This chapter covers the following topics:
Oracle Web Analytics administrators have access to the following tracking administration tabs within the application:
Sites: In this tab, administrators can view sites that are being tracked and create new sites to be tracked, as well as update some parameters on sites created through Oracle iStore.
Content: In this tab, administrators can add pages and site areas to be tracked and add tracked pages not associated with Oracle iStore templates (external pages).
Referrals: In this tab, administrators can manage referral categories.
Setup: In this tab, administrators can define visit inactivity period, enable/disable persistent browser cookies, and set persistent cookie expiration. See the "Start Oracle Web Analytics Engine" in the chapter, Implementation Tasks, for more information.
The Site Management page allows you to:
View a list of sites to be tracked by Oracle Web Analytics.
Add external sites to be tracked by accessing the Add/Update Site Pages
Update specific parameters on tracked sites (parameters available depend on the type of site) by accessing the Add/Update Site Pages
Search for tracked sites - use the Show Sites with Active Reporting Status checkbox to filter the search results to only those sites whose Enable Reporting flag is active.
Note that you can only add external sites (non-Oracle iStore sites) from this screen. Oracle iStore sites are added from the Oracle iStore Site Administration Application. Refer to the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide for more details. After creation, Oracle iStore sites are immediately visible in the Oracle Web Analytics Administration Application. Likewise, external sites created in Oracle Web Analytics are immediately visible in the Oracle iStore Site Administration Application.
Use Add Site and Update Site pages to add/update sites to be tracked. Use the following guidelines:
Site Name: Enter a unique name for the site.
Organization: This list of values retrieves all organizations defined in your implementation. Select an organization to associate with the site. Oracle Web Analytics limits access to metrics based on the site security model. Report users can view metrics for external sites only if they have access, in their security profiles, to the operating units associated with the sites.
Code: Enter a unique code for the site. Site codes can be used to associate Web pages with external sites.
Domain Name: Enter the domain name for the site. Example: oracle.com. No wildcard characters are allowed. The domain names are used by the tracking engine to filter out unknown domains. For more information, see the "Traffic Filters" topic in the Oracle Web Analytics Implementation and Administration Guide.
Description: Enter a description, if desired.
Start Date/End Date: Start and end dates are a mechanism for administrators to classify whether a site is active or not. These dates have no bearing on the visibility of sites to external customers; entering values here does not disable/enabling tracking by Oracle Web Analytics. To disable tracking for an external site, you must disable the JavaScript tracking code from the external site. You cannot delete sites.
Enable Reporting: Select to include this site's tracking data in the reports. This parameter sets a site's reporting status as Active/Inactive. Note that for all sites (external or Oracle iStore), if you disable the Enable Reporting flag, the site will still be tracked, but not reported upon, in Oracle Web Analytics.
Enable Traffic Filter: Enabling this option filters visits from being reported on for the IP addresses specified in the Update Setup page. For more information, refer to the Update Setup Page.
Type: This text designates whether the site is an Oracle iStore site or an external site.
Site URL: Enter the URL for the site. Example: oracle.com. Each Site URL must contain the domain name (the exact string in some part of it) specified in the Domain Name field. For example, if the Domain Name field contains oracle.com, then the Site URL field also must contain oracle.com at a minimum. If the exact syntax is not present, an error message is displayed. All characters are allowed, including spaces and special characters. To capture several sites within a URL, you may use the asterisk character (*) as a wildcard. For example, enter oracle.com*.
Use the Update Site page to update parameters of tracked sites. Following are the guidelines:
External sites are fully updateable (except for Code). Oracle iStore sites are only updateable in terms of reporting status and traffic filter parameters.
To disable a site's metrics from being reported on in the reports, de-select the Enable Reporting checkbox.
Use the iStore Site Update page to update the Enable Reporting and Enable Traffic Filter functionality for Oracle iStore sites. See the Add/Update Site Page, topic for more information on these parameters.
Note that Oracle iStore sites cannot be created using the Oracle Web Analytics Administration Application; these must be created in the Oracle iStore Site Administration Application. After creation, Oracle iStore sites are immediately visible in the Oracle Web Analytics Administration Application.
The Referral Management Page allows you to:
View a list of referral categories defined in your implementation
Access the Create Referral Category Page, where you can create new referral categories.
