Why can’t I get access to the Management Tools on my shiny new fangled tablet – mainly due to variances in browsers, their support of JavaScript and SVG for chart rendering, and because some are really picky about correctly encoding ampersands!

So we spent some time with various emulators and various tablets analysing why they were failing – and I am pleased to say we now support access on iPad, Android and Playbooks…

U NO WORK ON IPAD! O RLY?

Works on Playbook too

But I am sure we will have missed something, so please give it a go, and let us know how it works out for you!

For Analytics customers, we have just released version 3.0 of the Analytics Web Service – this adds the ability to extract event level data for both Web Analytics, and the recently added App Analytics data.

This includes data points for Events, Errors & Sessions, as well as detailed data about Video Events (mirroring those export reports available through the Management Tools).

We recommend all customers currently using the previous version upgrade to this latest version as soon as possible – more details on the API and changes are available on our Knowledge Base at http://bango.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1511/

For our Payment customers, the Direct Billing APIs have now been updated to the latest stable version, currently version 3.1.

This release adds a wealth of features and functionality to the capabilities of Direct Billing including the ability to override pricing at runtime using the DoPaymentWithPrice methods, as well as exposing the newest feature with DoRefund, allowing you to manage refunds of purchases for user’s back to their Bango Balance and (where supported by carriers) even back to the user’s carrier bill.

There have also been numerous features added at customers’ request, such as UAT test cases being built into the method calls directly, to improvements in security with client certificate authorisation support.

This version also supports the greatest number of carriers, and is the required platform going forward as we add more features to the API. Please ensure you look to upgrade to this version by checking out the API documentation at http://bango.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1547

We also have other Web Services available for use:

The User Information APIs allow real-time querying of info about a user, such as their detected carrier connection, their preferred currency, and whether they have a registered email address or mobile phone number for support or marketing purposes.

The Billing Information APIs allow access to the BillRank™ system, ensuring you have visibility of how we drive the best and highest converting payment methods, as well as currency rates and conversion methods to ensure you display the correct prices for your users.

And finally, the Subscriptions API allows full management of subscription based services, from instantiating new subscriptions for your users, to managing subscription processes for integration into your own customer care tools.

To get started with these services, check out the Web Service APIs section under the Setup and Config tab within the Management Tools…

To ensure we are able to deliver all of these services to you, from time to time it may be necessary to deprecate older versions of existing services; we’ll be letting customers know with plenty of notice to ensure their transition to the latest versions are as easy as possible. 

Our key feature is the addition of New and Return visitor metrics -

New & Return Visitor metrics

This report allows you to view new visitors to your site for the reporting period, as well as comparison between returning visitors to analyze traffic and loyalty of your site visitors.

Talking of loyalty, we have re-organised some of the menu structures and added more reports to better match the Definitions as defined by the Web Analytics Association.

As well as adding the new Repeat Users report, there are new reports for Visits per visitor, Page views per visit, and Page views per visitor which allows you to better analyze both visitor characterization and visitor engagement on your site.

Analysing visitor loyalty

Visitor Activity - Visits per visitor

We have also included enhancements to the SitePath analysis tool, and we will also be releasing a new Funnel Analysis tool, allowing you to explicitly set the journey for users through your site and analyze data points as they traverse the funnel (or not!)

Finally, we’ll be adding further filtering options to the App Analytics reports, including the ability to now filter by Application Type, Application Channel, Genre and Sub-Genre, SDK Version, as well as detailed filtering for Error Events.

We are also squeezing in an enhancement to the “auto-load reports” options, which you will have seen from previous releases. Now, you will be able to both select a date range and a saved filter to be applied before running your report, meaning you’ll get to the data you really want to be analyzing much faster.

We have a lot more features pencilled in for the New Year, so make sure you check back here often.

What is derived device information?
The device information that we show from in the ‘Devices’ and ‘Device makes’ reports is the information that we can ascertain from the device itself. However, the derived information is the marketing/advertised name for that device, or family of devices that the device belongs to.

An example of this would be the device in the ‘Devices’ report may show a ‘RIM BlackBerry 9700’. However, this device would show in the ‘Derived devices’ as a ‘RIM BlackBerry Bold’.

How does this affect my reports?
We started reporting the derived information this week. We have implemented it this way so that our customers stay in control of the reports that they want to see. We are offering this as an option rather than changing the reports that you are used to. If you only want the ‘Devices’ or ‘Device makes’ information, then you will not notice any difference. However if you would like to view your customer’s derived device information then you can view this via the new reports ‘Derived devices’ and ‘Derived makes’, in the ‘Web analytics’ tab.

Example:
Please see the list of devices below with the number of visits:

• HTC EVO 4G with 20 visits
• HTC PC36100 with18 visits
• Sprint EVO 4G with15 visits
• Sprint APA9292KT with 5 visits

The above 4 examples are all the HTC EVO 4G, However using the device report, this is not obvious as these may be spread out amongst other devices. These devices have different information based on who marketed or sold the device eg. The device information for a ‘HTC EVO 4G’ from Sprint may state that it is a ‘Sprint APA9292KT’ or ‘Sprint EVO 4G’. While the same device sold on a different network may identify itself as a ‘HTC PC36100’ or a ‘HTC EVO 4G’.

