Screen: ShopSite > Reports > Configure Reports

Reports Configuration

This screen allows you to set, clear, or update information used to generate Reports. If you have not previously configured your reports, you will see this screen when you click the Reports link in the ShopSite back office.

Whenever a visitor comes to your Web site, information about what gets sent from your Web server to the visitor's browser gets logged by your server. ShopSite can use the information in your server's log files to create useful reports about visitor and customer habits.

In order to create reports, ShopSite requires your log files to be in NCSA Common Log File Format. Many Web servers use this format by default, and nearly all servers can use this format. If your store is hosted on a Windows server, you may have to configure IIS to use NCSA Common Log File Format. Your Webmaster or Hosting Provider should be able to help you find out more about configuring your Web server to use NCSA Common Log File Format.

Report Configuration Settings

Server log file path The system path to the Web server log file. Ask your Webmaster or Hosting Provider if you do not know where to find your log files.
Server log file name The name of your Web server log file (sometimes called an access log). Ask your Webmaster or Hosting Provider if you do not know the name of your server log file.
Additional Text Filter (optional) If your Web server log files are shared with sections of your site, or other sites, that are not part of your store, you can use this field to identify traffic to your store. Enter a part of your store's URL that is unique to the store, and not used by any other sites or parts of your site. For example, if your store uses a different domain name than other sites or parts of your site, you could use the domain name. You may also have your store in a separate sub-directory from other content, in which case you could use the sub-directory name. If you do not share your log file, leave this field blank.
Creation of ISTAT files Select the Yes radio button to have ShopSite generate Pages, Hosts, and Referrers summary reports. Select No if you do not want ShopSite to store information for these reports. Information linking sales and revenue to specific pages and hosts is stored in ISTAT files and used to generate the summary reports. If you are concerned about disk space limitations, it may be a good idea not to create ISTAT files.
Number of days to keep Page and Referrer details Select how many days worth of detailed log information to keep in your logs. When reports are generated, information older than the specified number of days will be cleared out of your ISTAT log files. If you are concerned about disk space limitations, you can use this to prevent ISTAT files from growing too large.

Click OK to save changes, or Cancel to abandon changes made on this screen and return to the Reports screen.

Log File Management

These options allow you to manage the files that store the report information. You can use these options to test or troubleshoot report generation. Clearing counters or emptying logs will permanently remove all the indicated information from your reports.
Clear Sales Counters Click this button to reset the Sales Statistics in your reports. All sales statistics in all your reports will be set to zero (0). This can be used to clear any testing statistics from your reports before opening your site for business.
Clear Traffic Counters Click this button to reset the Traffic Statistics used in reports. All traffic statistics in all your reports will be set to zero (0). This can be used to clear any testing statistics from your reports before opening your site for business.
Empty Order Log Click this button to empty the ISTAT file used to create the Page Summary. All Page Summary report information will be deleted. This can be used to clear any testing statistics out before opening your site for business, or to free up disk space.
Empty Store Log Click this button to empty the ISTAT file used to create the Host Summary and Referrer Summary. All Host and Referrer Summary information will be deleted, and this could possibly affect your Traffic Counters for that day. This can be used to clear any testing statistics out before opening your site for business, or to free up disk space.
Update Store Log Now Click this button to update your reports. Whenever you view the main Reports page, your reports are automatically updated. This button is useful for testing configuration settings without having to leave this page.
Current Logfile Whenever your reports are updated, this field will be updated to indicate the path and name of the Web server log file used to generate the report, or not found if ShopSite could not find a log file in the indicated location. To test changes or troubleshoot problems with report generation, compare this to the name and path settings above and the Last logfile read below.
Last Update This is the most recent time and date when ShopSite generated a report. This can be compared to the most recent information in your reports and in your Web server log files to test or troubleshoot report generation.
Last logfile read The path and name of the most recent Web server log file that ShopSite was able to successfully read. This can be compared to the Current Logfile for testing or troubleshooting report generation.
Reset Date and Time This section allows you to repair problems creating reports.
  • For normal operation, leave the Don't reset last date/time read option selected. The next time ShopSite generates a report, only information more recent than the Last Update time and date will be added to the reports. This allows ShopSite to skip information already in the reports.
  • If ShopSite has generated reports without successfully reading new information from the correct log file, you can select the Reset last date/time read according to last request in your store log radio button once you have configured ShopSite to read the correct log file. This will cause ShopSite to use the most recent event in your reports as the starting point for adding new information to the reports.
  • As a last resort, you can select Reset last date/time read to the following and indicate a specific date and time for ShopSite to start adding information to your reports. If you use this option and set it to overlap previously reported information, that information will be reported twice.
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Last updated: March 01, 2010
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