Making a blitz profile
Applies to: Software, especially software with Custom Reports ability
Let it be known that we Outsiders are fans of the software version of WebTrends. You, astute reader, may have noticed this in other Outsider posts.
It’s really important to be able to re-analyze data. Even with hosted solutions that use big ol’ queryable databases, I can personally guarantee that I will constantly need something outside the cube structure. That means re-analysis, period.
And sometimes I need it fast. The most common emergency is when I invent a new custom report — and need results right away for the most recent month.
The proper, professional, calm, workmanlike way would be to modify an existing profile, rollback and re-analyze. Or clone and modify an existing profile then analyze the last month of data.
But if I’m in a rush, I do a one-time blitz analysis and worry about the “proper” way when I have the time.
In order to do this, I keep ready an empty, stripped-down profile named “Blitz” that I clone, add the new report to, and get results from in a fraction of the usual time. Like, um, 85% faster. I’ve clocked it. (Think: if re-analyzing all of a month of data takes an hour with your usual profile, a blitz profile could do the same thing, just for one custom report, in 9 minutes.)
The Blitz profile has the following settings. As far as I know, these are all the settings in a profile that can be stripped off. If you know of any others, let me know!
(Note: Not all of them will apply to you. For example, you may not have any URL Search & Replace operations at all so there’s nothing to turn off. Or, the custom report you want to blitz may require Visitor History so you shouldn’t disable VH.)
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Turn off Visitor History
- Analysis >> Visitor History
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Turn off Internet Resolution and GeoTrends
- Analysis >> Internet Resolution
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Turn off Retrieve HTML Page Titles
- Analysis >> General
- (this should be off anyway if you use SDC data)
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Increase Analysis Throttling time if you are analyzing multiple days of data (don’t make it too high, but I’ve done up to 30 days at a time for modest-size logs)
- Analysis >> Analysis Throttling
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Turn off Fix Out Of Order Records
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Analysis >> Resource Control
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Turn off URL Search & Replace operations
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Advanced >> URL Search & Replace
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- Turn off irrelevant analyses – other custom reports, content group definitions, path analyses, URL parameter analyses, and so on
- Advanced >> Content Groups (etc)
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Turn off all report periods except Monthly (even for a few days’ data)
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Reports >> Report Periods
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Put your logs on the same machine as the WT program (this is more than just a setting)
- Copy the logs to a location on the analysis machine
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Make a new data source
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Change: Analysis >> Data Source
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Turn off all of the Standard Reports
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Advanced >> Reports (uncheck the little box at the top of the list)
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(The last one, Turn Off Standard Reports, might be something you’ve never paid attention to. It’s the little box called “Enable Standard Reports” at the top of the Custom Report list. Turning it off has a one caveat if you are blitzing a custom report that uses content groups, search phrases, or search keywords as a dimension. For these, WebTrends must run the related standard report. No idea why these three are an issue. (Dimensions based on anything else are not a problem.) If that’s your situation, you’ll either have to keep Standard Reports enabled in your speeded-up profile, OR go ahead and disable standard reports but use this hack: add a line to the [reports] section of the profile’s .wlp file that enables the related standard report. )
TopContentGroups = 1
TopSearchKeyPhrases = 1
TopSearchKeywords = 1
This list may be incomplete and there may be exceptions to individual items that I don't know about. Please let us know!
P.S. Wouldn’t it be nice if the WT profile definition interface had a way to selectively disable/enable individual standard reports? Since the *.wlp file has individual lines for each standard report, how hard could it be?
12 comments
Cool post. Never thought of such a blitz profile with all that time consuming stuff turned off. Pretty good idea.
Just a note: if you’re using SDC (and probably should), “retrieve html Tittle” should always be turned off, since the tag grabs the title automatically, and there’s no need to make WT do the extra work.
Jacques, how do you see these posts so fast? I haven’t even finished the final live edit!
Yes, you’re right about titles. I’ll adjust the copy.
The power of social media. I had to pull back some live edits I had! Anyway, great comprehensive list. One related tip is to create a sample Data Source as well.
This can be stripped from several DCS logfiles (make sure you close out daily hits!) or simply using a current day macro if your traffic is high enough.
\SDCLogs\dcs7jxiw0bjebv550xxxxxxxxxx_3×3y_sdc_%mon%_%dd%_%yyyy%.log
Set this as the data source in your BLITZ profile!
Duh! Why didn’t I think of that! Saves steps. Thanks!
I believe search phrases are another dimension that require standard reports.
That’s odd. You could be right. In my tests, a search phrase custom report worked. But I just made another, and it didn’t. I’ll check on what the difference is.
Kerstin – you’re right. I’ll change the text of the post.
I’ll have to find out why. It doesn’t fit with the reason for a Content Groups dimension not working. Any ideas?
No idea. It’s always been a bit of a random mystery to me why some worked and some didn’t. Knowing about content groups helps. Thanks.
Thank you to a certain WebTrends insider who contacted us with more information, which has been incorporated into this post.
Path analysis does not work without standard reports…
Marco – yes, apparently path analysis IS a standard report.
Here’s our best shot at a list of all of them, as they would appear in a *.wlp file. Some are legacy or WT-developer names that need to be puzzled out. Top User Sessions would be Visitors, maybe? Referring TLD would be Referring Top Level Domain. Suffixes would be Accessed File Types. I’m not sure about the difference between Top Paths and Top From Popular Routes. I think one would be path analysis where the user specifies the start page, and the other is Paths From Entry, probably in that order.
TopUserSessions = 1
Top404Errors = 1
TopAdClicks = 1
TopAdViews = 1
TopAds = 1
TopAuthUsers = 1
TopBandwidth = 1
TopCities = 1
TopClientErrors = 1
TopCompanies = 1
TopCompanyNames = 1
TopContentGroups = 1
TopContentPaths = 1
TopCountries = 1
TopDirectory = 1
TopDownloads = 1
TopEntryPage = 1
TopEntryRequest = 1
TopExit = 1
TopExtensions = 1
TopFromPopularRoutes = 1
TopGeoRegions = 1
TopPages = 1
TopPaths = 1
TopQueries = 1
TopReferers = 1
TopReferingSites = 1
TopReferingTLDs = 1
TopReverseContentPaths = 1
TopReversePaths = 1
TopSearchEngines = 1
TopSearchKeyPhrases = 1
TopSearchKeywords = 1
TopSearchPhraseEngines = 1
TopServerErrors = 1
TopSinglePage = 1
TopStates = 1
TopSuffixes = 1
TopToPopularRoutes = 1
TopUploads = 1
Got bit by the custom search phrase reports missing after turning off standard reports.
Oops.. Might just leave them on, they’re probably not too intensive, hopefully.
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