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Why doesn't the number of incidents created on a specific date match for different reports?

Environment:

Analytics
Oracle B2C Service, All versions

Resolution:

The reports listed below include different values for the number of incidents created on a specific day. This is due to the nature of the report and the tables used as a basis for the report.  For example,  the Service Summary Report, the Incident Trend Report and the Incident Creation Rate Report. When run for the same day, they report different numbers for the number of incidents created. When the Incident Activity is run and Incident Effectiveness reports, they don't match with the Incident Created reports.

Some reports use the Incidents table to generate data, while others rely on the Stats table. If an incident is created, a record is written to the incidents table. If that incident is deleted, the record is removed from the incidents table.  As a result, reports that use the incidents table cannot include information about incidents that have been deleted since those records no longer exist.

However, once a record is written to the stats table, that data is available for reporting even if the incident is deleted later. That is, the corresponding stats record remains in the stats table even though the incident has been deleted from the incidents table. This is why reports that use the stats table typically include counts of records that have been deleted. If the incident exists when the stats table is updated, that record will remain even after an incident is deleted.

Brief descriptions for common reports that include incident creation data are listed below. You can determine which tables are used in the report using the following steps:

1. Copy the standard report and open the copy for editing.
2. From the Home tab, click Tables. 

If you have custom reports that provide different results from a standard report, review which tables are configured for each report.

Standard reports using Incident Creation data: 

	Operations Dashboard (ID 28): This report uses the incidents table for the Table Instances. The Operations Dashboard reports New Incident Activity for yesterday and today. These numbers are real-time and can change throughout the day - even the numbers for yesterday. If an incident from yesterday is deleted today, the number of incidents reported for yesterday is reduced by one since that incident is no longer in the database.
	Service Summary (ID 36): This report uses the stats table. The Service Summary reports the number of Web Questions, Email Assists, and Incidents from Console. These numbers may differ for a couple of reasons. First, not all incidents are accounted for. For example, if a customer submits Answer Feedback or Site Feedback, an incident is created, but none of the Service Summary categories are incremented.   Another thing to note is that if a customer begins to submit an Ask a Question request and clicks the Stop button on the browser before the transaction is complete, the Web Questions in the Service Summary Report will increment by one even though the incident was never actually created.
	Incident Trend (ID 85): This report uses the stats table. The information contained in the Incident Trend report is cached when the AGEDATABASE utility runs nightly. When agedatabase runs each night, the number of incidents that were created on a specific day and that still exist in the database are reported on the Incident Trend Report. This number is static so once it is calculated, it will be reported consistently.
	Incident Activity (ID 88): This report uses the incidents table. The Incident Activity report is intended to track incidents that are currently being processed. Therefore, this report returns only incidents created within the timeframe specified and which have actually been assigned to an agent or a group. If an incident has not been assigned to an agent or group, it will not be included in this report.
	Incident Effectiveness (ID 81): This report uses the inc_performance table joined with the incidents. The Incident Effectiveness report is designed to measure how effectively incidents are being responded to. Therefore, this report includes any existing incidents created within the timeframe specified which have been initially assigned, initially responded to, or initially solved. If an incident does not match one of these three characteristics, it will not be included in this report.
	Incident Creation Rate (ID 7): This report uses the stats table. The Incident Creation Rate report is cached. It reports the number of incidents that were created on the specified date and existed in the database at the time agedatabase last ran. If the incident is deleted before agedatabase runs, the statistics do not get updated in the stats table. This is regardless of whether the incident has been assigned to a staff member or if it has been responded to.

 

Examples:

For an example, say that today is May 2 and the following activities occurred on May 1:

	On May 1 you had a total of 100 incidents created (150501-000099 was the highest reference number used) and that 75 were email assists and 25 were submitted through the Ask a Question page.
	At 5:00 PM on May 1, the administrator of your site deleted 5 of the incidents created that day.
	The agedatabase utility ran at 2:00 a.m. on May 2.
	At 8:00 a.m. on May 2, your administrator deleted 10 more incidents which were created on May 1 (the previous day).

At 9:00 a.m. on May 2 you run your reports. The following number of incidents are reported for May 1.

	Operations Dashboard New Incident Activity for Yesterday: 85 (there were 100, but since 15 were deleted only 85 remain)
	Service Summary for May 1: 100
	Incident Trend for May 1 on Created Incidents: 95 (5 of the 100 had been deleted when AGEDATABASE ran)
	Incident Creation Rate for May 1: 95 (again, there were 100, but since 5 were deleted before AGEDATABASE ran)

 

Due to the nature of the utilities and whether or not incidents have been deleted, the number of incidents created will vary between reports.