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Sawmill Newsletter

January 15, 2010

Welcome to the Sawmill Newsletter!

You’re receiving this newsletter because during the downloading or purchase of Sawmill, you checked the box to join our mailing list. If you wish to be removed from this list, please send an email, with the subject line of “UNSUBSCRIBE” to newsletter@sawmill.net (please include the entire message, as the identifying information is at the bottom).

News

Sawmill 8.1.2 shipped on December 10, 2009. This is an bug-fix release--it fixes a number of bugs. This release is free to existing Sawmill 8 users. It is recommended for anyone who is experiencing problems with Sawmill 8.1.1 or earlier. You can download it from http://sawmill.net/download.html .

Sawmill 8.1.2 has a known issue with some Windows installations. It requires the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 redistributable package, but does not install it. Most Windows systems have this package already, but for those that don't, Sawmill will not run. If you are experiencing this problem, install the redistributable package (x86 or x64). Future Sawmill installers will install this package automatically, when it is not already present.

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 page views are defined, and how to change the definition.

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.

Tips & Techniques: Using A Log Filter To Redefine Page Views

When Sawmill analyzes web server logs, it differentiates types of hits on the server, by categorizing some of them as "page views" and some as not (non-page-views). The default behavior is suitable for most purposes, but if the definition does not match what is needed, it is customizable. This newsletter describes how to customize the definition of "page views."

In a typical web log analysis profile, under Config -> Log Filters, there is a filter called "Detect page views":

Log Filters: The Detect Page Views Filter

The key part of this filter is the Expression, which defines what the filter does (indented below for easier legibility):

if ((file_type eq 'JPEG') or (file_type eq 'JPG') or (file_type eq 'GIF') or (file_type eq 'ICO') or (file_type eq 'PNG') or (file_type eq 'CSS') or (file_type eq 'SWF') or (file_type eq 'JS')) then page_views = 0; else page_views = 1;

This expression is written in Salang, Sawmill's internal scripting language (search Salang in the technical manual for a language reference). The expression above examines the file_type field, which is computed from the "page" field (the pathname of the file accessed on the web server). The file_type field is extracted from the filename extension, so for instance, a file ending with ".gif" will have "GIF" as its file_type. This filter expression checks if file_type is JPEG, JPG, GIF, ICO, PNG, CSS, SWF, or JS; if it is any of those, it sets page_views to 0, which causes that hit to have no effect on the page_views field. If the extension is not one of the listed ones, it sets page_views to 1, which causes that hit to be included in the sum of page views. This has the effect of adding 1 page view to the database for each event in the log data which does not have one of the listed extension. Simply put, it counts hits as page views only if they don't have one of those extensions.

This filter, then, defines "page views." It can be edited in any desired way to change the definition.

Example: Adding A New Extension

As a simple example of a change to the "page views" definition, suppose we want to keep the same structure (everything except certain extensions is a page view), but change the list of extensions. For instance, suppose we want PDF files to be considered hits, but not page views. By default, PDFs are considered page views, because "PDF" is not in the list of extensions. This is a reasonable default, but if we want them to be non-page-views instead, we can just change the expression to add PDF to the list:

if ((file_type eq 'JPEG') or (file_type eq 'JPG') or (file_type eq 'GIF') or (file_type eq 'ICO') or (file_type eq 'PNG') or (file_type eq 'CSS') or (file_type eq 'SWF') or (file_type eq 'JS') or (file_type eq 'PDF')) then
page_views = 0; else page_views = 1;

Then we rebuild the database--log filters are run against the log data as the database is built, and only have effect on database rebuilds (or updates, for the new data being processed), so every change to log filters requires a database build before it will affect the reports. After the rebuild, the number of page views will change in the reports, as all PDF hits are added to the page views total.

Example: Changing From A Negative To A Positive Definition Of Page Views

Sawmill defines page views negatively; i.e., it defines them by saying what is not a page view. Some other analytics tools use a positive definition of page views; they define them by saying what they are. This can be done easily in Sawmill using a reverse version of the standard filter:

if ((file_type eq 'HTML') or (file_type eq 'HTM') or (file_type eq 'ASP') or (file_type eq 'ASPX') or (file_type eq 'CGI') or (file_type eq '(no type)')) then
page_views = 1; else page_views = 0;

This sets page_views to 1 for all HTML, HTM, ASP, ASPX, CGI, or URLs without an extension. This may substantially change the number of pages views reported, because there could be a large number of hits with extensions on neither the positive nor the negative lists; these hits will be categorized as page views by the negative filter, but as non-page-views by the positive filter.

There is no universal definition of "page view." As a user of Sawmill, you can choose, and implement, your own definition, based on what you consider to be a page view.

Node: Page Views And Sessions

Page views have another effect that may not be obvious. Because the page views field is typically used as the "session events" field, Sawmill's session reports are based only on those lines where page_views=1. So if the definition of page view changes, then the definition of session event changes together with it, and session reports will also show different results. This is generally desirable--sessions are intended to show only the page views, so if something isn't considered a page view anymore, it shouldn't be in the session reports anymore. If separate definitions of "page view" and "session event" are required, however, it is fairly easy to separate the two, by creating a new field to track session events, setting that field with a separate log filter, and using that as the "session event" field.

Professional Services

This newsletter describes customization of the definition of Page Views. If you need assistance with defining Page Views, or other aspects of your profiles, or with any other Sawmill tasks, our Sawmill Experts can help. Contact sales@sawmill.net for more information.

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