Adding the Google Android browser and platform to your reports

Applies to:  software

(Note – in November 2008 WebTrends started making updated copies of browsers.ini and keywords.ini available to software users from their web site!  We’ll post more about this soon once we have checked it out.) 

http://www.webtrends.com/support/browser-and-keywords-updater.aspx

Back to the original post:

Android (the platform for the Google phone) is out.  Here’s how to add it to your WebTrends software configuration so it will show up in browser and platform reports.  It’s a little different from most of the new stuff we have seen lately because Android is, technically, both a platform and a browser.  To be reported as both, it has to be added to the configuration in the platforms area AND the browsers area in the configuration file.  Feel free make your own choice about whether to do one or two.

For you software users, the file you have to change is called browsers.ini.  On Demand users already are seeing Android, though I’m not sure whether it’s as a platform, a browser, or both.

There are usually three or four copies of the file browsers.ini on the typical WebTrends installation, and there could be extra copies on other servers if you use distributed architecture. You’ll need to change all of them.  Typical locations are:

/WebTrends/modules/analysis/engine/8.0d (8.1, 8.5, etc)
/WebTrends/storage/config/component/lookupdata/
/WebTrends/storage/config/engine/8.0d (8.1, 8.5, etc)
/WebTrends/

Open one instance of browsers.ini with a proper text editor. By “proper” we mean something like TextPad as opposed to Notepad, because Notepad doesn’t play well with the system when the file is in use. With TextPad, you can [usually] take the risk of changing the file while WebTrends is running.

Step 1.a – Change the Browser list. Go to the end of the long [Browsers] list. Find the last numbered entry. It’ll look something like this:

Browser29=GECKO 

(you may be at 35, or any number.  Just find the last one.)

Because Android’s User Agent string contains the name “Safari” and “Gecko,” you should put Android above both Gecko and Safari in the list, because WebTrends will use the first one it finds.  So work back up the last, above Gecko, above Safari, and insert an Android line.   I’ve chosen “Android_browser” as the name.  It’ll look something like this. 

Browser26=ANDROID_browser

Re-number all the entries that appear below this one!  Make sure there are no dupes or gaps!

Step 1.b – Add the [Browsers] section specifications.  Go to the end of the [Browsers] specification list (groups of three-four lines).  Add a blank line and then this:

[ANDROID_browser]
log=ANDROID
text=Google Android

That’s all, for getting Android to show in your Browsers report. 

Now for the Platforms reporting.

Step 2.a – Change the Platforms list. Go to the end of the [Platforms] list. Find the last numbered entry. It’ll look something like this:

Platform52=IPHONE

Because Android’s User Agent string contains the name “Linux,” you should put Android above Linux in the list.  So insert a line above the Linux entry.  It’ll look something like this (the name Android_Platform is my arbitrary choice):

Platform37=ANDROID_Platform

Re-number the entries!  Make sure there are no dupes or gaps!

Step 2.b – Add the [Platforms] section specifications.  Go to the top of the [Platforms] specification list (groups of three-four lines).  (I have no idea why Platforms is in reverse order from Browsers and the most recent ones are at the top instead of the bottom.  Maybe order doesn’t matter as long as the main list is numbered.)  Anyway, add a blank line and then this:

[ANDROID_Platform]
log=ANDROID
text=Google Android (Linux)

(I chose to add a reference to (Linux) in the text line so that, in the report, users would be reminded that Android is a form of Linux.  It might matter to somebody.)

That’s all for the Platforms part.

Step 3.  Save and close the browsers.ini file.

Step 4.  Copy the file to all locations where there’s a browsers.ini.

Step 5.    Restart your Scheduler Service

There’s a decent chance that this restart won’t be necessary but it sometimes is needed, so do this step if you can (or if you notice that the browsers.ini change didn’t have an effect in your reports).   How do you do this?  You have to log on to the WebTrends machine as a local administrator, go to Services (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services), select “WebTrends – Scheduler Agent” and click on Restart.  Or, you ask somebody with admin access to do it.

Done!  Your Browsers, Browser Versions, and Platforms reports will now show Android. 

Postscript:  For your reference, here’s how the User String is showing up these days:

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 0.5; en-us) AppleWebKit/522+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3 

Tags

android, browsers, browsers.ini, google android, platforms

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