Wokingham Half Marathon Photos

First of all, a big thanks to Andy for taking the pics.

The masses

Can you see me?



Sue leading the way



?

I think I just smelt a fart but Kate seems happy with life. You'll notice Kate is a very smiley runner!



Still smiling



Go Norz!



Kate out in front



Still smiling!



Cheers Norz!



11 miles

The Stig

Some say he has destroyed the periodic table because The Stig only recognises the element of surprise.

Others say Apple pays him 99 cents every time he listens to a song.

I can haz ur smorlr iconz

If you run vista and think the desktop icons are too large - hold down ctrl and scroll your mouse wheel

- up = larger icons
- down = smaller icons

From - another site

The Stig

Some say he doesn't sleep...he just waits for his next power lap.

Others say he can actually slam a revolving door...

Wokingham half marathon

So I have updated my pb section as last Sunday saw my début on the half marathon circuit. I didn't trouble the front runners - indeed I got lapped by Liz Yelling at 12 miles on her 'warm down' second lap...harumph!

However, I hit my target and all my chums achieved personal goals which is great! I had such a great day - the sun shone and my injury didn't flare up as I thought it would. Changing to new trainers did the job - the old pair are being binned asap. It's surprising how quickly they wear out and cause injury to wonky runners like me.

Now I'm focusing on my 10k target for The London 10k in July as well as taking a couple of weeks off running and getting back in the air. I feel the need for speed....and all that ;-)

Pictures to follow soon.

How rubbish is Google Analytics?

Don't get me wrong. I am a fan of GA. It is a neat tool. I understand 'you get what you pay for' but one can expect decent software out of a gargantuan factory such as Google. They have hundreds of clever people but the new ga.js Analytics script is a pain in the arse. We adopted the new script quickly as it looked as if it should be a good step forwards. But as we reported here we quickly found things to be amiss.

So, getting a response from the mighty Google was a nice surprise. The quality of support is shocking though. Here is the email conversation I have had with a Google representative. I have removed their name so as to not attack/name/blame them personally...

Start out nice

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
From: doug@moneyspyder.co.uk
Subject: random dropping of transactions
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:22:53 -0800

Hi, we are experiencing exactly the same problem described in this post

on the GA group:-

http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help-basics/browse_thread/thread/0690b6f9ac3c8163

Basically transactions are being recorded but randomly they are
recorded with £0 value. This badly affects the data being reported.
Oddly, the items in each transaction are being correctly recorded but
the transaction value is randomly £0.
This has only been happening since we started using the new ga.js

Please advise!

Regards

Doug Hall
CTO
+ 44 (0) 7717 603 912
www.moneyspyder.co.uk
moneyspyder.blogspot.com

Stock response

Analytics Support wrote:

Hello Doug,

Thank you for your email. To further troubleshoot this issue, please send
the fully populated HTML output of the receipt page from a test
transaction.

If possible, the following information would also help:

1. The exact steps for creating a test transaction on your website
2. The information required to complete a test transaction (username,
password, and test credit card number).
Once I receive this information, I will be able to look into this

further.

Sincerely,

GOOGLE REPRESENTATIVE
Analytics Support

Palying along

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
From: Doug Hall
Subject: Re: [#235790267] random dropping of transactions
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:19:11 +0000

Dear drone,
hi, the website in question is www.beautifulpure.com although we have been testing against xxxxxxxxxxxxx - same codebase, separate ga account though and the same behaviour observed.
so, go to the staging address, enter the password ********** and
purchase anything. the checkout details are as follows:

your email address
any delivery address
any billing address
credit card details:
name on card - ------------------
card no - ************************
card expiry - **/**
cv2 - ***

that should be enough to complete the order. You won't be charged a
penny but obviously you won't receive any goods either! ;-)

You will notice that the thankyou page will contain a javascript call
like this:

google_analytics('UA-1277333-2','/checkout/complete',{order_id: 
"100828", shipping: "2.95", affiliation: "Beautifulpure", country: "UK", items:
[{name: "Olivia Organic Lip Balm", category: "Marius Fabre", sku: "110005", price:
"2.00", quantity: 1}], total: "4.95", tax: "0.00"});

the google_analytics function is available in http://xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.js

here is the source for the function that generates the script to make the call to ga:

function google_analytics(uacct, url, transaction)
{   
  var tracker =  _gat._getTracker(uacct);
  tracker._initData();
  tracker._trackPageview(url);

  if (transaction)
  {
    tracker._addTrans(
    transaction.order_id,
    transaction.affiliation,
    transaction.total,
    transaction.tax,
    transaction.shipping,
    transaction.city,
    transaction.state,
    transaction.country
    );

    for (var i = 0; i < transaction.items.length; i++)
    {
      var item = transaction.items[i];
      tracker._addItem(
      transaction.order_id,
      item.sku,
      item.name,
      item.category,
      item.price,
      item.quantity
      )
    }

    tracker._trackTrans();
  }
}

As I have described in the report and as can be foundon the quoted ga
groups posts, the transactions are randomly reported incorrectly with £0 value but with all order items reported correctly. It may take a few
attempts to get the data to 'drop out' or it may happen straight away.

Please let me know if you find anything amiss.

Thanks for any help.

Regards

Doug

Time to upset the clever/dumb balance

Analytics Support wrote:

Hello Doug,

Thank you for your response. I reviewed the code and noticed that the
fields are not in order. Please know that all fields should be included
in the specific order. If you do not want to use these fields, use "".