Access the Update Referral Category Page, where you can update existing referral categories.
Note that referral categories can be either system-generated or defined by users. System-generated referral categories are created when a referral visit occurs from a Web site that is not already present in the administration application.
Following are guidelines for using the Search LOV.
Referral Category: Use to search for list of referral categories tracked by Oracle Web Analytics. When you select this criteria, the second LOV will contain All and User Defined:
All: Searches for all referral categories, both user-defined and system-generated.
User Defined: Searches only for user-defined referral categories.
Enter a search criteria in the textbox, using the percent sign (%) as a wildcard if desired. To capture all referral categories, simply enter the percent sign and select Go.
Creation Date: When you select this option, additional options around date are available. Note that when using this option, you cannot filter by User Defined categories.
The Create Referral Category page lets you construct referral categories in order to capture information about visits from referring sites. Use the following guidelines:
Referral Category: Enter a unique name for the referral category.
Description: Enter a description, if desired.
Site URL: Enter the site URL. All characters are allowed, including spaces, wild cards, and special characters.
A site URL may be composed of the following attributes:
Host name: The core internet address of the category (for example: www.google.com)
Domain: The domain of the category (for example: google.com)
Other parameters: Other parameters in the URL (for example: catalog/pages/index.htm ?q=1234)
Thus, an entire site URL might look like: http://www.google.com/catalog/pages/index.htm?q=1234
The Update Referral Category page lets you modify existing referral categories. For system-generated categories, only the Description textbox may be updated.
The Pages page within the Content tab allows you to:
Search for pages set up as trackable. Enter a search criteria in the textbox, using the percent sign (%) as a wildcard if desired. To capture all pages, simply enter the percent sign and select Go.
Access the Add/Update Template Pages, where you can create new tracked pages or update existing tracked pages and associate them to template (Oracle iStore Display Template) pages.
Access the Add/Update Non Template Pages, where you can create new tracked or update existing tracked pages and associate them to non-template-based pages.
Note: Each page you set up will be associated with either Oracle iStore templates or no template at all.
Use the Add Template page to add tracked pages associated with Oracle iStore Display Templates. Use the following guidelines:
Reference: Oracle iStore container templates that you associate to tracked pages will have a one-to-one relationship with the tracked pages.
Search and Select: Reference page: In the Reference pop-up window, only those templates that have not been associated with an (active or inactive) Oracle Web Analytics tracked page will be shown. Note: Oracle Web Analytics tracks only container templates, not the templates associated with various bins in the container templates. However, the pop-up search displays all templates, including the bins in the container templates.
Populating Reference and Page Name fields: After you select a template to associate to a page, the Reference field will be populated with the Display Template Programmatic Access Name, and the Page Name field will be populated with the Display Template name. Page Name is updateable.
Description: After you select an Oracle iStore template, the Description field is populated with the template description and made read-only.
Site Area: You may enter an exact Site Area name or use the search LOV to search and select one.
Context: Select Product to have this tracked page flagged as a product-related page, or select Section to have this tracked page flagged as a section-related page. A selection of None mean that the page will not have business context objects associated, such as Display Type and Code.
Use the Update Template page to update template assignments and parameters for tracked pages. Use the following guidelines:
For pages associated with seeded Oracle iStore Display Templates, only Page Name and Status are updateable.
For pages associated with non-seeded Oracle iStore Display Templates, the following is updateable:
Page Name
Status
Context
Site Area: This is the category that a page should be associated with; the site area is used as a way of categorizing pages for both context-sensitive and non-context-sensitive pages.
Inactive pages may be made active only if the associated site area is active.
A page can be made inactive only if no visits have been captured for that page. An error is displayed if you attempt to inactivate a page that has visits captured for it. To purge visit data, use the Purge Tracking Data concurrent program.
You can find a list of Oracle iStore templates in the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
Use the Add Non Template page to add pages not associated with Oracle iStore Display Templates. Use the following guidelines:
Page Name: Enter a unique name for page.
Description: Enter a description, if desired.
Code: Enter a unique code. Page codes, if published, will be used to associate Web pages with the logical page name in Oracle Web Analytics. The code will be auto-generated if left empty.
