PR Trends - Visualization of automatically accumulated data

76 Pages·2006·1.31 MB·English

by  Linn Wikstål

Examen s arbete
LITH-ITN-MT-E X--06/034--SE

PR Trends - Visualization of

automatically accumulated

data

Linn Wikstål

2006-06-21

Department of Science and Technology Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap
Linköpings Universitet Linköpings Universitet
SE-601 74 Norrköping, Sweden 601 74 Norrköping
LITH-ITN-MT-EX--06/034--SE
PR Trends - Visualization of
automatically accumulated
data
Examensarbete utfört i medieteknik
vid Linköpings Tekniska Högskola, Campus
Norrköping
Linn Wikstål
Handledare Fredrik Schweinebarth
Examinator Mikael Jern
Norrköping 2006-06-21
Datum
Avdelning, Institution
Date
Division, Department
2006-06-21
Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap
Department of Science and Technology
Språk Rapporttyp ISBN
Language Report category _____________________________________________________
ISRN
Svenska/Swedish Examensarbete LITH-ITN-MT-EX--06/034--SE
x Engelska/English B-uppsats _________________________________________________________________
C-uppsats Serietitel och serienummer ISSN
x D-uppsats Title of series, numbering ___________________________________
_ ________________
_ ________________
URL för elektronisk version
Titel
PR Trends - Visualization of automatically accumulated data
Title
Författare
Author Linn Wikstål
Sammanfattning
Abstract PR Trends, an ASP.NET & C#.NET application developed for Panagora Room AB, is designed to
gather information about website visitors and visualize the acquired data in the shape of
different charts. The key attribute, that sets this application apart from others, is the
ability to gather data specified by the software user. With a small amount of code added to a webpage,
the data accumulation is in affect, and triggered by webpage visitors. A prognosis calculated from the
gathered data can also be presented to the user.
This application provides the Retail Service Provider Panagora Room AB with a comparable overview
of their customers’ development on the market as well as a comparison between the different
merchandise groups.
Nyckelord
Keyword visualization, statistical information, web statistics, accumulation, prognosis
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Copyright
The publishers will keep this document online on the Internet - or its possible
replacement - for a considerable time from the date of publication barring
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The online availability of the document implies a permanent permission for
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Subsequent transfers of copyright cannot revoke this permission. All other uses
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© Linn Wikstål
Abstract
The key to keeping a successful website and webshop is to know the visitors and their
behaviour. In order to map the behaviour of the visitors, applications that visualizes
server logs is a useful tool. However in some cases the data collected in the server logs is
not enough.

PR Trends, an application developed for Panagora Room AB, is designed to gather
information about website visitors and visualize the acquired data in the shape of
different charts. The key attribute, that sets this application apart from others, is the
ability to gather data specified by the software user. With a small amount of code added
to a webpage, the data accumulation is in affect, and triggered by webpage visitors. The
database is designed to be dynamic, meaning that new data structures may be
accumulated without any change of the database definition.

This application provides the Retail Service Provider Panagora Room AB with a
comparable overview of their customers’ development on the market as well as a
comparison between the different merchandise groups.

This thesis is a presentation of the development of the software, from its design to the
finished application and its results.
Acknowledgement
This report presents the result of a thesis work for the Master of Science degree in Media
technology and Engineering at the Department of Science and Technology at the
University of Linköping, Sweden. The thesis work was implemented during the period of
September 2005 to February 2006 at the company Panagora Room AB, located in
Stockholm, Sweden.

First I would like to take the opportunity to thank the owners of Panagora Room AB,
Moon-Suck Song, Fredrik Schweinebarth and Kristoffer Sundlin, for making is possible
for me to conduct my thesis work at their company. I would also like to thank Fredrik
Schweinebarth, my instructor and supervisor at Panagora Room, for his aid and input.

I will also take the chance to thank Grandit, iAudio and Wedins, for allowing us to gather
information from their websites, in order to fully test the application PR Trends.

Another person I owe many thanks to is Carlos Aguilar Mares for writing his WebChart
control and allowing other developers to use it.

I would also like to thank Mikael Jern, my examinator, for his encouragement and
feedback.

And last but not least I would like to thank Matias Krebs for his patience and support
throughout this project.

