Integration of visualizations, reports, and data

• US 20040174397A1
• Filed: 03/05/2003
• Published: 09/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Teradata US, Inc. (Teradata Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Teradata US, Inc. (Teradata Corporation)
• Inventors: Do, Giai, Srikant, Sreedhar, Haque, Ahsan U., Devarakonda, Kavitha, Dunsker, Eric, Boerger, Ellen, Cereghini, Paul, Papierniak, Karen
• Granted Patent: US 7,917,382 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/855
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0202 Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A method of graphically displaying the path of a customer traversing a web site and related business data is described. The method includes receiving a user request for a visualization. The user request may include data filters and exclusions. Responsive to the user request, traffic data is selected for analysis. The selected traffic data is analyzed and displayed to the user. The display may be in the form of a visualization including a graph and related business data. The graph may be of an overview, referral, path, page-to-page path, and animation type. A system for visualizing traffic patterns and the path of a customer at a site is described in conjunction with the above method. The system includes a logical data model, a dimensional data model, a report specification, a graphical interface, metadata database and an analysis report. The graphical interface is used for viewing visualization information.

Claims

1. A method of graphically displaying a path of a customer traversing a site, comprising the steps of:

receiving a user request;

selecting traffic data in response to receiving the user request;

analyzing the selected traffic data; and

displaying the analyzed selected traffic data to the user.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the user request includes a visualization request.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the visualization request includes a graphic format specification.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the visualization request includes a data filter specification.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein the visualization request includes a data exclusion specification.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein the visualization request includes a business data specification.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein the data filter specification includes at least one of date range, sales range, margin range, items purchased range, customer type, referrer type, and number of customers.

8. The method of claim 5 wherein the data exclusion specification includes a date threshold value, a sales threshold value, a margin threshold value, an items purchased threshold value, and a number of customers threshold value.

9. The method of claim 2 wherein the visualization request includes a graphic format specification and a business data specification.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the business data specification includes at least one of a data filter specification and a data exclusion specification.

11. The method of claim 2 wherein the visualization request is at least one of an overview, path, referral, or page type.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the analyzed selected traffic data displayed is displayed in at least one of an overview, referral, path, page-to-page, and animation type display.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the overview type display includes an overview graph and site-related business data.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein the referral type display includes a referral graph and referral-related business data.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the referral-related business data includes at least one of number of customers referred from each referrer, conversion rate of customers from each referrer, abandonment rate of customers from each referrer, total sales of customers from each referrer, profitability of customers from each referrer, and margin of customers from each referrer.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the referral-related business data includes, for each referral source, at least one of sales from referred customers, conversion rate of referred customers, abandonment rate of referred customers, and average number of basket items for referred customers.

18. The method of claim 12 wherein the path type display includes a path graph and path-related business data.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the path-related business data includes at least one of a number of customers passing through a page, and a percentage of total traffic between a start and end page passing through a page.

20. The method of claim 12 wherein the page-to-page type display includes a page-to-page path graph and page-to-page related business data.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the page-to-page related business data includes at least one of a number of customers passing through a page, and a percentage of total traffic between a start and end page passing through a page.

14. The method of claim 14 wherein the site-related business data includes at least one of sales dollars, margin dollars, conversion rate, abandonment rate, sales versus prior period, revenue versus prior period, number of customers converted for an item number of customers abandoning an item on a page, number of customers abandoning a page, number of items sold, number of customers visiting, and average dwell time.

22. A computer-implemented system for visualizing a traffic pattern and path of a customer, comprising:

a Metadata database;

a graphical interface for selecting data;

a logical data model;

a dimensional data model;

a report specification;

a graphical interface for viewing path information; and

an analysis report.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein the graphical interface includes at least one of an overview graph, a referral graph, a path graph, a page-to-page path graph, and an animation graph.

24. The system of claim 22 further comprising a relational-to-graph converter and a graph layout converter.

25. The system of claim 22 wherein the analysis report includes at least one of an overview, referral, path, page-to-page, and animation type report.

26. The system of claim 22, wherein the data selected in the visualization is also used to populate a report.