DYNAMIC REPORT BUILDING USING A HETEROGENEOUS COMBINATION OF FILTERING CRITERIA

• US 20140040806A1
• Filed: 08/02/2012
• Published: 02/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/02/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Anderson, Dale A., Lott, Timothy J., Meyer, James R., Richardson, Michael J., Dillenbeck, Thomas M., Smith, Kyle W.
• Granted Patent: US 9,645,990 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/771
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/177 of tables; using ruled lines
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Methods and apparatus are presented for flexibly building a dynamic report using a heterogeneous mix of dimensions, segments, and metrics. Within a report building tool a user may introduce any number of dimensions and segments at any point within a generated report. Further within the report building tool, a user may break down existing dimensions and segments within a report with nested dimensions and segments, which may be added without limits on a nesting level. Given a generated report, a user may pivot the generated report, where the pivot includes pivoting any heterogeneous combination of dimensions, segments, and metrics within the generated report defined along each axis. Further, the pivot operation maintains the relative groupings and nestings of dimensions, dimension items, segments, and metrics in going from a column to a row or from a row to a column.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

performing, by one or more computing devices;

providing a user interface for specifying a report on network site analytics data, wherein said providing the user interface comprises;

providing a user interface element for specifying one or more dimensions of the network site analytics data;

providing a user interface element for specifying one or more metrics of the network site analytics data;

providing a user interface element for specifying one or more segments for filtering the network site analytics data;

wherein the user interface allows specification of one or more metrics and one or more segments in a hierarchy to define rows or columns of the report for one or more dimensions of the network site analytics data,

wherein each unique path through the hierarchy defines a different row or column value,

wherein the user interface further allows a location of a segment in the hierarchy to be changed to modify the definition of one or more columns or rows;

receiving input to the user interface to create one or more hierarchies of one or more metrics or segments to define one or more rows or columns for the report; and

generating the report to comprise the one or more rows or columns according to the created one or more hierarchies of the one or more metrics or segments.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to said generating the report, retrieving at least a portion of the network analytics data from a server sufficient to generate the report according to the created one or more hierarchies of the one or more metrics or segments.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to said generating the report, determining whether a locally stored portion of the network analytics data from a server is sufficient to generate the report according to the created one or more hierarchies of the one or more metrics or segments;

wherein, in response to determining that the locally stored portion of the network analytics data from the server is sufficient to generate the report, said generating the report is based on the locally stored portion of the network analytics data; and

wherein, in response to determining that the locally stored portion of the network analytics data from the server is not sufficient to generate the report, retrieving additional network analytics data from the server.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, via the user interface, input specifying a plurality of segments in a same one of the one or more hierarchies such that a row or column in the report is filtered according to the intersection of the plurality of segments.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, via the user interface, input changing the order of at least one of a dimension, segment, or metric in one of the one or more hierarchies to modify the definitions of at least one row or column in the report,

wherein a value displayed in each cell of the at least one row or column is dependent on the order of the one or more dimensions, segments, or metrics in the hierarchy.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a metric quantizes an aspect of the network site analytics data across one or more dimensions of the network site analytics data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a segment filters the network site analytics data according to a specified segment criterion.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, in response to receiving input via an element of the user interface corresponding to a pivot operation, an updated report,

wherein each row of the updated report is based on a corresponding column of the report,

wherein each column of the updated report is based on a corresponding row of the report, and

wherein the one or more hierarchies describe both the report and the updated report.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said receiving input to the user interface comprises:

receiving, via the user interface element for specifying one or more segments of the network site analytics data, the one or more segments for filtering the network site analytics data,

wherein placement within the user interface element of each segment of the one or more segments corresponds to a hierarchical level of the one or more hierarchies; and

receiving, via the user interface element for specifying one or more dimensions of the network site analytics data, the one or more dimensions of the network site analytics data; and

wherein, after input for each of the one or more segments and the one or more dimensions has been received, said generating is in response to receiving input to a user interface element indicating generation of the report.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying, within a display area, the one or more segments within an element of the user interface; and

wherein said receiving input to the user interface comprises receiving drag and drop input corresponding to a drag of a single segment of the one or more segments from the display area onto a row or column of an existing report;

wherein said generating is in response to receiving the drag and drop input of the single segment onto the row or the column of the existing report.

