after manually deleting databases, the list will not reflect the deletions. All profile databases that have ever been deleted from Administration will appear in the list, regardless of whether they have already been deleted.

Working with Custom Events

An event represents any action on the part of the visitor, such as clicking through an ad, submitting an on-site search, or placing an order. Events take place at a precise moment in time. Webtrends Visitor Data Mart provides two kinds of events:

Preconfigured events
Visitor Data Mart out-of-box built-in events. You can modify the attributes of a preconfigured event such as adding, removing, or extending functionality.

Custom events
You can create a custom event to focus on a visitor action not captured by preconfigured events.You can translate or augment event data using lookup tables. For more information, see “Importing Visitor Data Mart Event Data Lookup Tables.”

About Attributes

An attribute is a characteristic of an event, visit or visitor. Attributes are typically named using words or phrases that modify the noun in the event description. For example, press relations is an attribute that is a characteristic of a content group event, Sony DVR is an attribute of a product view event, Free Shipping is a characteristic of an ad event. Events can include a single attribute but typically they are comprised of multiple attributes that you want to track.

By employing multiple attributes to focus an event, you improve the precision and relevance of your marketing campaigns and gain the power and flexibility provided by an enterprise-class data warehouse. You can further enhance analysis by translating or augmenting attributes using lookup tables.

Event attributes are also represented in data extracts in Data Scheduler. This means that if you change an event attribute, scheduled extracts containing data related to that event will not run, because the columns will not match. To remedy this, you would have to edit the extract, making the attribute columns identical to those in the changed attribute.

Creating a Custom Event

Before you create a custom event, you should know what incidents the event targets, what attributes define the desired incidents, and what query parameters identify the attributes. You should also decide if you want to translate or augment any collected data with a lookup table.

To create a Visitor Data Mart custom event:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Web Analysis > Visitor Data Mart > Events.

2. Click New.

3. In the EventName text box, specify a meaningful name for the new event.

4. In the Description text box, enter a description of the event.

5. Create attributes associated with the new event. To start, you can create an event with only one attribute and add the others later, but most events include multiple attributes. Follow these steps to create an attribute:

   1. In the Attributes dialog of the New Event Wizard dialog, click New.
   2. In the Attribute Name text box, specify a meaningful name for the new attribute.
   3. In the Query Parameter text box, specify the query parameter that you want to associate with this attribute. For more information, see “Configuring Your Web Site to Collect Visitor Data Mart Data” in the Visitor Data Mart User’s Guide.
   4. From the Type list, select an attribute type.
   5. If you do not want to translate values for this attribute, click Done.
   6. If you want to translate values for this attribute, select Translate values for this attribute. Select a Lookup Table from the list. Select a Key Column from the list. In the Value Columns box, select the columns from which values will be returned.
   Note

   You can only use a particular lookup table once in an event.

   If you do want to translate values for this attribute and there are no lookup tables to select from, follow the procedure described in “Using Lookup Tables for Analytics Reports.” After you complete those steps, configure your translation values and click Done.

6. Repeat (main) Step 5 as necessary.

7. When you are finished creating attributes, click Next on the New Event Wizard dialog.

8. If you want to collect data for all hits for this event, select Collect data for all hits in the Event Trigger dialog and click Next.

9. If you want to collect data only for this event only when it includes specific criteria, complete the following steps

   1. Select Collect data for hits that match the following criteria.
   2. From the list, specify Equal To or Not Equal To.
   3. In the URL text box, specify a URL to match.
   4. If you select the Regular Expression check box and specify a regular expression, type in the expression and click Test to see if it is a valid expression. If it is, click Apply. If not, continue until your expression passes the test.

10. If you want to create a new URL parameter, click New. Otherwise, click Next.

11. If you are creating a new URL Parameter, complete the following steps:

    1. In the Parameter Name text box, specify a parameter name.
    2. To configure a Boolean NOT for the parameter name, select the Match records that do not contain this parameter name check box. Otherwise, proceed to Step 3.
    3. For the parameter value, select either, Text, Numeric, or Regular Expression.
    4. From the list, select Equal To or Not Equal To for the parameter value.
    5. In the Parameter Value text box, specify the parameter value, based on the choice you made in Step 3.
    6. If you select Regular Expression and specify a regular expression, click Test to see if it is a valid expression. If it is, click Apply. If not, continue until your expression passes the test.
    7. When you are done with the URL Parameter dialog, click Done.

12. Click Next.

13. If you want to include the events’ business object in the data extraction, make sure the Business Object available for extraction checkbox is checked.

14. If you want to return to a preceding wizard page, click Previous. In the Summary dialog of the New Event Wizard, click Save to complete the event.