Internationalization and Webtrends

What Internationalization Support Does Webtrends Provide?

Webtrends provides internationalization support for your Webtrends Analytics report data and several product components. The primary audience of this information is Webtrends administrators and profile creators. Administrators can configure the default language, character encoding, and locale settings that reflect the needs of most users. Profile creators can override these settings if the web site they are reporting on uses a different encoding than the default language. In addition, all Webtrends users can specify the language they prefer to use when viewing reports and the locale settings to use for dates and currency.

Support for Localized Analytics Reports

Because report data supports users throughout an organization, Webtrends provides localized data for Webtrends Analytics reports in many languages. You can work with localized Webtrends Analytics report data using the following reporting solutions:

Webtrends Analytics Reports
Provides HTML reports ideal for reporting on a known set of metrics important to your business.
Webtrends SmartReports
Exports Analytics Reports to a Microsoft Excel environment where you can integrate this report with external data.
Webtrends SmartView
Provides a visual representation of your web site activity overlaid on your web site. This report is ideal for understanding day to day activity.

You can create reports in the following languages:

• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Simplified Chinese
• Traditional Chinese
• Spanish

For more information about creating localized reports, see “Configuring Localization Settings,” below.

Terms Used in this article

This section describes some terms that may be new to you:

Character encoding
System of representing a set of natural language characters as bytes. Each language can be represented using more than one encoding. Encodings for the same natural language are not compatible.

String encoding plug-in
Webtrends add-on application that converts search phrases and Webtrends query parameters encoded in one character encoding to an encoding that Webtrends supports.

Global encoding
Character encoding that determines the encoding used to store all configuration information specified in Webtrends Administration, such as campaign and content group names.

Home country
Visitors from the home country are considered local in reports. Visitors from all other countries are shown as international in reports.

Locale
Settings that determine how Webtrends formats dates and numbers in reports and how to sort data alphanumerically. Each supported language may have multiple locales.

Profile encoding
Character encoding that reflects the encoding of the web site data you are reporting on. If you specify an Asian encoding, you can enable the string encoding plug-in to convert encodings of search phrases and query parameters.

Planning Your Localization Strategy

Webtrends internationalization support is designed for organizations reporting on web sites that are encoded using a common character encoding for all sites. This design includes organizations whose web sites are all encoded using UTF-8.

Localization Considerations

To create a localization strategy for your implementation, you need to know what language and encoding your web sites typically use and which language most users will use for viewing Webtrends Analytics reports. As a Webtrends administrator, you should configure the encoding and language that matches your web site encoding. Webtrends software users should also configure a global encoding for their Webtrends installation.

Localization Scenarios

The following table describes some typical localization scenarios for providing reports to users in their preferred language. It also shows how the global and profile encoding must be compatible with the encoding of your web site data, and shows the circumstances in which you can use the string encoding plug-in.

Localization Report Scenarios

For more information about configuring localization settings, see “Configuring Localization Settings,” below. For more information about the string encoding plug-in, see “Using the String Encoding Plug-In,” below.

Understanding How Profile Language Settings Affect Reports

Because web site data is encoded to display correctly for a particular language, you need to configure your profiles to use the language and encoding of your web site. This is especially important for double-byte languages or web sites encoded using UTF-8. The profile language and encoding setting determines the default language for report users and which languages are available to report users. The following table, Available Reports for Selected Language, shows the languages available to report users given the profile language setting.

Available Reports for Selected Language

Configuring Localization Settings

This section provides information about configuring localization settings for your implementation, including profile localization settings, and individual localization preferences.

For more information about the relationship between global encodings, profile settings, and your web site encoding, see “Planning Your Localization Strategy,” above.

Configuring Profile Localization Settings for Your Implementation

As a Webtrends Analytics software administrator, you can configure the global localization settings for your implementation. The global setting determines the encoding and language that will be used to configure settings in Webtrends Administration.

Because some configuration data, such as scenarios and content groups, is included in reports, Webtrends stores all configuration data using the global encoding. Therefore, the global encoding you specify should be compatible with the language that your users will use for viewing reports. For more information about the relationship between global encodings, profile settings, and your web site encoding, see “Planning Your Localization Strategy,” above.

To configure global localization settings:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Application Settings > Options.
2. Click Language.
3. Select the encoding to use to configure and store settings in Webtrends Administration.
4. Select the default language to use to view and configure data in Webtrends Administration. You can only select languages that are compatible with the specified encoding.
5. Select the default locale to use for configuring dates and numbers in Webtrends Analytics Reports.