11. A system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory comprising program instructions, wherein the program instructions are executable by the at least one processor to;

provide a user interface for specifying a report on network site analytics data, wherein said providing the user interface comprises;

providing a user interface element for specifying one or more dimensions of the network site analytics data;

providing a user interface element for specifying one or more metrics of the network site analytics data;

providing a user interface element for specifying one or more segments for filtering the network site analytics data;

wherein the user interface allows specification of one or more metrics and one or more segments in a hierarchy to define rows or columns of the report for one or more dimensions of the network site analytics data,

wherein each unique path through the hierarchy defines a different row or column value,

wherein the user interface further allows a location of a segment in the hierarchy to be changed to modify the definition of one or more columns or rows;

receive input to the user interface to create one or more hierarchies of one or more metrics or segments to define one or more rows or columns for the report; and

generate the report to comprise the one or more rows or columns according to the created one or more hierarchies of the one or more metrics or segments.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the program instructions are further executable by the at least one processor to:

retrieve at least a portion of the network analytics data from a server sufficient to generate the report according to the created one or more hierarchies of the one or more metrics or segments.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the program instructions are further executable by the at least one processor to:

receive, via the user interface, input specifying a plurality of segments in a same one of the one or more hierarchies such that a row or column in the report is filtered according to the intersection of the plurality of segments.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the program instructions are further executable by the at least one processor to:

receive, via the user interface, input changing the order of at least one of a dimension, segment, or metric in one of the one or more hierarchies to modify the definitions of at least one row or column in the report,

wherein a value displayed in each cell of the at least one row or column is dependent on the order of the one or more dimensions, segments, or metrics in the hierarchy.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the program instructions are further executable by the at least one processor to:

generate, in response to receiving input via an element of the user interface corresponding to a pivot operation, an updated report,

wherein each row of the updated report is based on a corresponding column of the report,

wherein each column of the updated report is based on a corresponding row of the report, and

wherein the one or more hierarchies describe both the report and the updated report.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing program instructions that when executed by a computing device cause the computing device to perform:

providing a user interface for specifying a report on network site analytics data, wherein said providing the user interface comprises;

providing a user interface element for specifying one or more dimensions of the network site analytics data;

providing a user interface element for specifying one or more metrics of the network site analytics data;

providing a user interface element for specifying one or more segments for filtering the network site analytics data;

wherein the user interface allows specification of one or more metrics and one or more segments in a hierarchy to define rows or columns of the report for one or more dimensions of the network site analytics data,

wherein each unique path through the hierarchy defines a different row or column value,

wherein the user interface further allows a location of a segment in the hierarchy to be changed to modify the definition of one or more columns or rows;

receiving input to the user interface to create one or more hierarchies of one or more metrics or segments to define one or more rows or columns for the report; and

generating the report to comprise the one or more rows or columns according to the created one or more hierarchies of the one or more metrics or segments.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the program instructions, when executed by the computing device, further cause the computing device to perform:

retrieving at least a portion of the network analytics data from a server sufficient to generate the report according to the created one or more hierarchies of the one or more metrics or segments.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the program instructions, when executed by the computing device, further cause the computing device to perform:

receiving, via the user interface, input specifying a plurality of segments in a same one of the one or more hierarchies such that a row or column in the report is filtered according to the intersection of the plurality of segments.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the program instructions, when executed by the computing device, further cause the computing device to perform:

receiving, via the user interface, input changing the order of at least one of a dimension, segment, or metric in one of the one or more hierarchies to modify the definitions of at least one row or column in the report,

wherein a value displayed in each cell of the at least one row or column is dependent on the order of the one or more dimensions, segments, or metrics in the hierarchy.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the program instructions, when executed by the computing device, further cause the computing device to perform:

generating, in response to receiving input via an element of the user interface corresponding to a pivot operation, an updated report,

wherein each row of the updated report is based on a corresponding column of the report,

wherein each column of the updated report is based on a corresponding row of the report, and

wherein the one or more hierarchies describe both the report and the updated report.