Chapter 25. Reporting for Web Sites
Using site-reporting features
Exploiting usage-reporting features
Conforming to Web standards
Using compatibility reports
Reporting features of SharePoint Designer for sites have mostly been carried over from FrontPage 2003. You have the capability to view reports related to usage of FrontPage components on the targeted Web site, information about hyperlinks, various problems, and usage-related information. However, SharePoint Designer adds to these reporting features by providing task panes that have the ability to generate reports related to the Web site's accessibility and conformation to various Web standards, compatibility with various browser schemas, and CSS reporting.
This chapter focuses on the SharePoint Designer Reports pane, which allows administrators and site developers to view information and reports about their Web sites and helps in performing analysis based on site usage, problems encountered, and components and features used. I also talk about the various Web standards of accessibility that SharePoint Designer can compare your Web site content against and generate reports that help you determine the standards your Web site adheres to. Usage Reporting, one of the most popular features of FrontPage reporting that SharePoint Designer also inherits, is also discussed later in this chapter. I show you how to set up usage reporting in SharePoint sites and use the usage data through the SharePoint Designer reporting interface.
The Reports pane in SharePoint Designer is accessible through the Site menu. Here, you can view reports detailing the site summary, recent files, style sheets, hyperlinks, and usage data. The interface is fairly simple, and the reports are shown in a tabular format that can be filtered and worked upon for analysis. Before you actually begin working with the Reports pane in SharePoint Designer, I want to take you through the settings that you can configure for the Reports pane. You can access the settings for the Reports pane by using the Application Options dialog box (Tools 
Application Options).
The Reports View tab, as shown in Figure 25.1, in the Application Options dialog box allows you to define settings for the reports. You can specify the following settings in the Reports View tab:
General: Allows you to specify the number of days that determine whether a file on the Web site is considered recent or old, set the number of seconds a page should take to load to consider it a slow page, and set the connection speed for consideration when generating reports
Usage: Allows you to specify the number of months the usage report should be based upon
Figure 25.1. The Reports View tab in the Application Options dialog box
