Analysis Reporting

The Analysis Reporting features enable you to analyze the data stored in the Data Warehouse. Commerce Server 2009 provides dozens of reports so that you can analyze product sales, Web site usage, site diagnostics, and more. You use SQL Server Reporting Services to run reports.

Commerce Server 2009 reports run quickly because the data required for many of the reports is stored in an OLAP database. Reports can be accessed remotely, so that business managers can access the OLAP database through firewalls or proxy servers and run reports.

The Analysis Reporting feature includes the following types of reports:

  • Dynamic reports. Use these reports to gather the most recent data in the Data Warehouse. You create dynamic reports at run time.

  • Dynamic drill-through reports. Use these dynamic reports to display detailed information about all the dimensions in the OLAP cube that contains the clicked dimension.

  • Static reports. Run these reports immediately upon request and then store them together with the data in the Data Warehouse.

Commerce Server 2009 Analytics Reports

The following table lists the reports available in Commerce Server 2009 by report category.

Report category

Report

Advertising reports

  • Ad Reach and Frequency by Date. Review the behavior of users relative to campaign items on your site. This report shows the activity of users per day for each campaign. This report provides data only for closed visits. By using the information from this report, you can examine the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.

  • Ad Reach and Frequency per Advertiser. Review the behavior of users relative to campaign items over time. This report provides data only for closed visits. By using the information from this report, you can examine the value of your advertisers.

  • Campaign Item Summary. Review the effectiveness of campaigns on your site. This report shows a summary of activity by campaign item on your site. This report provides data only for closed visits.

  • Campaign Event Summary. Review the effectiveness of campaigns on your site. This report shows a summary of campaign event activity on your site. This report collects data only for closed visits.

Diagnostic reports

  • Bandwidth Summary. View a PivotChart of the weekly bandwidth consumption for your site.

  • Bandwidth Trends. Review the daily bandwidth consumption for your site.

  • Hits by HTTP Status. Review and diagnose problems users might experience with the 1,000 most active pages on your site. This report shows HTTP codes associated with the 1,000 most active pages of your Web site.

  • Hits by Win32 Status. Review and diagnose problems users might experience with the 1,000 most active pages on your site. This report shows Win32 codes associated with the 1,000 most active pages of your Web site.

Product sales reports

  • Buyer Browse to Purchase. Review user visits and purchasing patterns. This report shows the number of first time and repeat buyers, and the average number of visits for each purchase per buyer. You use this information to examine user retention rate.

  • Customer Sales. Review customer details, total sales, and total orders.

  • Order Events. Review order submittal events, such as a user clicking the Checkout button to indicate that the order is complete. This report shows the number of submittal order events performed by registered and anonymous users each hour.

  • Product Sales. Review product sales volume and revenue by date. This report shows the total quantity and revenue, sorted by product category. For each product category displayed, the report shows the sales information for all products in that category and all descendant categories.

  • Shopping Basket Events. Review user behavior about shopping basket activity. This report shows shopping basket activity broken down by product category. For each product category displayed, the report shows the number of shopping basket events for all products in that category and all descendant categories.

Query string reports

  • Single-value Query Strings. Determine what information that users are looking for on your site. This report shows the number of requests to query strings that you have configured for the system to analyze. For example, the system administrator can configure a single-valued query string to track the number of times users enter a particular search string on your site. You could then use this report to analyze the most popular search strings on your site.

  • Multi-value Query Strings. Determine what information that users are looking for on your site. This report shows the number of requests to query strings that you configured for the system to analyze. For example, the system administrator can configure a multi-valued query string to track which stock items users are most interested in.

User reports

  • Distinct Users by Time. Determine whether a few users are visiting your site many times or if many users are visiting your site one time. This report displays the number of unique users visiting your site, and how many times your site has been visited for a particular period. This report correlates the number of distinct users with the number of visits made by each user. For the currently selected period, the report calculates the distinct users.

  • New Registered Users. Identify new registered users. You can use this data to create special promotional campaigns.

  • Registered User Properties. Review information provided by registered users. This data can be used to create special promotional campaigns.

  • Registered Users by Date Registered. Review the registration behavior of your users. This report shows user registration history for your site for a particular time (year, quarter, month, or day).

  • User Days to Register. Track the average number of days it takes anonymous users to register on your site.

  • User Registration Rate. Determine how successful you have been in getting anonymous users to register on your site. This report shows the time elapsed from the date users first access the site until the date they register.

  • User Trends. Review the number of registered and anonymous visits to your site over time. This report shows the total number of visits, total number of registered user visits, and the total number of anonymous user visits.

Visit reports

  • Entry Pages. Determine the 1,000 pages on your site that users are most likely to visit first. This report shows the 1,000 URIs that users most frequently use to enter your site, and the number of times each URI has been used.

  • Exit Pages. Determine from which pages users are most likely to leave your site. This report shows the 1,000 URIs users most frequently use to exit your site, and the number of times each of them has been used.

  • General Activity Statistics. Quickly review the activity on your site. This report shows the average requests per visit, the average visit duration, and the number of requests and visits, over time.

  • User Visit Trends. Determine how successful you are in attracting repeat users. This report shows the types of users (new and repeat) who visit your site by date.

Web usage reports

  • Activity by Browser. Review activity by the types of browsers users use to access your Web site. You use information from this report to examine browser technology trends. This should be a consideration for Web development.

  • Directories. Determine which of the 1,000 URI directory levels are the most visited. This report shows activity for the first six levels of URI directories.

  • Entry Path Analysis. Determine the entry paths most frequently used to reach your site. This report shows the top six levels of path directories.

  • Top Referring Domains by Requests. Review the sites from which your users access your site. This report shows a list of the most active referring domains by number of requests.

  • Top Requested Pages. Review a list of the 1,000 most active pages, including query strings, by number of requests. This report provides statistics per page. This differs from the Directories report, which provides statistics for all pages within a URI directory.

  • Usage Summary by Day of Week. View a PivotChart that shows the average number of page requests and average user visits per day of the week.

  • Usage Summary by Hour of Day. View a PivotChart that shows the average number of page requests and average user visits per hour of the day.

  • Usage Trends. Review a summary of daily page requests, distinct users, and visits.

See Also

Other Resources

Data Warehouse

Web Business Intelligence