What is the difference between Filters: Data and Results?
Hi all,
In the documentation, in the filters column of DMI report definition, Data is defined as "specify Data to filter input data" and Results is defined as "Specify Results to filter the report definition results before they are put in the report. I'm not too clear on the Results part - does it mean that the selected metrics will undergo some sort of transform or operation before displaying? And what caused the different results in reporting if we choose Data or Results?
Thanks for the help.
Chris
Best Answer
Ok, so maybe let's go on with a simple example. Two users go to http://mydomain.com/myFavoritePage.aspx.
At 10:00 user1 calls that page 20 times, and 10 operations are slow.
At 10:05 user1 calls that page 20 times, and there were no slow pages.
At 10:10 user2 calls that page 10 times, and there were no slow pages.
So those 3 lines from above, will be entered in the database, as 3 separate records (each record contains information about user & number of operations & number of slow operations)
When you create some DMI report, for that activity, and you set condition to show only entries with slow pages (slow pages > 1), without time dimension, then:
a) if the filter 'slow pages' > 0 is set with "results",
- output report mentions user1 called the page 40 times, and 10 operations were slow (it merged activity from 10:00 & 10:05 and checked the condition for 'slow pages')
- output report does not mention user2
b) if the filter 'slow pages' > 0 is set with "data",
- output report mentions user1 called the page 20 times, and 10 calls were slow (activity from 10:05 did not match the condition for 'slow pages')
- output report does not mention user2
Thanks Adam! This example is clear and easy to understand. Now my question is, how would the logic runs if the time dimension is applied with 1 hour resolution?
For example,
At 9:55 user1 calls that page 20 times, and 10 operations are slow.
At 10:05 user1 calls that page 20 times, and there were no slow pages.
At 10:10 user2 calls that page 10 times, and there were no slow pages.
At 11:00 user2 calls that page 20 times, and 10 operations are slow.
In such case, both options 'results' & 'data' will show the same report, with:
9:00 mentioning user1 with 20 operations, out of which 10 were slow
11:00 mentioning user2 with 20 operations, out of which 10 were slow
Activity of both users, between 10:00 - 10:59, does not meet the conditions, neither for 'results' nor for 'data'.
So 'results' option = take user activity for '1 period' data, aggregate to 1 hour, then check condition (per hour) and show the matching ones.
The 'data' option = take user actvity for '1 period' data, choose periods for which the condition is matched, then aggregate only those and show on the report.
