Top N Reports By Page Views

In today’s modern world, the success/failure of any business purely depends on its marketing strategy. A good web site/web application may do wonders to a business irrespective of various other factors. The success/failure of a web site/web application mostly relies on the user experience which should be excellent irrespective of users using various browsers and devices, being in different geographic locations etc. By generating the Top N Reports By Page Views report, administrators can historically analyze the overall performance of the web site/web application by keeping track of the page views to the web site/web application from different user experience perspectives such as browsers, devices, geographic locations etc. Using this report, you can figure out the answers to the following questions:

From which browser/device was the maximum page requests received?
In which country/city/region is the target web site/web application most popular?
Which page group has received the maximum number of page view requests?
Which page type has received the maximum number of page view requests?
Are the page view requests to a country/city/region consistent or is it sporadic?

To generate this report, do the following:

Login to eG Reporter.
Follow the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> RUM Reports -> Top N -> By Page Views.
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 Top N By Page Views report
By default, the report provides the details of only the Top-10 page views count for each user experience perspective for the chosen Component. You can choose a different top-n option from the Show Top list, if need be.
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 Top N By Page Views 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, select the Background Save - PDF 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. 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 will then appear.

Figure 3 : The Top N By Page Views report
From the report that is generated, for each user experience perspective, you can easily view the page views count. This helps the administrators to figure out the browsers/devices/page types/page groups/geographic locations that are topping in requesting access to the web pages of the web site/web application. Using this report, administrators can also figure out the popularity of web site/web application in different geographic locations and also figure out the most popular browsers/devices/page groups/ page types that are instrumental in accessing the web site/web application.