Stockholm 2006-06-11
Linn Wikstål
Contents
1 INTRODUCTION _________________________________________________________1
1.1 MOTIVATION ____________________________________________________________1
1.2 AIM____________________________________________________________________1
1.3 LIMITATIONS ____________________________________________________________2
1.4 THESIS OUTLINE _________________________________________________________2
2 BACKGROUND __________________________________________________________4
2.1 PANAGORA ROOM AB_____________________________________________________4
2.2 AVAILABLE SOFTWARE____________________________________________________4
3 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS________________________________________________6
3.1 THE PRODUCT ___________________________________________________________6
3.2 LIST OF REQUIREMENTS ___________________________________________________7
3.2.1 INFORMATION ACCUMULATION REQUIREMENTS________________________________8
3.2.2 GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE REQUIREMENTS _________________________________8
3.2.3 FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS _____________________________________________10
4 METHOD_______________________________________________________________11
4.1 DEVELOPMENT TOOLS ___________________________________________________11
5 THE DATABASE ________________________________________________________13
5.1 ENTITY RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM___________________________________________13
5.2 DATA TYPES____________________________________________________________15
5.3 DATABASE INTERFACE ___________________________________________________15
5.4 DATABASE DEVELOPMENT ________________________________________________18
5.5 DATA ACCUMULATION ___________________________________________________20
5.5.1 HOW TO ACCUMULATE___________________________________________________21
6 CREATING THE GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE__________________________22
6.1 LOGIN FUNCTION________________________________________________________24
6.2 ADMINISTRATOR GUI____________________________________________________24
6.2.1 LEFT NAVIGATION ______________________________________________________25
6.3 USER GUI______________________________________________________________29
6.3.1 E-MAIL FUNCTION ______________________________________________________31
7 CHART CONTROL: WEBCHART _________________________________________32
7.1 THE APPLICATION_______________________________________________________35
8 CALCULATING THE PROGNOSIS ________________________________________37
8.1 WEIGHTED MOVING AVERAGE - WMA______________________________________37
8.2 MODIFIED WEIGHTED MOVING AVERAGE___________________________________38
8.3 THE PROGNOSIS_________________________________________________________39
9 CONCLUSIONS _________________________________________________________41
9.1 RESULTS_______________________________________________________________41
9.2 KNOWN PROBLEMS ______________________________________________________42
9.3 DISCUSSION ____________________________________________________________42
9.4 FUTURE WORK__________________________________________________________43
10 BIBLIOGRAPHY ________________________________________________________44
11 APPENDIX______________________________________________________________45
A ABBREVIATIONS__________________________________________________________45
B LIST OF REQUIREMENTS ___________________________________________________46
C DATABASE INTERFACE ____________________________________________________52
D ACCUMULATION OF DATA__________________________________________________54
E REQUEST ACCOUNT INFORMATION __________________________________________55
F LOGIN FUNCTION_________________________________________________________57
G DYNAMICALLY CREATE A TABLE____________________________________________59
H CREATE AND SEND AN E-MAIL ______________________________________________60
I CREATE A LINE CHART_____________________________________________________61
J PRESENTATION OF ALL CHARTS _____________________________________________63
K CALCULATING THE PROGNOSIS _____________________________________________65
List of figures

