Webtrends Configurations

[WobbleWobble]

We'll have our main site example.com and a sub-site example.com/subsite. What we used to do before was set up hit filters for the subsites and separate profiles for each of them. To me, this seemed like a waste of resources as I'd have to do a separate analysis job for the main site and the subsite.

I thought what I would be able to do was setup parent-child relationships and make example.com the parent and the subsite a child. However, it looks like the parent doesn't actually contain report information but just the configuration info.

Does any one have an alternate solution?

 

[Tarrant64]

I have currently been working with this for a little over a year now. Which Webtrends software did you purchase? As you've probably found out, there is endless documents on setting up Webtrends, and to no surprise it only gets you so far...

If you have a subscription, or haven't signed up for one, log in to the forums (forums.webtrends.com) and seek help there. This is an excellent resource and is where I managed to get help on several configurations that seemed to confusing, and are now a point-and-click away to do.

If you still need help, PM me and I will try to get you on track, or at least started in the right direction. The method you are trying to do I haven't done yet. I usually did just as you did, setup hit filters and separate profiles for each. I personally didn't consider it a waste of resources, but if there's a better way I hope we can come down to a solution.

 

[Cheetah8799]

I've got the same problem here, and I'm using WebTrends 7.

I believe you can setup custom reports based off of some parent report. So for example you have your main report for example.com with sub-reports of some sort for each sub-site. I just haven't figured out how to do it, and am still sitting here on about 30 individual reports with hit filters on the same logs...

Another option is to simply run a query off of the parent report whenever you want specific numbers for a sub-directory or something. Though that only gets you so far since you can't do queries on every page and graph...

 

[Tarrant64]

Yes, queries do work as well, and I have done that as well...

 

[WobbleWobble]

Thanks for the replies and the PM!

Right now we're using Webtrends Analytics 8.0a. I didn't know Webtrends had their own forums! Thanks for giving me a heads up on that. I've just registered and am waiting for them to approve my request. My company has an active maintenance agreement and I have an account with their SupportNet so I see no reason for my request not to be approved.

We were going to bring in Webtrends Professional Services consultant as I don't have the cycles to play with this as much as I would like to, but they were just too pricey. We are passively looking for alternative, but there aren't many enterprise level analytics tools out there.

 

[Tarrant64]

Unless your company has the budget, dont' go the consultant route. Even taking training courses for Webtrends costs just too much. It was considered where I work right now since I'm the only one using it. But hey, I'm still a student, and I had no true ambitions to be an expert on something I don't plan on using in the future. Kind of just dumped on me after returning from a short summer break, ya know? Plus, I felt kind of odd being sent on a plane somewhere to do a few days worth of training. I doubt any kind of grant at my university would pay for that without extreme good reasons and obvious benefit.

What's another 2-3 weeks of research, right?

Anyways, enough rambling.

You should be approved on the forums with no problem. I haven't had any luck with the Webtrends support group. I have had some contact with them over the phone, and they have some nifty log dump utilities that help them solve the problem, but my issues were more random and MySQL related than anything. But, as I mentioned before, take advantage of the forum. There are some much more knowledgeable members there that have used Webtrends for several versions back now and have somehow managed to keep up with the nonstop newer versions.

You're right, there aren't many enterprise level of analytics tools out there. I attempting to get Webtrends off my back and see if Google Analytics offered some simple solutions. It works up to the point where you need custom reporting, and decent looking reports that is.

 

[WobbleWobble]

We have over 25,000 employees, so the money is there if we need it. I just need to justify it and I personally can't, so I won't bring on the recommendations to get a consultant. I also don't feel right taking the training as I'm not sure if I'll be with this company much longer.

It's a shame that Web analytics has been an afterthought in my company. When I took it over, Webtrends was running on a workstation with a million and one hacks to get it working since the person who set it up also didn't have proper knowledge nor the time to deal with it.

The Google tool we've been interested in is Urchin. It's the 2nd most polished tool (after Webtrends) that I've seen and it's relatively cheap compared to Webtrends (with an enterprise license).

 

[Tarrant64]

Urchin eh? I will look into that! (Is there a direct link for this? And does it differ from Google Analytics?) The gap I'm trying to fill now is reporting for stats. Webtrends kind of has print and go, Google Analytics has some messing around to get the format the way you want.

Yeah I have a good 50 or so 'hacks' if you will, to get things moving along.