Managing the Visitor ID :: SAS(R) Data Surveyor for Clickstream Data 2.1: User's Guide, Second Edition

Problem

You want to manage the identification of the visitors to the Web sites listed in clickstream logs. A clickstream log is a collection of entries (one entry per click) that is made by multiple visitors to a Web site. Evaluation of clickstream log files can provide business analysts with useful information about each visitor's behavior during Web site visits.

Each person who uses a Web browser to access a Web site is considered a visitor of that Web site. Web developers use clickstream parameters (such as a cookie or a query parameter) to uniquely identify visitors to their Web site. These clickstream parameters can be parsed into user columns, which can then be assigned to the visitor ID. A visitor ID is designed to contain a unique value for each visitor.

Solution

You can use the Visitor ID tab to identify one or more user columns to be used for setting the value of the visitor ID. The Available list box contains the list of valid user columns for visitor ID values. You can use the User Columns tab to define a user column. Then, you can use the Clickstream Parameter tab to map a clickstream parameter to a user column.

Selecting the Set visitor ID to the first non-blank column below check box causes the Clickstream Parse transformation to parse the list of user columns in order and use the first non-blank value to populate the visitor ID value. If all user columns are blank, then the default algorithm using the client IP and user agent string is used to populate the visitor ID.

Tasks

Select a User Column as the Visitor ID

Perform the following tasks to select a user column as the visitor ID:

Select the Set visitor ID to the first non-blank column below check box to activate the list box functions on the tab.
Select an appropriate user column in the Available list box.
Click the arrow between the list boxes to move the column to the Selected list box. Note that you can also select a column in the Selected list box and return it to the Available list box.