Report Builder vs. Workspace Data Differences

[sanjayg40845008]

We are seeing differences in numbers we are getting from report builder and workspace. The reports are using fairly complex calculated metrics and segments applied to each of them, but the metrics and segments used are identical. Is there any resource outlining why we might see differences. Wondering if there are specific differences in the way the two tools process variable allocations to events etc.

For example, this link provides some differences between Workspace and Reports data (not specific to report builder):

Comparing Analysis Workspace to Reports & Analytics data

Thanks for any pointers or any experiences.

Sanjay

[Urs_Boller]

"Report Builder" is based on the old API 1.4 and similar to "reports data" mentioned above.

On the other hand "Analysis Workspace" has a new reporting engine (API 2.0) and a new way of how to fetch, process and calculate data.

the link you mentioned will give you most of the differences between the two tools/methods.

[sanjayg40845008]

I rebuilt the report using "reports" and I get exactly the same numbers as workspace, but the numbers for report builder are very different for this combination of segments and dimension/metric. So, I am looking for something that helps me understand the report builder differences.

[Urs_Boller]

in report builder you should see the same numbers as in the "reports" interface since it has the same "backend". are you sure you have exactly the same settings in the report (filters/metrics/dimensions) as well as user permissions?

[sanjayg40845008]

Yes - I have full access and exactly the same settings and the same numbers for Reports and Workspace, but the numbers from Report Builder - which were the same historically, diverged from a particular date. Something could have changed in our implementation on that day, so want to know what to look for - is there anything that affects report builder differently than the others.

[Urs_Boller]

you mean you had the same numbers in the past and suddenly they diverged? Can you narrow it down to a specific metric/calculated metric and "play" with the segments (add/remove) to narrow down what might cause the difference?

[sanjayg40845008]

Correct - that seems to be related to the segment that is based on an evar value. Seems that report builder may be using something other than the last value?

[Urs_Boller]

shouldn't be the case since both "report builder" and "reports" fetch data from the same source ...

Do you report on current day?

[GianricoS]

Hi,

are you using listvar in your segment definition?

Currently there is an open issue with listvar in Datawarehouse. If you use the condition "value != string" on a ListVar, the DataWareHouse extraction will return always "true" to this condition, no matter if the condition is true or false.

I've an open ticket with Client Care on this subject and i'm waiting for the fix to be rolled out in production.

[sanjayg40845008]

I believe that the reason for the difference is due to report builder treating unspecified values differently from workspace.  We are finding that an implementation change caused an evar that is used in the segment to be unspecified, and that caused report builder to be off. I'll check with client care if it is a known issue or if other clients have reported it.

[sanjayg40845008 · Accepted solution]

The difference is resolved by modifying the segment to include a condition on the lines of "evarxx does not exist". The earlier definition was using "evarxxx equals Unspecified". 

Per Client Care:

The reason for the discrepancy is that Report Builder uses API 1.4 of Analytics whereas workspace uses 2.0, there are some issues with Unspecified in the 1.4 API and hence we see the difference. This should be addressed in the future when Report Builder would be upgraded to the newer API version.

[Tzu1]

May I know when will Report Builder use API 2.0? Thanks!