GameDB2 User Manual - Session Reports
Description
Session reports are a way to track
games that you and other people have
played, and keep a record of what happened during the game, as well as the
scores.
A session report tracks the game played, time, date and duration of the
play, who played, who won, and the scores. Also attached is a description
that can be used to describe the highlights of the game, or other notes.
The information from session reports allows GameDB to gather many informative
statistics. This ranges from simple items like how long a game really
takes to play, to more complex items such as how often people win games, and
what percentage of games they have won or lost.
Session reports essentially come in two flavors:
Detailed
These session reports contain attached session notes which are fairly detailed,
and act as a sort of "commentary" or walk through of the events that transpired
during the game. This is a good place to cover the strategies used by the various
players (or more usually, the player writing the report), how
well they played, and so on.
Quick
These session reports contain only "quick" notes, or no notes at all. This is normally
used when the session report is tracking a game that does not have a lot of strategic
depth, for example a card game. This allows you to track sessions of such games for
score gathering and other purposes.
The system itself makes no real distinction between the two types of session
reports, other than to allow the
users of the system to flag a session report
as one kind or another.
Viewing the list of session reports
The list of session reports that are currently entered into the system is available by clicking
"Sessions" in the main GameDB menu. The list of sessions is displayed sorted by the date the
session took place, with the most recent session appearing at the top of the list. The list may
be subject to
view filters which allow fine control of exactly what sessions
are displayed.
The list of sessions contains the following information:
View
Clicking this link allows you to display the details of this session report,
which includes not only the text of the report itself, but also all of the players
and their scores.
Type
The type of this session report, either Detailed or Quick. Detailed session reports
tend to have more informative content in them than Quick session reports. GameDB makes the distinction
between the two so that lighter fluffier Games games can be reported for
game play statistics without requiring any in depth commentary.
Date
The date that the game was played. Note that this date is different than the date the session report
was actually entered in the system (which is not tracked by GameDB currently).
Duration
How long the game took to play, if that information has been entered, otherwise this field does not appear. The
duration is represented in HH:MM format.
Game
The Game that was played. This links to the game details for this game.
Winner
The Player that won this game. If there were multiple winners, only the first one is displayed
here. No Winner is displayed if nobody won the game. This usually only happens for cooperative games.
If a winner is displayed, the name is a link to another Session Report List view that sets the
view filter to session reports where that player was the winner.
Edit
Clicking this link allow you to view and Edit the Session Report Details for this
session report.
You will not see this link unless you have Permission to edit session reports.
Remove
This check box allows you to flag a session report for removal from the system. To remove session reports, you must
first select one or more reports by checking the check box next to their name, and then clicking on the "Remove" button
that displays at the bottom of the form. You will be asked to confirm your intention to remove the specified
session reports before the removal takes place.
You will not see the check boxes or the Remove button unless you have permission to remove session
reports.
Session report list view filters
Over time, the list of session reports is bound to get quite large, making the
Session List take
quite a long time to download and display.
For this reason, GameDB provides you with a series of View Filters, which allow you to display only small portions
of the complete Session List at once. Some of the view filters are available directly in the Session List, while some
of them are available from other pages throughout GameDB, where they make the most logical
sense.
Because Session Reports are date based, GameDB offers two sets of filters. The first set describes what sorts of
session reports that you want to view, while the second half allow you to filter that list based on various
date criteria.
The list of possible Session List View Filters is:
All Session Reports
This filter is always available from the main session list window, and sets the session list to display every
session report known to the system. This effectively cancels out any other view filter which might be set.
All Detailed Session Reports
This works similarly to the All Session Reports filter, but only session reports which are flagged as being
Detailed are displayed. This filter is always available from the main session list window.
All Quick Session Reports
This works similarly to the All Session Reports filter, but only session reports which are flagged as being
Quick are displayed. This filter is always available from the main session list window.
For Game
This filter sets the session list to only display session reports for a specific game. This filter is
available from Game Detail and Session Detail pages, by clicking the links
that mention viewing session reports.
Played By
Won By
Lost By
These filter types set the session list to only display session reports where a particular player
played, won or lost a game. This filter is available from the Player List by clicking on the
various columns for a player, and in the session list, by clicking on the names of the winner
of a game.
Within these filters, you may activate the following sets of filters to show only session reports
matching your provided criteria whose dates match the following filter specifications:
All
This date filter (the default) displays all of the session reports set by the above filter criteria.
