Geography - Overview Report

One of the main reasons for any business to thrive in this competitive world is to have an efficient web site/web application. These businesses often receive several thousands of hits per second on their site. If the web sites/web applications hosted by such businesses suffer an outage in any part of the world for a few minutes, then their business in that particular geographic location may be affected with a loss in customers which eventually would lead to a drop in their revenue. Administrators of such business web sites/web applications are therefore required to historically analyze the page views to their site/application, deduce the geographic locations that are contributing to the traffic flow over a period of time and identify the geographic locations that are slow in loading the web site/web application. The Summary report offered by the eG Enterprise helps such administrators to generate a report that provides all the required information. Using this report, administrators shall identify the page hits, distinct locations i.e., countries, cities, and regions from which the web site/web application was hit, the locations from which the web site/web application took too long to load and the distribution of load across the locations during the chosen timeperiod. By analyzing the report, administrators can identify the real cause behind the slowdown of the web site/web application in the geographic locations and rectify the same before end users from those locations start complaining about the inaccessibility of the web site/web application.

To generate this report, do the following:

Login to eG Reporter.
Follow the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> RUM Reports -> Geo -> Summary.
When Figure 1 appears, select the service from the Service list box for which the report is to be generated.
The Component list will then be populated with the components that are associated with the chosen Service. Select a component of your choice from this list.

Figure 1 : Generating the Summary report
By default, the report provides the details of only the Top-10 geographic location from which the users have accessed the target web site/web application i.e., the chosen Component. You can choose a different top-n option from the Show Top list, if need be.
If you have chosen to generate a graphical report, then a Measure list box will appear using which you can select a measure for which the graph needs to be generated.
If you have chosen to generate the report in a tabular format by selecting Data from the Report Type list, then a Based on measure list will appear. Selecting a measure of your choice from this list will ensure you that the generated report is sorted based on the chosen measure.
From the Region list, you can choose the region for which you wish to generate the tabular report. By default, All option will be displayed in this list.
Provide a report Timeline. You can either select a fixed timeline such as 1 hour, 2 days, etc., or choose the Any option from the Timeline list, and then provide a From and To date/time for report generation.

Note:

For every user registered with the eG Enterprise system, the administrator can indicate the maximum timeline for which that user can generate a report. Once the maximum timeline is set for a user, then, whenever that user logs into eG Reporter and attempts to generate a report, the Timeline list box in the report page will display options according to the maximum timeline setting of that user. For instance, if a user can generate a report for a maximum period of 3 days only, then 3 days will be the highest option displayed in the Timeline list - i.e., 3 days will be the last option in the fixed Timeline list. Similarly, if the user chooses the Any option from the Timeline list and proceeds to provide a start date and end date for report generation using the From and To specifications, eG Enterprise will first check if the user's Timeline specification conforms to his/her maximum timeline setting. If not, report generation will fail. For instance, for a user who is allowed to generate reports spanning over a maximum period of 3 days only, the difference between the From and To dates should never be over 3 days. If it is, then, upon clicking the Run Report button a message box will appear, prompting the user to change the From and To specification.
In addition to the settings discussed above, this report comes with a set of default specifications. These settings are hidden by default. If you do not want to disturb these default settings, then you can proceed to generate the report by clicking the Run Report button soon after you pick a Measure. However, if you want to view and then alter these settings (if required), click on the icon. The default settings will then appear in the MORE OPTIONS drop down window (see Figure 2). The steps below discuss each of these settings and how they can be customized.

Figure 2 : The default settings for generating a Summary report
If the timeline specified for the report needs to exclude the data collected during the Weekends, then set Exclude weekends to Yes. If not, select No.

Note:

By default, the weekend constitutes Saturday and Sunday. To override this default setting, do the following:
- Edit the eg_report.ini file in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory.
- In the [RUM_REPOTRS] section of the file, the EXCLUDE_WEEKEND parameter is set to Saturday, Sunday by default. You can modify this by setting the EXCLUDE_WEEKEND parameter to a comma-separated list of other days of the week - say Friday, Saturday.
- Save the file after making the required changes.
Next, specify the start time and end time for report generation against the Time period field.
In large environments, reports generated using months of data can take a long time to complete. Administrators now have the option of generating reports on-line or in the background. When a report is scheduled for background generation, administrators can proceed with their other monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting tasks, while the eG manager is processing the report. This saves the administrator valuable time. To schedule background processing of a report, you can either select the Background Save - PDF option or the Background Save - CSV option from the Report Generation list. In this case, a Report Name text box will appear, where you would have to provide the name with which the report is to be saved in the background. To process reports in the foreground, select the Foreground Generation - HTML option from this list.

Note:
- The Report Generation list will appear only if the EnableBackgroundReport flag in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the {EG_INSTALL_DIR}\manager\config directory) is set to Yes.
- The default selection in the Report Generation list will change according to the Timeline specified for the report. If the Timeline set is greater than or equal to the number of days specified against the MinDurationForReport parameter in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Background Save - PDF. On the other hand, if the Timeline set for the report is lesser than the value of the MinDurationForReport parameter, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Foreground. This is because, the MinDurationForReport setting governs when reports are to be processed in the background. By default, this parameter is set to 2 weeks - this indicates that by default, reports with a timeline of 2 weeks and above will be processed in the background.
Finally, click the Run Report button to generate the report.

Figure 3 : The Summary report
The generated report in Figure 3 is divided into three distinct sections as explained below:
The Traffic Summary section helps you to identify the total number of times the target web site/web application has been hit between the chosen time period. In addition, administrators may also be fed with the numerical statistics of the unique locations i.e., the cities, regions and countries that have contributed to the hits of the target web site/web application.
The Slow Locations section helps you to figure out the Top N (based on the selection made from the Show Top list while generating the report) locations from which the target web site/web application took a long time to load on the browsers of the users. The top countries/cities/regions that were affected with high Average page load time and the Page views are represented as a bar graph using which administrators can figure out if the country/city/region is actually suffering from high average page load time. If both the Average page load time and the Page Views from location are high, then it indicates that the business in that particular location is suffering. By simply viewing the report in Figure 2, administrators can infer that the user experience of Kuala Lumpur/Selangor/Malaysia is suffering. Administrators are therefore required to take necessary steps to rectify the issue before the business of the web site/web application is impacted.
The Locations by Load section provides you with a pie chart which graphically represents the distribution of Top 3 geographic locations i.e., the cities, countries and the regions where the average page load time was high.