Site Area: You may either enter an exact Site Area name or use the search LOV to search and select one.
Context: Select Product to have this tracked page flagged as a product-related page, or select Section to have this tracked page flagged as a section-related page. A selection of None means that the page will not have any business context objects associated with it, such as Display Type and Code.
Use the Update Non Template page to update parameters for tracked pages. Use the following guidelines:
Only the following is updateable:
Page Name
Description
Status
Context: Only updateable if no page views have been recorded for it. If page views have been recorded for the page, an error is displayed.
Site Area: This is the category that a page should be associated with; the site area is used as a way of categorizing pages for both context-sensitive and non-context-sensitive pages.
Reference information for non-iStore pages is displayed using the complete URL (without the query parameters) from the first page view that is associated with the page object. When no page view is recorded, the reference information is empty.
Inactive pages may be made active only if the associated site area is active.
A page can be made inactive only if no visits have been captured for that page. An error is displayed if you attempt to inactivate a page that has visits captured for it.
The Site Areas page within the Content tab allows you to:
Search for established site areas.
Access the Add/Update Site Area Pages, where you can create new site areas or update existing site.
The Site Area is the category that a page should be associated with. Site Area is used as a way of categorizing pages, for both context-sensitive and non-context-sensitive pages.
Use the Create Site Area page to add site areas to associate with tracked pages. Use the following guidelines:
Site Area: Enter a unique name for the site area.
Description: Enter a description for the site area if desired.
Use the Update Site Area page to update site areas. Status is only updateable if there are no active pages assigned to the site area.
The Setup summary page summarizes settings for:
The visit inactivity period, as stored in the profile option, Web Analytics: Visit Inactivity Period
Enable Persistent Cookie flag, which indicates whether persistent browser cookies are enabled, as stored in the profile option, Web Analytics: Enable Persistent Cookie
The persistent cookie expiration duration stored in the profile option, Web Analytics: Visitor Cookie Expiration. Data for this parameter only displays if persistent browser cookies are enabled.
Any traffic filters defined
See the Update Setup Page for more information on these parameters.
Use the Update Setup page within the Setup tab to set:
The visit inactivity period. This is the inactivity period in a Web visit after which a visit is tracked as new visit.
Whether persistent browser cookies are enabled.
The persistent cookie expiration duration (also defined in the profile option, Web Analytics: Visitor Cookie Expiration). Data for this parameter only displays if persistent browser cookies are enabled. A visitor visiting Oracle Web Analytics-tracked sites outside the period defined in this parameter is treated as a new visitor.
Traffic filters: For the IP addresses specified, visits are filtered from being reported in Oracle Web Analytics.
Setting Visit Inactivity Period
The Web Analytics: Visit Inactivity Period parameter tells Oracle Web Analytics the inactivity period in a Web visit, after which a visit is tracked as new visit. You can enter a maximum of three positive integers.
Setting Persistent Browser Cookies Parameters
The Persistent Cookie Expiration value is the number of days since the last visit, after which the visitor is considered a new visitor. Select Yes in the Enable persistent browser cookies parameter to enable this feature. If set to No, then the Persistent Cookie Expiration field is disabled. Disabling persistent browser cookies will disable the tracking of anonymous visitors across visits.
Setting Traffic Filter Parameters
When you enable traffic filtering for a site, visits from IP addresses specified in the Update Setup page are recorded but not reported upon. Use the following guidelines to enter the addresses:
IP Address: Enter the IP addresses you wish to filter, up to a maximum of 50 characters. Use the asterisk (*) character to express any value between 0-255. Example: 255.255.*.*. The IP Address field also supports IPv6, where IP address can be in the form, 255.255.100.24.12.*. Other than the asterisk (*) character, only integers are allowed.
Description: Enter a description if desired. If description is present, IP address field also must be populated.
Oracle Web Analytics tracks and reports on both Oracle iStore and non-Oracle iStore business events.
Oracle Web Analytics tracks and reports on the following Oracle iStore business events:
Order submissions
Cart creations
Order, payment, and invoice inquiries --- Customers typically first view a summary of their order, payment or invoice history and then select one or more links to view details about the history. Oracle Web Analytics counts each summary page as one inquiry and each detail view as one inquiry.