Last Reported
This date filter looks up the date for the most recently submitted session report, and sets the date filters
so that only session reports that occur on that same day will be displayed. This is a quick way to view all of
the games played during a particular gaming session.
This Month
Last Month
This Year
Last Year
These date filters display only session reports recorded in a particular interval of time. These are useful
when the session report list is quite long to view only recently occurring sessions.
Arbitrary Interval
This filter displays session reports that occur only on a specific day, or during a specific time interval.
Clicking on the session date in a session detail view is the only way to manually set a date filter
of this type, which displays only sessions that occurred on the same day as the session in question.
More often, this setting is acquired when one of the above date filters is set and left unchanged for a prolonged
period of time. For example, if you set the filter to This Month on the last day of a month, the next day
the filter will appear to change to Last Month. Although the filter is still tracking the same range of dates as
it was previously, GameDB now recognizes that the dates represented are Last Month and not This Month.
Viewing session details
The
Session Report List displays only minimal information about Session Reports in the system. In
particular, it displays only the winner of the game, and the date and duration that the game was played on.
To display more detailed information on a session report, including the complete list of
players and
their scores, click the "View" link next to the session report that you would like to view.
Navigation Links
The top of the Session display is a set of navigation links that allow you to browse through the session reports
in the system. The browse links allow you to browse the sessions according to the current View Filter.
For this reason, the current view filter is also displayed.
Game Name
The name of the game is displayed, next to text which indicates what type of session report this is.
The game name links to the game details page for the game.
Played On
The date and time that the game was played, along with the amount of time that it took to play the game (if that
information was entered as part of the session report). The session date is a link that opens up the
Session Report List, setting the view filter to all games played on that date.
Recorded By
If available, the name of the Player that recorded this session report is displayed here. This might
be missing if the player has since been removed from the system.
Players
The complete list of Players that played the game, along with their scores. The list is sorted
so that winners appear at the top, with everyone else sorted first by score and then by name.
Notes
The actual contents of the session report is displayed at the bottom of the page. These may be simple notes,
or a more detailed commentary, depending on what was entered here by the player that recorded the session.
The session report calendar
Besides viewing sessions as a
list, you may also view session reports in a calendar view. To
do this, first open the Session Report List by clicking on "Sessions" in the main GameDB menu, and then click
on the "View Session Report Calendar" button.
The calendar opens up on the current month and year, although you may change this with the form provided, and you
may browse to the next and previous month using the navigation links at the top of the calendar.
Each day in the calendar lists the number of
games played that day as a link to switch
back to the session list view with the
view filter set for that date. The
calendar also display a duration, which is a combined total of all of the games played
during that day (for any sessions that have duration data entered).
If there has been at least one game played during the current month, then the calendar
will also display a footer which displays the total number of games played that month
and the total duration of game play, in HH:MM format.
If the calendar is displaying the current month and year, then the current day is flagged
with a large dashed border outline and the text
(Today) next to the date.
Adding a new session
There are two ways to add a new session report to the system:
- Display the Session List by clicking on "Sessions" in the main GameDB menu, and then
click on the "Add a new Session" button that appears at the top of the screen.
- View Session Details for a session report on the game you want to add a new session for,
then click the "Add another session" link in the navigation bar.
- View Game Details for the game that you would like to add a session report for, and then
click the "Add Session" link in the Game Control Panel
Depending on which method you use, you may be asked to specify the game that you would like to add the session
report for. Note that session reports cannot be created for games that are marked as expansions for other games.
If you do not have
permission to add session reports, you will not see the links/buttons that allow you
to add in sessions.
Editing session detail
To edit the details for a session report that already exists, click the "Edit" link which appears in the
session detail page or in the
Session List next to the session report that
you would like to edit.
You will be taken to a page very similar to the
Session Addition Page, which allows you to modify
any of the session information. This page works identically to the session addition page.
If you do not have
Permission to edit session reports, you will not see the links that allow you to
edit sessions.
Removing an existing session
To remove a session from the system, check the check boxes for the sessions that you would like to remove in the
Session List, then click the "Remove" button at the bottom of the page. You will be asked to
confirm that you want to remove the sessions before the removal actually occurs.
There are no restrictions as to what session reports can be removed. However, information on
game play statistics for
players is generated from session
report information. As such, removal of session reports will have an impact on that information.
If you do not have
permission to remove session reports, you will not see the check boxes or
the Remove button.