Also, total, tax, shipping, price, and quantity can contain only numeric
values. These fields cannot contain special characters like '$' or
punctuation signs like a comma ','. Tax and Shipping fields are optional,
but cannot contain the value zero (0). Once you've made these changes in your account, please check your E-commerce reports. If you are still concerned about the data reported in your account, please feel free to respond to this message. I'd be glad to assist you further.

Sincerely,

NAMELESS INDUHVIDUAL
Analytics Support

Frustration kicking in

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
From: Doug Hall
Subject: Re: [#235790267] random dropping of transactions
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:17:23 +0000

Dear Cheesewit,
thanks for the feedback but I think the documentation I
have been using (from google -
http://www.google.com/analytics/GATCmigrationguide.pdf) disagrees with
you: Check out the google_analytics function call in flexshop.js and
compare to the field order specified on page 11 of this document:

         tracker._addTrans(
            transaction.order_id,
             transaction.affiliation,
             transaction.total,
             transaction.tax,
             transaction.shipping,
             transaction.city,
             transaction.state,
             transaction.country
         );

         for (var i = 0; i < transaction.items.length; i++)
         {
             var item = transaction.items[i];

             tracker._addItem(
                 transaction.order_id,
                 item.sku,
                 item.name,
                 item.category,
                 item.price,
                 item.quantity
             )
         }

Is the documentation incorrect? Can you advise as to the correct order
of the fields? I can confirm the format of the values you mention do
not contain currency symbols and are enclosed by quotes as all elements
in the hash passed to the google_analytics function are strings.
Now, regarding the zero values, occasionally we do need to pass zero
values for tax, shipping and certain products that are bought/awarded as
part of promotions. Why is it that these fields cannot take zero values
when it is entirely plausible that this scenario can happen? I'm sure
we're not the only e-commerce company that can handle zero value
transactions and I'm 100% certain that we are not the only company who
is having this random transaction value dropout issue with GA. The
google analytics forums are well populated with other reports. I have
to assume Google is aware of a widespread issue - what is being done to
resolve this?

Please advise as we will have to consider reverting back to the old
style tagging if we can't get a satisfactory resolution on this issue
and we would rather use the newer tag mechanism for all the reasons that
Google has published.

Regards

Doug

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Analytics Support wrote:
Hello Doug,

Thank you for your message. Please be assured that the Migration Guide is
accurate. As you have mentioned, the fields should be of the order:

 tracker._addTrans(
              transaction.order_id,
              transaction.affiliation,
              transaction.total,
              transaction.tax,
              transaction.shipping,
              transaction.city,
              transaction.state,
              transaction.country
          );

          for (var i = 0; i < transaction.items.length; i++)
          {
              var item = transaction.items[i];

              tracker._addItem(
                  transaction.order_id,
                  item.sku,
                  item.name,
                  item.category,
                  item.price,
                  item.quantity
              )
          }

However, please note that the following test transaction,

google_analytics('UA-1277333-2','/checkout/complete',{
order_id: "100828", 
shipping: "2.95", 
affiliation: "Beautifulpure", 
country: "UK", 

items: [{
name: "Olivia Organic Lip Balm", 
category: "Marius Fabre", 
sku: "110005", 
price: "2.00", 
quantity: 1}], 
total: "4.95", 
tax: "0.00"});

does not have the fields in the correct order. Also, the items are
included before the entire transaction line is complete. Therefore, you
may want to ensure that these fields match the specified order, so data is
accurately reported in your account. If you are still concerned about
the data after making these changes, please feel free to respond to this
message and I'd be glad to look into this further.

For additional questions, please visit the Analytics Help Center at
http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/?utm_id=tf. You can also
find helpful tips and information by visiting the Google Analytics Help
Forum at http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help?utm_id=tr.

Sincerely,

CLUELESS BUT HAPPY
Analytics Support

Tired of repeating myself now.

From: Doug Hall
Subject: Re: [#235790267] random dropping of transactions
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:01:30 +0000

Dear witless chump,
you seem to have fixated on the google_analytics method
call rather than the output. The order of the items in the hash sent to
the google_analytics method is irrelevant. This hash is extracted and
output by the google_analytics method in the order specified in the
documentation. The issue clearly resides with Google in the way
transactions are being received, recorded and reported on. We can see
that all transactions are being received as the transactions are shown
in the GA reports.

Lets take a closer look @ Sunday Feb 3 for Beautifulpure. According to
our admin dashboard there were xx transactions totalling £xxxx.xx. -
http://screencast.com/t/xxxxxxxxxxxxx

GA tells me there were indeed xx transactions but we can see some totals
are missing - http://screencast.com/t/xxxxxxxxxx

If I take a closer look at one of the transactions (randomly chosen but
I assure you this is the case for all of them) we can see not all items
are faithfully recorded - http://screencast.com/t/xxxxxxxxx (GA) - and
ours http://screencast.com/t/xxxxxxxxxxx (xx shower gels but no soaps
in GA).

So, some data is getting in but not all. Or is it getting in but not
being reported? If our scripts are in error surely we would receive a
total failure and an exception from GA rather than a partial success? I
think its high time to delve deeper into what is happening behind the
scenes with GA.js.

We are going to have to revert back to the old urchin style in the mean
time as we cannot afford to not have the data anymore.

Please let me know how we can escalate this further as a matter of
urgency. The GA groups are filling up with similar reports of this
error. We aren't the only ones having this issue. What is Google doing
to resolve this?

Regards

D

Footnote

We are reverting back to urchin.js because it works. I have had no further useful response from Google other than one informing us that we are using urchin.js and thats probably the problem....duh - I know, I just revtered back because you new POS don't freakin work.

If ga.js ever works I'll publish the date here as a landmark day. I am not holding my breath.