SharePoint 2010: No Data In Web Analytics Reports

Problem

Administering a newly deployed instance of SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise, one day, I found several problems in the web analytics reports:

• Partial data is available for one or more report types (e.g., data is available for a certain date range, but not for other date ranges)
• No data is available for one or more report types

Solution Checklist

1. Analytics Services
   1. Go: Central Administration > Application Management > Service Applications > Manage Services on Server
   2. Check to make sure that the following two services are running on the SharePoint 2010 Server; if they aren't, start them
      1. Web Analytics Data Processing Service
      2. Web Analytics Web Service
2. Usage Data Reporting Configuration
   1. Go: Central Administration > Monitoring > Reporting > Configure usage and health data collection
   2. Make sure that usage data collection has been enabled and appropriately configured. Best policy: select all options available under Events to log.
3. Job Definition Schedules
   1. Go: Central Administration > Monitoring > Timer Jobs > Review job definitions
   2. Check to make sure that the following job definitions have been appropriately scheduled; if they aren't, schedule them:
      1. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Import (5-10 minutes)
      2. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Processing (daily)
      3. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Site Inventory Usage Collection (daily)
4. Usage Log Folder Permissions
   1. Default: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS\
   2. Check to make sure that the folder where usage log files are written to has the appropriate security permissions:
      1. WSS_Admin_WPG: everything but Full Control
      2. WSS_RESTRICTED_WPG: read and write
      3. WSS_WPG: read and write
5. Wait
   1. Yes, wait. After making any configuration changes, as presented above, it can take a full day or two before you will observe any changes reflected in your web analytics reports. Take heart: it seems more complicated than it is. Following the above checks, and you will have resolved 90% of the issues out there.

References

• Introducing Web Analytics in SharePoint 2010
• Configure usage and health data collection (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
• Reporting and usage analysis overview (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Configure Web Analytics service application (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Troubleshooting SharePoint 2010 Web Analytics
• Usage timer job failed - Event 8075 (SharePoint 2010 Products)
• System Center Operations Manager knowledge articles (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
• Overview of analytics processing in SharePoint Server

Notes

• Not all types of data appear in the web analytics reports available for Central Administration, Web, or Collection scopes (e.g., the Storage Usage report doesn't appear). For example, Storage Usage reports are available only at the Collection scope.
• Beginning with SharePoint 2013, Web Analytics is integrated with the Search Service application as a new search component and was renamed Usage Analytics.