Dear SmarterTools;
I addressed this about two years ago and it was fixed in at least one release of SmarterStats, but appears to have been dropped since the patch was made . . .
When a PDF report is generated as part of a report, whether e-mailed, or viewed via the Web interface, there is no reference whatsoever to the DOMAIN NAME for which the report was run.
From an e-mail from one of my customers, "The PDF reports are great. We can share them at our board meetings, but, as one of our Township residents commented, 'who the hell is Smarter Stats, and why are we reading their data!?!' "
The township resident was commenting on the fact that a PDF report, generated from SmarterMail's SmarterStats, which our client, Antioch Township shared at a board meeting, both via both PowerPoint, and in printed copy form, shows a large title proclaiming, "SMARTERSTATS BUSINESS ANALYTICS" on the front cover but NEVER NAMES the customer's domain or business for which the report was generated. IE:
Here's a reproduction of the entire cover:
Marketing report for WHOM? SmarterStats / SmarterTools, or for my CUSTOMER - ANTIOCH TOWNSHIP?
What is the DATE RANGE of the report? When was it GENERATED?
Who is the vendor who generated the report for the customer?
The present format is great advertising for SmarterStats and SmarterTools, but we don't generate the reports for the benefit of SmarterTools, we generate these reports, on a somewhat frequent basis, for our CUSTOMERS, the people who pay us to host their services so we can pay for the software packages from SmarterTools!
THERE IS ZERO REFERENCE to my CUSTOMER'S BUSINESS or DOMAIN NAME in the entire PDF REPORT!
Seriously, SmarterTools, and this crosses all product lines when it comes to the PDF generated, e-mailable reports:
Can you PLEASE make your name a bit smaller and ADD THE CUSTOMER'S BUSINESS NAME and DOMAIN NAME into the COVER page, and SUBSEQUENT PAGES of the PDF reports?
It would also be nice to see this on the reports which are displayed in the web interface as well because sometimes customers generate statistical or SEO reports and print them from the browser interface.
Once you include the customer's DOMAIN and/or BUSINESS NAME in the report, give it some prominence - make the CUSTOMER a little more important than the SmarterStats software name or the SmarterTools company name by demoting the size of your name and dropping it to the bottom of the cover age. Then PROMOTE the customer's NAME and DOMAIN. EXAMPLE:
[Sorry, my partner is the graphic designer, and he was asleep when this was written, so the example is my attempt. I'm certain a final product, revamped by a graphic designer, would look much better.]
HINT: This information is already available because it's in the Customer's site configuration information - put there at the time the customer's site is setup. IE:
Customer's SmarterStats configuration window, showing customer's site name and domain name. This information can easily be added to reports and PDFs:
both on-demand, custom, and auto-generated and sent.
It would also be nice to see our customer's name appear on subsequent pages of the report, too, IE:
While I understand copyright and acknowledgements, we, as your customers, are not in business to provide reports to our customers which promote your product over the actual content of the report.
It would also be nice to see long lines of data WRAP within the tables on the PDF, instead of scrolling off to never-never land when the referenced link or name is longer than the box in which it is displayed in a PDF report, IE:
From the REFERRING URLs section of a report, note line #32
Information in some tables is too long for allocated space and, in the web interface,
runs off the screen, forcing a scroll. In the PDF reports it runs off the page and is lost!
Thanks, in advance, for your consideration in these modifications to the PDF reports which are generated for our customers via SmarterStats and SmarterMail. They will make for a much better final product for both SmarterMail customers and our hosted customers.
Bruce Barnes
ChicagoNetTech Inc
brucecnt@comcast.net
Phonr: (773) 491-9019
Phone: (224) 444-0169
E-Mail and DNS Security Specialist
Network Security Specialist
Customer Service Portal: https://portal.chicagonettech.com
Website: https://www.ChicagoNetTech.com
Security Blog: http://networkbastion.blogspot.com/
Web and E-Mail Hosting, E-Mail Security and Consulting