User registration submissions --- Customer registrations are associated with the site where they originated in.
Express Checkout submissions --- For Oracle Web Analytics to pick up all express checkouts the iStore - Express Checkout Order Submission concurrent program must be run before running Web Analytics: Fact Population Program concurrent program.
Oracle Web Analytics tracks and reports on the following third-party-application business events:
Order, payment, and invoice inquiries
User registration submissions --- Customer registrations are associated with the site where they originated in.
In tracking the above business events, Oracle Web Analytics identifies the primary business object and the type of action being performed.
See the chapter, Integration with Third-Party Sites, for more information.
While visitors are tracked (opted in) by default, visitors can indicate their privacy preferences using privacy preference page supplied by Oracle Web Analytics. Following are some general rules about this functionality:
Visitors who explicitly opt out are not tracked.
A visitor who has not specified his privacy preference will be tracked by default.
The tracking engine keeps a count of how many visitors opted out, and the date/time of the opt-out.
A visitor is tracked up to the point that the opt-out occurs.
Oracle Web Analytics supplies a privacy preference page which visitors use to opt-in or out. In addition to this supplied page, an HTML version of the page is provided as a sample page for customers to use when integrating with third-party Web sites.
Following is the typical business process flow for visitor selection of privacy preference:
Visitor selects the Privacy Statement link available on all Oracle iStore Customer Application pages.
The Oracle iStore Privacy Statement page displays. The user reviews the terms and conditions displayed on the privacy statement page. See the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide for implementation details about this page.
The visitor clicks the Edit your privacy preferences link at the bottom of the Privacy Statement page, which retrieves the Oracle Web Analytics Online Privacy Selection page (see below for more details about this page).
In the Online Privacy Selection page, the visitor selects to either opt in or opt out of being tracked and selects the Apply button.
After the visitor selects the Apply button, the application returns him to the same page with a confirmation message: You have successfully opted out or You have successfully opted in.
As stated previously, anonymous visitors have the ability to opt in and opt out. When an anonymous visitor opts out, a browser cookie is placed on his machine to prevent further tracking of the visitor. This browser cookie is persistent and has an expiration date of 10 years from the date of creation. The visitor's opt-out preference is honored as long as the browser cookie is maintained. The anonymous user may decide to opt back in; if this case, Oracle Web Analytics removes the browser cookie.
Privacy preferences cannot be guaranteed when multiple anonymous visitors share the same computer and browser. The following example illustrates the scenario where a browser is shared between two users.
| Visit | User | Tracked | Status | Scenario |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | Yes | Anonymous | Anonymous User A creates a user account |
| 1 | A | No | Authenticated | Authenticated User A opts out |
| 2 | B | No | Anonymous | Anonymous User B visits site |
| 2 | B | Yes | Anonymous | Anonymous User B opts in |
| 3 | A | Yes | Anonymous | Anonymous User A visits site |
| 3 | A | No | Authenticated | User A authenticates himself |
| 4 | B | No | Anonymous | Anonymous User A visits |
Analysis: User A's privacy preference is not honored in visit 3 until he authenticates himself. Similarly, in visit 4, User B's privacy preference also is not honored.
Like anonymous visitors, registered visitors also have the ability to opt in and opt out. When a registered visitor opts out, his preference is stored in his user profile and in the browser cookie. When an anonymous visitor registers, his privacy preference as an anonymous visitor is automatically transferred into his new account profile. Thus, a guest user's privacy preference is carried over to his registered user account. If the registration occurs using a third-party system, the third-party system may require extensions to honor the privacy preference from Oracle Web Analytics. The privacy preference is stored in a profile option, Web Analytics: Customer Privacy Preference, with the values of either Yes or No. When not specified, the default behavior is opt-in.
An anonymous user views the privacy statement for a site and elects to opt out. The user then decides to register for an account. While registering for an account, the privacy preference previously elected by the user when he was an anonymous user is stored in his profile. Subsequent visits by the user where the user identifies himself will use this stored privacy preference. When an anonymous user authenticates himself, the privacy setting stored in his user account is then used. If the two values are in conflict (e.g., anonymous user opted out but as registered user opts in) the stored privacy preference overrides the value stored in the browser cookie for the anonymous user.
| Visit | Scenario | Tracked | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | User creates account | Yes | Anonymous |
| 1 | User opts out | No | Authenticated |
| 2 | User visits site | No | Anonymous |
| 2 | User opts in | Yes | Anonymous |
| 2 | User logs in | No | Authenticated |
| 3 | User visits site | No | Anonymous |
Analysis: In visit 2, although as an anonymous user he opted out, the user's privacy preference is overridden when he authenticates himself. The tracking engine at this time will use the stored preference, overriding the value stored in the browser.