FIGURE 1 - SAMPLE OF AWSTATS DEMO [2] ___________________________________________5
FIGURE 2 – SYSTEM OVERVIEW ______________________________________________________7
FIGURE 3 - PROCESS DESCRIPTION ___________________________________________________8
FIGURE 4 - ERD OF THE DATABASE__________________________________________________13
FIGURE 5 - ENTITIES AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE DATABASE____________________________14
FIGURE 6 - DATA TYPES OF THE ATTRIBUTES ________________________________________15
FIGURE 7 - OVERVIEW OF THE DATABASE V.01, FROM SQL SERVER ENTERPRISE MANAGER
______________________________________________________________________________18
FIGURE 8 - OVERVIEW OF THE DATABASE V.02 WITH ADDITIONAL CHANGES, FROM SQL
SERVER ENTERPRISE MANAGER _______________________________________________19
FIGURE 9 - LAYOUT AND NAMES OF THE IFRAMES ___________________________________22
FIGURE 10 - PAGE TO REQUEST A REMINDER OF THE ACCOUNT LOGIN INFORMATION __23
FIGURE 11 - TEMPLATE FOR THE E-MAIL REMINDING THE USER OF THE USERNAME AND
PASSWORD___________________________________________________________________23
FIGURE 12 - THE ADMINISTRATOR GUI AFTER LOGGING INTO THE APPLICATION _______25
FIGURE 13 - SCREEN DUMP OF COMPANY LIST _______________________________________26
FIGURE 14 - SCREEN DUMP OF ADD NEW COMPANY __________________________________27
FIGURE 15 - SCREEN DUMP OF COMPANY EVENTS____________________________________27
FIGURE 16 - SCREEN DUMP OF MERCHANDISE GROUPS _______________________________28
FIGURE 17 - SCREEN DUMP OF DATA VALUE TYPES___________________________________28
FIGURE 18 - THE USER GUI AFTER LOGGING INTO THE APPLICATION___________________29
FIGURE 19 - SCREEN DUMP OF REQUEST NEW DATA__________________________________30
FIGURE 20 - SCREEN DUMP OF THE VISITS STATISTICAL PAGE_________________________30
FIGURE 21 - SCREEN SHOT FROM THE PROPERTY WINDOW IN VISUAL STUDIO.NET _____33
FIGURE 22 – EXAMPLE LINE CHART USING THE WEBCHART CONTROL_________________34
FIGURE 23 - THE ADMINISTRATOR GUI AFTER CHOOSING TO SEE A COMPANY'S VISITS
DATA ________________________________________________________________________35
FIGURE 24 - FORMULA FOR MOVING AVERAGE_______________________________________37
FIGURE 25 - FORMULA FOR WEIGHTED MOVING AVERAGE____________________________37
FIGURE 26 - CALCULATION OF THE WMA FOR THE 16TH OF JANUARY___________________38
FIGURE 27 – SMOOTH LINE CHART OF THE VISITS PER DAY, 1ST TO 21ST OF MAY 2006, AND
THE CALCULATED PROGNOSIS_________________________________________________40

List of tables
TABLE 1 - EXAMPLE VALUES USED FOR THE WMA CALCULATION_____________________38
TABLE 2 - CALCULATED WMA VALUES FROM THE VALUES FROM TABLE 1_____________39
PR Trends - Visualization of automatically accumulated data
1 Introduction
This chapter will serve as an outline of this projects aim and motivation. It will also give
the reader a guide of the chapters to come.
1.1 Motivation
Today it is quite common for chain stores to have an online system where they can both
present as well as sell their merchandise using online webshops. However in order to be
successful you need to have an appealing and well thought out website. If the navigation
and layout are confusing it may be difficult for the visitor to find what he or she is
looking for. It may also be difficult for the company to direct the visitor to specific pages
they want them to find, such as pages with new merchandise or sales information in order
to attract new customers.

To make a website more visually attractive to the visitors it might be helpful to know
who the visitors are. For example, if you know the most common screen resolution
visitors to a website use it is a good idea to optimize that website to that particular screen
resolution, in order to make the website look as appealing as possible to the majority of
visitors. And since we have several different web browsers today which works a bit
differently it may also be a good idea to know what kind of browser most visitors use.
Thus, gathering and visualizing such data can help a company to present their website in
a more appealing way to the majority of their visitors and thus hopefully increase the
amount of visitors which can lead to an increase of their amount of sales.

Several, if not all, companies save server logs in order to keep track of approved sales
and activity on their website. However just to look at the logs could be time consuming
and if the data was visualized instead the eye could quicker register the meaning of the
numbers. There are, of course, software that can visualize server logs and web statistics,
but there are few applications that can cover all the statistics a company may be
interested in. By developing the application, PR Trends, the hope is that Panagora Room
AB can deliver a product to their customers that can automatically save specific data
from the websites’ visitors, and easily begin to accumulate new data which are of interest.
This way the customer can get a direct feedback from the specific data they particularly
are interested in, which could differ depending on the company’s merchandise or services.
Companies that are currently allowing Panagora Room AB to gather information from
their websites for this project are Grandit, iAudio and Wedins.
1.2 Aim
The aim of this project is to produce an application that with further development can be
offered to online companies, customers to Panagora Room AB, as a product. The final
product, PR Trends, will be an intuitive application visualizing automatically
accumulated data concerning the visitors’ activity and sales from their customers’
websites and webshops. The accumulation will be triggered, for example, when a user
visits a certain webpage or orders merchandise. Certain data will be collected and saved
into a database.

1