Configuring Profile Localization Settings

You can configure your profiles to reflect localization settings for the web site that you are reporting on. At the profile level, you can specify the following:

• The encoding and language for this profile’s web site data. If you specify an Asian language for a Standard Full-Featured Analysis profile, you can also enable encoding conversion.
• The country that is considered home for Standard Full-Featured Analysis profiles.
• The default locale settings that formats dates and numbers in reports.

For information about the relationship between global encodings, profile settings, and your web site encoding, see “Planning Your Localization Strategy,” above. For information about the relationship between profile language settings and the languages available to report users, see “Understanding How Profile Language Settings Affect Reports,” above. For more information about the string encoding plug-in, see "Using the String Encoding Plug-In," below.

To configure default localization profile settings:

1. In the left pane, Administration > Web Analysis > Options > Analysis.
2. Click Language.
3. Specify the default home country for new profiles. Reports show traffic that does not originate in the home country as international.
4. Specify the default encoding and language to use for new profiles. Select a language that is compatible with your web site encoding.
5. Specify the default locale for new profiles. Locale settings determine the formatting of dates and numbers in reports.
6. If you specified an Asian language, you can enable encoding conversion. Encoding conversion converts page titles, search phrases and query parameters to the encoding that your web site uses. For more information, see “Using the String Encoding Plug-In,” below.

To configure localization for Standard Full-Featured Analysis profiles:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Web Analysis > Reports & Profiles.
2. Mouse over the profile you want to configure, and click Edit on the Action menu.
3. Click Analysis > Language.
4. Specify the home country for this profile. Reports show traffic that does not originate in the home country as international.
5. Specify the default encoding and language to use for viewing reports for this profile. Select a language that is compatible with the web site encoding that you are reporting on with this profile.
6. Specify the default locale to use for formatting dates and numbers in reports.
7. If you specified an Asian language for this profile, you can enable encoding conversion. Encoding conversion converts page titles, search phrases and query parameters to the encoding that your web site uses. For more information, see “Using the String Encoding Plug-In,” below.

To configure localization for Parent-Child profiles:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Web Analysis > Reports & Profiles.
2. Mouse over the Child profile you want to configure, and click Edit on the Action menu.
3. Click Analysis > Language.
4. Specify the default language to use for viewing reports for this profile. Select a language that is compatible with the web site encoding that you are reporting on with this profile.
5. Specify the default locale to use for formatting dates and numbers in reports.

Setting Individual Localization Preferences

Each Webtrends user can specify language and locale preferences in My Webtrends. Webtrends displays Analytics Reports in your preferred language when the encoding of the profile you are viewing is compatible with the language you specify. If your preferred language is not compatible with the encoding of the profile whose report you want to view, the report is displayed in the default language for the profile. Webtrends uses user-preferred locale settings for formatting dates and numbers for your location.

To set your localization preferences:

1. In the upper right corner, click My Webtrends.
2. In the left pane, click Change Language Settings.
3. Select your preferred language for viewing Analytics Reports.
4. Select the locale to use for formatting dates and numbers in reports.

Configuring Server Localization Preferences

If the operating system of your Webtrends server is not set to a language that uses double byte characters and you are trying to view a report in one of these languages, some characters in graph labels may not render properly.

To set your server to render all characters properly:

1. Open the Regional and Language Options dialog in the Windows Control Panel.
2. Click the Languages tab.
3. Select Install files for complex script and right-to-left languages.
4. Select Install files for East Asian languages.
5. Click OK.
6. Reboot the server.

Using the String Encoding Plug-In

Webtrends provides a plug-in that you can use to convert search phrases and Webtrends query parameters from the character encoding that they were submitted in to the character encoding specified in the profile.

Understanding Search Phrase Conversion

If your web site is encoded in a double-byte language, you probably have visitors who are referred to your site by search engines encoded differently than your web site. A profile specifies the language and encoding of the web site activity it tracks. When search phrase data encoding does not match the language and encoding specified in the profile, Webtrends cannot display it properly in reports. In such cases, you may notice squares in search engine reports rather than text.

For example, if you specify Japanese as the language for a profile, which Webtrends analyzes using the Shift-JIS character set, and visitors come to your site from search engines that encode search phrases using a different Japanese character set, Webtrends cannot recognize the characters that make up their search phrases. You can use the string encoding plug-in to convert search phrases to the encoding specified in the profile.