The Online Privacy Selection page is available after a user selects the Edit your privacy preferences link on the Oracle iStore Privacy Statement page. A user hint at the top of the page displays differently depending on whether the user is an anonymous or authenticated user:
Tip for Anonymous Visitors: By default you are opted in as a tracked visitor. You may choose to change your current privacy setting by selecting another option and pressing 'Apply'. If you have an account, please log in prior to making your selection.
Tip for Authenticated Visitors: By default you are opted in as a tracked visitor. You may choose to change your current privacy setting by selecting another option and pressing 'Apply'.
In addition to the hint, the following options display:
Opt-in select option: This option is selected by default, meaning visitors are always opted in unless they explicitly opt out. The text for this option reads, You are currently opted in. I understand that data from my browsing patterns in this site will be used for the purposes of improving my online experience by enhancing security and improving functionality. Persistent browser cookies may be set for a specific duration in order to help facilitate my return visits.
Opt-out select option: The text for this option reads, Opt Out - I understand that no data about my visit to this site will be collected, besides the aggregated totals of visitors who choose to opt out. In order to enable my preference, a persistent browser cookie may be stored. As long as this browser cookie is maintained, my preference will be honored. If I choose to remove this cookie, I would need to re-apply it by visiting this page and re-selecting my desired privacy preference.
The Privacy Selection page is available from the Edit your privacy preferences link on the Privacy Statement page if the Oracle iStore profile option, IBE: Display Privacy Statement, is set to Yes. See the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide for implementation details.
See also:
"Set Up Privacy Policy" in the chapter, Implementation Tasks
"Step 4 - Set Up Privacy Policy" in the chapter, Integration with Third-Party Sites
The sections that follow discuss security and performance within Oracle Web Analytics.
Page views are collected only for content delivered from Web servers. Malicious visitors cannot record page views by simply calling the tracking image from their PCs or by executing the client tracking code from pages saved to their PCs. Visitors tampering with the client tracking code in order to manipulate the page view information is also minimized. For example, a malicious visitor cannot create new page objects in Oracle Web Analytics simply by removing the page code information and supplying new page names in the page views.
Oracle Web Analytics prevents browser errors in the visitor browser when the tracking engine is unable to capture tracking data.
When an exception occurs in the tracking engine or there is a client browser issue, Oracle Web Analytics sends information to a log file. This exception reporting is discussed in this section.
Oracle Web Analytics reports exceptions into the log files. The following exceptions are reported:
| Exception Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Domain has been ignored: <Domain Name> | Logged when a page view does not correspond to any existing site |
| Client Browser Error: <Error Message> | Logged when Oracle Web Analytics encounters any browser error |
The following exceptions are reported by the Fact Population concurrent program, which processes the raw click stream data collected offline:
| Exception Name | Description |
|---|---|
| No sites matching page view <page URL>. | Logged when a page view does not correspond to any existing site. |
| No referral category matching referral site. Creating default category: <Category Name>. | Logged when no referral categories match a referral site. |
| No page matching page view. Creating new page: <page name> | Logged when no pages match a page view URL. |
| Invalid page code <page code>: Unable to match existing page, creating new page: page name | Logged when a page code does not match any existing pages, or is invalid. |
| Invalid Context ID <context ID>, for page <page name>: Ignoring page view. | Logged when a context ID is invalid for a specified contextual page. |
| Missing Context ID for page <page name>: Ignoring page view. | Logged when a context ID is missing for a specified contextual page. |
| Web Tracking Fact Population program did not process any records | Logged when Fact Population program does not process any records. |
The following attributes are captured along with the exception:
Exception Code: This is a system-generated attribute.
Exception Name: This is a system-generated attribute.
Time: This is the standard DD-MON-YYYY HR:MM:SS reporting.