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:

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:

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: 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:

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.

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:
  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.