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Sawmill Newsletter   July 15, 2009

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News

Sawmill 8.0.9 shipped on June 6, 2009. This is a minor "bug fix" release, and it is free to existing Sawmill 8 users.  It is recommended for anyone who is experiencing problems with Sawmill 8.0.8 or earlier. You can download it from http://sawmill.net/download.html .

Sawmill 7 users can upgrade to Sawmill 8 for half of the license price; or if you have Premium Support, the upgrade is free. Major features of Sawmill 8 include support for Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases, real-time reporting, a completely redesigned web interface, better multi-processor and multi-core support, and role-based authentication control.

This issue of the Sawmill Newsletter describes how to add graphs to reports dynamically, from the Reports interface.


Get The Most Out Of Sawmill With Professional Services

Looking to get more out of your statistics from Sawmill? Running short on time, but need the information now to make critical business decisions? Our Professional Service Experts are available for just this situation and many others. We will assist in the initial installation of Sawmill using best practices; work with you to integrate and configure Sawmill to generate reports in the shortest possible time. We will tailor Sawmill to your environment, create a customized solution, be sensitive to your requirements and stay focused on what your business needs are. We will show you areas of Sawmill you may not even be aware of, demonstrating these methods will provide you with many streamlined methods to get you the information more quickly. Often you'll find that Sawmill's deep analysis can even provide you with information you've been after but never knew how to reach, or possibly never realized was readily available in reports. Sawmill is an extremely powerful tool for your business, and most users only exercise a fraction of this power. That's where our experts really can make the difference. Our Sawmill experts have many years of experience with Sawmill and with a large cross section of devices and business sectors. Our promise is to very quickly come up with a cost effective solution that fits your business, and greatly expand your ROI with only a few hours of fee based Sawmill Professional Services. For more information, a quote, or to speak directly with a Professional services expert contact consulting@flowerfire.com.

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Tips & Techniques: Adding Graphs To Reports

Sawmill supports a variety of options for graphing numerical and non-numerical values, including inline bar graphs, separate bar graphs, line graphs, and pie charts. For compactness, tables usually contain only the inline graph, like this standard Hit Types reports:




The table includes an embedded Hits graph, shown as a horizontal bar graph, indicating hits per hit type. But suppose you want a pie chart of this information instead. This can be done in the Config section, to make a pie chart a permanent part of this report, but if you don't want to change the profile permanently, or if you don't have access to Config for this profile, it is still possible to temporarily add a pie chart, which only you see (and not other viewers of the same profile). To do this, click Customize above and to the right of the table, to bring up the Customize Report Element window. In the Graphs tab of that window, click Hits to turn on a Hits graph:




If you return to the report now, you'll have a separate Hits graph, but it will be a bar graph (the default). If you want the graph to be a pie chart instead, you need to go to the Graph Options tab, and choose "Pie chart" as the "Graph type." While you're at it, you could click Show 3D to make it a fancier 3D pie chart, instead of the default two-dimensional "circle" chart:




That's it--click OK and you'll be back at the Hit types report, but this time with a 3D pie chart above the table:




Multiple Graphs

It's easy to graph multiple fields, each in its own graph (e.g., a pie chart for Hits, and another for Page Views)--just click all the fields you want in the Graphs tab.


Permanent Graphs

Graphs added in this way will be visible only to you--they will not affect other users' views of that report. If you want to permanently add a graph to a report, you can do it in Config -> Reports, which edits the profile directly and affects all users. Alternately, you can use Save Report Changes, or Save As New Report, in the Miscellaneous menu at the top of the Reports interface, to permanently save your temporary changes to the current report, or as a new report.


Professional Services

This newsletter describes adding graphs to reports. If you need assistance with configuring reports in your Sawmill installation, or with any other Sawmill tasks, our Sawmill Experts can help. Contact sales@sawmill.net for more information.



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