Understanding Query Parameter Conversion

If you use Webtrends On Demand or SmartSource Data Collector and your web site is encoded in a double-byte language that differs from the encoding of your profile, you can enable the string encoding plug-in in your profiles. You may also want to enable this plug-in if you typically see traffic from visitors or search sites that use different encoding than the encoding specified in your profile. A profile specifies the language and encoding of the web site activity it tracks. You can use the string encoding plug-in to convert Webtrends query parameters to the encoding specified in the profile so that the data captured by the Webtrends JavaScript tag is viewable in reports. The string encoding plug-in can convert the following types of query parameters:

• All Webtrends query parameters captured in web data that are named WT.x.
• All SDC custom query parameters captured in web data that are named dcsext.x on the page

Supported Character Sets

The following table shows the character encodings that the string encoding plug-in can convert and the character encoding that your data will be converted to when the profile is analyzed. Note that some characters that exist in the web site encoding, typically incoming referrer search strings, may not exist in the profile encoding and cannot be converted. For example, if the web site is encoded in a Traditional Chinese encoding, and the profile uses a Simplified Chinese encoding, the string encoding plug-in cannot convert the characters that are not common to both. Characters that cannot be converted are not included in reports.

Supported Character Sets

Converting Non-Standard EUC-JP and Shift_JIS Characters

A set of Shift_JIS characters and a set of EUC-JP characters are not converted by the string encoding plug-in. These characters are in the following ranges:

• Shift_JIS %87%40 to %87%9E
• EUC-JP %AD%A1 to %AD%FE

For more information about customizing the string encoding plug-in to convert these characters, see “[japanese_shiftjis_replacements] Settings” or “[japanese_eucjp_replacements] Settings,” below.

Installing the String Encoding Plug-In

You can launch the string encoding plug-in installation program from Webtrends Administration.

To install the string encoding plug-in:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Install Components.
2. Click Accessories.
3. Click String Encoding Plug-in.
4. In the Webtrends String Encoding script page, click String Encoding Plug-in.
5. Save the file to the computer running Webtrends Analytics.
6. Run the installation program. The plug-in is installed to the following location:
   Webtrends installation directory\storage\config\component\plugins

Enabling the String Encoding Plug-In

You enable the search string conversion plug-in separately in each of your profiles. For more information, see “Configuring Profile Localization Settings,” above.

Customizing the String Encoding Plug-In

If you have additional information about search engine sites in your location, and you use Webtrends Analytics software, you can configure the string encoding plug-in to correctly identify and convert search phrase data and query parameters to the correct character set.

To customize the string encoding plug-in, edit the convert_str.ini file which is located in the Webtrends installation directory\storage\config\component\plugins directory.

[Main] Settings

The following table describes the settings in the [Main] section.

[source_charset_by_substring] Settings

If you want the string encoding plug-in to determine the character set of the source by searching the substring for a particular server name, use the settings in the[source_charset_by_substring]section. The plug-in compares the substring to the server name portion of the referrer string.

The format for this section is substring# = substring = character set.

substring#
Indicates the order the script should process your definitions. Replace # with a number beginning at 1 and proceeding sequentially.

substring
Specifies the actual substring to be searched for in the server name.

character set
Specifies the source character set if the substring is found in the server name. Make sure that the character set that you specify matches the encoding that the specified Web site uses. Otherwise, the plug-in will either mistranslate or not translate the search phrases. You can determine how a specific search phrase is encoded by using the search engine to perform a search and looking for the charset setting specified as part the HTTP-EQUIV META tag in the header of the results page.

The following example shows how to format this section:
substring1 = yahoo.co.jp = EUC-JP
substring2 = goo.ne.jp = EUC-JP
substring3 = infoseek.co.jp = EUC-JP

[ie_param_alias] Settings

Several search engine sites, such Google, use the ie parameter to specify how a given referrer is encoded. If a search engine site refers to a character set in a standardized way, you can use the settings in the [ie_param_alias] section to specify aliases for ie and ei parameters. Using the ie parameter is a reliable method for determining the source encoding. It also enable using the ei parameter that is used by Yahoo.

The format for this section is alias# = value = character set.

alias#
Indicates the order that the script should process your definitions. Replace # with a number beginning at 1 and proceed sequentially.

value
Specifies the ie parameter value to look for, such as shift-jis.

character set
Specifies the parameter to use in place of the specified ie parameter value.

The following example shows how to format this section:
[ie_param_alias]
alias1 = shift-jis = Shift_JIS
alias2 = EUC_JP = EUC-JP

[japanese_shiftjis_replacements] Settings

If you want to enable the string conversion plug-in to convert the set of Shift_JIS characters that are not converted by default, you can specify “from” and “to” encoding strings in the [japanese_shiftjis_replacements] section of the convert_searchstr.ini file.

