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Set Up Data Gathering

The data gathering service records how visitors use your MT Showcase apps, so you can see which content is being opened, watched and shared.

Example events include hand and finger touches, opening or closing a widget, playing a video, viewing a PDF, browsing to a URL, adding items to a personal space, and emailing items from a personal space.

About the Reporting Database

When an MT Showcase app with the data gathering service is running, MT Showcase saves usage records in its reporting database, showcase-reporting.db.

This database is created and maintained automatically. It is a local database file that sits beside the main application database on the application computer, so there is nothing to install, and no database server to configure or maintain. For the exact location on Ubuntu and Windows, see File locations.

Usage data does not leave the application computer unless you export it.

Note

Earlier versions of MT Showcase used a separate PostgreSQL database for reporting, which could be hosted on another computer. That is no longer the case, and no PostgreSQL installation is needed.

What Is Recorded

The reporting database holds:

  • Sessions — when a wall was in use and when an app was running.
  • Touches — individual screen contacts, including where on the screen they happened and which widget was involved.
  • Widget and content events — such as a video being played or a PDF page being viewed.
  • Marker (Codice) events — when a visitor presents a marker.
  • Visitor identities — where a visitor has given their name and email address, for example in a personal space, those details are stored against their marker so that their activity can be recognized across visits.

Visitor details are personal data

If your apps collect visitor names or email addresses, the reporting database contains personal data. Treat it accordingly under your organization's data protection policy, and see Showcase technical information for what MT Showcase stores and where.

Enable Data Gathering

To enable data gathering, add the data gathering service to a service set, and then add that service set to your MT Showcase app. You do this in the MT Showcase Editor; see Service sets.

You can also set the site name recorded with each event, which is useful when you operate several walls and want to tell their data apart.

Review and Export Usage Data

Usage data is reviewed in the MT Showcase Editor, on the Analytics page, which shows sessions, touches, content engagement and visitor leads. From there you can export the data as CSV files for a spreadsheet or a third party data visualization tool.

Analytics is available to administrators. For a full description of the page, see Analytics.

Retention

MT Showcase keeps usage records until you remove them. There is no automatic purge, so if your organization has a retention period for visitor data, plan for it: back up and then clear the reporting database when you need to, and remove visitor records you no longer need.