Peter,
I have a module called SiteReport which runs a bunch of SQL statements at a given interval. I use it for this purpose. I've crafted a number of SQL statements that tell me about DMX usage. It is not very hard to do as the data model is fairly straightforward.
Peter

Hi Peter

So could site report be used to provide data on how many times a set of documents has been downloaded for a given time perion e.g. In Feb and March 2006, document X was download 34 times, document y 76 times etc...?

That would be very useful.

T

Hi T,
Anything that can be expressed in SQL. Given the fact that downloads are regstered you should be able to craft an SQL statement that does this. If you want, you can hire Bring2mind to make your SQL statements.
Peter

Hi

Thanks, could you help on these few questions:

Is there any reference material for the data structure so I could build the sql query?

I'm guessing I can store all download records for as long as I want but how practical is this?

Will DMX log downloads performed by 'public' unregistered users in DNN?

Am I right in thinking that SiteReport can provide a nice interface for sql queries so it will handle pagination, filtering and sorting on strings and dates?

Thanks

Hi, could I possibly have a few answers to my questions above please?

Thanks

T,

The DMX_Entries table is central in DMX. It holds a list of all content. The index is 'EntryId'. CollectionId and LastVersionId reference the parent and the latest version respectively. The DMX_Log table holds log entries for actions in DMX. The 'Operation' is a text label for the type of action performed.

Does this answer your question?

Kind regards

To fill in on the other questions:

- Public (unauthenticated user) actions are not logged since there is no link to the user.

- Site report was not designed to provide super 'graphical' output but rather to provide a way to send data to admins. Having said that all content is css-classed so it can be laid out as you wish using a skin.

Hi

Is there any way that unauthenticated downloads can be counted as well? Maybe via a stored procedure?

When I say a 'nice interface', I'm not concerned about colours or graphics, just something more that a HTML table, so things like pagination, sorting and filtering would be good.

Basically, the document store we have already has a number of downloads figure associated with each document no matter if they are logged into DNN or not. DMX is ticking a lot of boxes for me, but being able to count downloads is a user requirement so I wonder if it can be achieved in another way at all?

- Unauthenticated users would create a constraint violation on DMX_Log to Users so there is no way to log them unless you do it through IIS or the DNN logging system. You could try to filter out the references to Download.aspx as downloads.

- There is no pagination/sorting/filtering. If you want that use the SQL reporting module.

- If you'd like to see a nr of downloads integer on the details screen of a document, then you could consider writing a module which does the above calculations and shows the result. But if a tabular report is what you need use the SQL report module that comes with DNN for instance. I've done some custom work using that one as well.

Kind regards

Hi

Seems a little bizaar that unauthenticated downloads can't be logged, any chance of this being included in a release?

You mention IIS or DNN logging for downloads, I don't quite see how that work. Doesn't DMX handle downloads so how would IIS HTTP logging or DNN logging differentiate between documents and be able to reference a documents title?

T,

Maybe we should do a little backgrounder in logging.

1. IIS writes a log which is pretty basic. It just knows what url was called, when, by which IP etc. It is foolproof and will always work.

2. DNN logs all DNN hits and keeps a record of tabId, userId etc. This is already more intelligent.

3. DMX logs DMX events and distills EntryId (pointer to document) and UserId. Because there is a cascade delete constraint on the UserId field, the user ID has to correspond with an existing user. That way if a user gets deleted all corresponding records get wiped avoiding possible DB conflicts or errors in the layers above.

Hence anonymous users don't get logged. Changing this brings a risk of instability and given the fact that you're the first to ask, my guess is that this is not an issue for others. Then it makes no sense to change this for the moment. If you want you can buy the source and change this aspect yourself or hire us to make a custom version. But I'm not risking the stability of 1000's of installations for this. I hope you see the sense of that.

Cheers,

Peter

Hi

Right, I think I've got myself sorted now.

I'm implementing integrated authentication for DNN 3.3.7 so all users will be authenticated. All downloads should now be logged.

My last question (promise Peter) is, does Site Report provide controls for date ranges that could be fed into a query and does it perform pagination? What I'm thinking is, allow a user to specify two dates and then show how many times the each document was downloaded in that time period?

What would be dandy, is if I could list the collections and/or an list of alphabetical letters to represent the documents I have in DMX and use these as a filter e.g in pseudo...

COUNT number_of_downloads FROM logs WHERE document_id = @id AND date > @date1 AND date < @date2 AND document_collection = @collection_id

Is this possible? Or am I clutching at straws???

Thanks

SiteReport works using a start and end date, yes. However ... it does not do pagination as it was not designed in the way you wish to use it (i.e. on-screen with browsing). Instead, it was meant to generate a list of stuff that you want to use for something. You can view a report on screen but it is like a single long sheet. The best practice is to specify 'TOP 10' in your SQL for instance to stop the page flooding.

Peter

This is a sample output from the SiteReport using some DMX queries:

Total DMX Downloads Total number of downloads from the document exchange	177
Mb downloaded from DMX Number of Mbytes downloaded	51.8
Average DMX download size (Kb)	292.6
Top 10 downloaders
FullName MbDownloaded thanh thanh 11.6 Franck Saint Maurice 5.5 Nelson Lai 5.3 Dan Golden 4.1 Andy Flisher 3.0 Mel Runner 2.8 lance Birman 2.7 Gianni DeRosa 2.6 Saša Beštek 2.0 Yourdo Yourdo 1.6
Top 10 DMX Downloads
Description Downloads DMX 1.0 Manual 25 Guestbook 01.00.06 PA 19 User Files 03.00.03 for DNN 3.1+ 13 Document Exchange 03.00.07 Lite for DNN 3.2 11 DMX 3 Pro Administrator's Manual 9 DMX 3 Pro User's Manual 7 What's New 01.00.04 7 DMX 3 Pro Brochure 5 FotoVision 01.01.03 PA 5 FotoVision Desktop Client incl Source 5