The following example shows you how to convert all Shift_JIS encoding occurrences of %87%8A to the equivalent acceptable %28%8A%94%29:

[japanese_shiftjis_replacements]
fromstr1=%87%8A
tostr1=%28%8A%94%29

[japanese_eucjp_replacements] Settings

If you want to enable the string conversion plug-in to convert the set of EUC-JP characters that are not converted by default, you can specify “from” and “to” encoding strings in the [japanese_eucjp_replacements] section of the convert_searchstr.ini file.

The following example shows you how to convert all EUC-JP encoding occurrences of %AD%EA to the equivalent acceptable %28%B3%F4%29:
[japanese_eucjp_replacements]
fromstr1=%AD%EA
tostr1=%28%B3%F4%29

[encoding_override] Settings

In some cases, search engines override their own standard encoding. When this occurs, search phrases are passed in a different encoding from the standard expected encoding for the search engine. The standard encoding is specified in the [source_charset_by_substring] section of the convert_searchstr.ini file. To specify a different encoding, specify the override encoding parameter in the [encoding_override] section of the convert_searchstr.ini file.

To specify more than one encoding override parameter setting, use a semicolon-delimited list of parameters. When more than one encoding override parameter is specified, the conversion plug-in searches the query string for the first parameter in the list. If the first parameter is not found, the search continues to the next parameter in the list until a specified parameter is found, or the end of the list is reached. If no parameter is specified or found, the conversion plug-in uses the default search engine encoding listed in the [source_charset_by_substring] section.

The following examples show the default search engine encoding for several search engines, and the code required to specify preferred encoding:

Default Search Engine Encoding
[source_charset_by_substring]
substring1 = google = UTF-8
substring2 = hk.yahoo.com = big5
substring3 = search.msn. = UTF-8
substring4 = msn.com.tw = UTF-8
substring5 = yahoo.co.jp = EUC-JP
substring19 = search.nifty.com = EUC-JP

Specifying Preferred Search Engine Encoding
[encoding_override]
encparam1 = google = ie
encparam2 = hk.yahoo.com = ei
encparam3 = search.msn. =
encparam4 = msn.com.tw =
encparam5 = yahoo.co.jp = ei
encparam19 = search.nifty.com = cflg;ie

Using Replacement Strings

In cases where a search engine does not automatically replace escaped characters with conventional characters, specify the escaped characters requiring conversion in the [replace_string] section of the convert_searchstr.ini file, and indicate the search engines that use the replacement strings in [engine_replace_string]. The conversion applies to any search engine listed in the [engine_replace_string] section of the ini file that references the replacement string. The result of the replacement occurs only in the query field of the referrer.

[replace_string] Settings

To stipulate one or more replacement strings, add the replacement marker, followed by the desired replacement string to the [replace_string] section of the convert_searchstr.ini file. You can list multiple replacement strings as needed.

The following example shows how to convert the escaped characters %26 to an &. Note that the replacement marker (shown as repl1) precedes the replacement string:

[replace_string]
repl1 = %26 = &

The following examples show the conversion that results from the replacement string. The conversion occurs for each instance of the replacement string after the ? in the referrer URL:

Referrer URL Before Replacement
http://images.google.co.jp/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmembers.interq.or.jp%2Fimages%2Fset5.gif&h=245&w=432&sz=17%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Dja%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

Referrer URL After Replacement
http://images.google.co.jp/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmembers.interq.or.jp%2Fimages%2Fset5.gif&h=245&w=432&sz=17&svnum%3D10&hl%3Dja&lr%3D&sa%3DN

[engine_replace_string] Settings

When using replacement strings in the [replace_strings] section of the convert_searchstr.ini file, make sure each search engine that uses the conversion is listed in the [engine_replace_string] section. Additionally, each entry must have a replacement marker that is associated with the replacement string.

The following example shows replacement conversion markers (repl1, repl2, repl3) and their corresponding replacement strings to use for search engines listed in [engine_replace_string]. Note that not all replacement strings must be used by all search engines:

[replace_string]
repl1 = %26 = &
repl2 = %5C = \
repl3 = %22 = “

[engine_replace_string]
enginerepl1 = google = repl1
enginerepl2 = hk.yahoo.com = repl1, repl2, repl3
enginerepl3 = search.msn. = repl
enginerepl4 = msn.com.tw = repl1
enginerepl5 = yahoo.co.jp = repl1
enginerepl6 = search.hk.yahoo = repl1, repl3