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Jimco Software Reviews - SurfStats Log Analyzer Professional 8.0 (continued)
The Reports
The reports that you get in SLA are similar to what you get in other packages. When it comes to the data that are available, etc., things don't differ too much between packages. Figure 5 shows the SLA interface displaying a report.
Figure 5 - Reports
One nice feature of the reports in SLA is the ability to analyze trends. Figure 6 shows a trend analysis of a Web site with relatively little traffic. Lots of work to do here!
Figure 6 - Trends
At the top of the dialog shown in figure 5, you'll see an icon for Adobe Reader, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel. Clicking these is supposed to export the report to the corresponding format. However, I could not get it to work. SLA would consistently tell me that it had exported the report, but in fact, it did nothing. When I contacted SurfStats for assistance with this, they responded by saying that they know the feature works and I must be doing something wrong. After trying the buttons on numerous different reports, I found that they worked in some and not in others. If you ask me, that's a broken feature, plain and simple.
SLA also has the ability to automatically download your log files using a Windows service. This is a great feature because it keeps your logs up-to-date without having to keep SLA running. However, it's also supposed to be able to generate a Microsoft Word document and e-mail the report to a recipient. I was able to get the e-mail to work, but the Word document that SLA created would not work.
As it turns out, SurfStats implemented this feature so that all of the reports are graphic files that are external to the Word document. That means that you have to send along dozens and dozens of files along with the Word document. As if that weren't bad enough, even if you DO send the document with all of the supporting files, the images still don't display in the Word document. After three exchanges with SurfStats on this issue, they gave up on me and neglected to respond any longer. (Now is a good time to remind you that this software costs $500!)
I told SurfStats that they should program this feature so that the images are embedded in the Word document. Their response was "we tried real hard, but we couldn't make that work." As this feature stands, it's not ready for prime time and the product should not have shipped this way, especially at this price point.
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