WSS Reports showing multiple category fields (category and categories) with different values
Article ID: 240284
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
Administrator created a new report, summarising by Category and then Site as shown below
Filtered on ALL dates and the rest of the selections left to default.
When it ran, it showed the category and site information, but also included a 3rd column called "Categories". Although a lot of the information overlaps with the Category field, some entries are down as different categories e.g. the Office/Business Applications category includes a site with a Search Engine/Portal categories?
Environment
WSS Reporting
Cause
When running a two level report ("Category" + "Site"), the report will always show the top categories. It then breaks down the Category into the top Sites seen in that Category.
Additionally, there is also a special metadata column called "Categories". This field is automatically added to most reports that have the "Site" field. The "Categories" column doesn't show data from the web logs, and this is confusing. Instead, it shows the current list of categories from Web Pulse for the "Site" displayed on this row. The idea is to provide the user some context. If a row has a site named xyz.com and the user hasn't ever heard of that website, the current Web Pulse category can provide some context to help the customer. However, the report is very confusing if the report contains both the "Category" column (based on the customers logs) and the Categories column (metadata about the Site).
Resolution
Although somewhat confusing, this report is working as designed.
The "Categories" column in 2 level reports includes metadata from other sources to provide more context to the admin.
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