The derived report for the four devices would show the one line below:

• HTC EVO 4G with 58 visits

The screenshot below illustrates what the ‘Devices’ report looks like:

The screenshot below illustrates what the ‘Derived devices’ report looks like:

If you compare the screenshot “Devices” report with the screenshot for the ‘Derived devices’ report, you will see that

• The derived device information displays the families of devices like ‘RIM BlackBerry Bold’, ‘RIM BlackBerry Curve’ and ‘Motorola RAZR’ are displayed as together instead of as their individual devices.
• Devices that are identified with a ‘techie’ name like Sprint APA7373KT or HTC A6277 are shown as their marketing name, like HTC EVO Shift 4G and HTC Hero.
• The visits, page views etc for the derived information above are calculated to include all of the visits with that derived make and model, even if they have a different device make and model. For example ‘RIM BlackBerry Bold’ display the visits, page views etc for all the devices that we identify as being in the RIM BlackBerry Bold’ family be it ‘RIM BlackBerry 9700′, ‘RIM BlackBerry 9000 or any other.

What about filters?
Not only can you view the derived information in your reports, but we have also added this functionality to the filters. Please see the screenshot below of the filters for Devices information and the filter for Derived device information. This will enable you to filter on just the BlackBerry Bold, or the Motorola RAZR family of devices.

So, we’ve just released an update which allows you to specify whether a user has access to the Web Analytics reports, App Analytics reports and Payment reports.

To set the permissions, simply visit the Manage Seats page under the My Account tab, select the user you wish to grant permissions to, and choose one or more of the options.

New permissions

Now, when a user logs into the Management Tools, they will only have access to the specified tabs.

User with App Analytics permissions

Download the Bango Windows Phone 7.5 SDK from CodePlex here.

Integrating with Bango Application Analytics

To set up Bango Application Analytics in an app you need to first get an application ID. There is a simple form to complete in the Management Tools; in the Setup and Config section click on ‘Analytics set-up’ in the menu on the left, then click ‘Application analytics’.

All you need to do is give your app a title, this will be used in reporting, and, optionally, choose a category for your app. Once you’ve done this we will provide you with an ID for your app and you can choose an SDK to download.

Please note: the SDKs cannot be integrated into an app without an application ID, you can sign up for a free analytics trial if you want to integrate and test an SDK.

Previously, using the Analytics pages could be slow, as we’d fire off an AJAX request for each report as soon as the page was loaded and because we allow you to report on the actual recorded data (and not ‘pre-canned’ data) it could take time for a report to be returned.

We realised that most people actually wanted to set a date range before loading a report, especially when their site or app receives a large amount of traffic or events.

Now, when you access a report, you’ll automatically see the date range picker. This will allow you to set a date range and the report will be loaded when you apply the date range. Of course, if you’d prefer to automatically load reports when the page loads, just hop over to the settings page and change the setting (either for yourself, or for everyone in your package if you are an administrator for your package).

This is only stage one, we are working to allow you to set filters before loading the report – look out for this soon.

As always – we’d love to hear your feedback.  Leave us a comment!

Download the SDKs from the following links:
Bango Nokia QT SDK
Bango Nokia WRT SDK

Integrating with Bango Application Analytics

To set up Bango Application Analytics in an app you need to first get an application ID. There is a simple form to complete in the Management Tools; in the Setup and Config section click on ‘Analytics set-up’ in the menu on the left, then click ‘Application analytics’.

All you need to do is give your app a title, this will be used in reporting, and, optionally, choose a category for your app. Once you’ve done this we will provide you with an ID for your app and you can choose an SDK to download.

Please note: the SDKs cannot be integrated into an app without an application ID, you can sign up for a free analytics trial if you want to integrate and test an SDK.

The Nokia Java Application Analytics SDK is aimed at Java apps designed to run on devices running on the Symbian or Nokia operating system. Download the SDK here.

Integrating with Bango Application Analytics

To set up Bango Application Analytics in an app you need to first get an application ID. There is a simple form to complete in the Management Tools; in the Setup and Config section click on ‘Analytics set-up’ in the menu on the left, then click ‘Application analytics’.

All you need to do is give your app a title, this will be used in reporting, and, optionally, choose a category for your app. Once you’ve done this we will provide you with an ID for your app and you can choose an SDK to download.

Please note: the SDKs cannot be integrated into an app without an application ID, you can sign up for a free analytics trial if you want to integrate and test an SDK.

We’ve just released a new Analytics feature – email reports.

Just go to the report you want to schedule for email delivery and click the ‘Email report’ button, you’ll find it next to the usual export buttons (if you don’t see it there try clearing your browser cache).

You’ll then be taken to the setup page where you can configure your report and select the package users you want to receive the emails.

Then hit ‘Activate’ and that’s it! You’ll automatically receive your report straight to your inbox at your specified time.

You can set up as many email reports as you like, including multiple versions of the same report, maybe with a different filter applied to send to different people, and you can edit, pause and restart them whenever you like. Just click on the ‘Configure email reports’ link found in the left hand menu of any Analytics page to revisit the setup page.

Further instructions can be found in our knowledgebase and as always we’d love to know what you think so please let us know using the comments below.