ThoughtFarmer Analytics security and data collection

Matomo software is open source software that we have modified to build ThoughtFarmer Analytics. It is installed on our servers in our datacenters which are SOC II certified as well as ISO 27001 certified. ThoughtFarmer sends data to the ThoughtFarmer Analytics server using client-side scripting. So all data is sent directly from your users' browsers to our analytics servers. This page describes some details of security and data collection for the gathering and transfer of statistics information.

Data security

All data is sent to ThoughtFarmer Analytics using SSL. Only a limited number of ThoughtFarmer staff have access to the ThoughtFarmer Analytics server. The server is set up as a "multi-tenant" approach, with data for multiple companies stored in the same database. All data is backed up on a nightly basis.

List of actual fields sent to ThoughtFarmer Analytics

• action_name: The title of the action being tracked. 
• idsite: The ID of the website it was tracked for.
• rec: Required for tracking, must be set to one, eg, &rec=1.
• r: Meant to hold a random value that is generated before each request. Using it helps avoid the tracking request being cached by the browser or a proxy.
• h: The current hour (local time).
• m: The current minute (local time).
• s: The current second (local time).
• url: The full URL for the current action.
• urlref: The full HTTP Referrer URL.
• _id: The unique visitor ID, must be a 16 character hexadecimal string. If this value is not set ThoughtFarmer Analytics will still track visits, but the unique visitors metric might be less accurate.
• _idts: The UNIX timestamp of this visitor's first visit. 
• _idvc: The current count of visits for this visitor. 
• _viewts: The UNIX timestamp of this visitor's previous visit. 
• pdf: Plugins used by the visitor can be specified by setting the following parameters to 1 - Adobe Acrobat.
• qt: Plugins used by the visitor can be specified by setting the following parameters to 1 - Quicktime.
• realp: Plugins used by the visitor can be specified by setting the following parameters to 1 - Realplayer.
• wma: Plugins used by the visitor can be specified by setting the following parameters to 1 - Windows Media.
• dir: Plugins used by the visitor can be specified by setting the following parameters to 1 - Director.
• fla: Plugins used by the visitor can be specified by setting the following parameters to 1 - Flash.
• java: Plugins used by the visitor can be specified by setting the following parameters to 1 - Java.
• gears: Plugins used by the visitor can be specified by setting the following parameters to 1 - Gears.
• ag: Plugins used by the visitor can be specified by setting the following parameters to 1 - Silverlight.
• cookie: When set to 1, the visitor's client is known to support cookies.
• res: The resolution of the device the visitor is using, eg 1280x1024.
• dimension_1: Currently, this field is used for sending a ThoughtFarmer user's full name.
• dimension_2: Currently, this field is used for sending a ThoughtFarmer page tree path.
• dimension_3: Currently, this field is used for sending a ThoughtFarmer action type name (e.g. 'create', 'edit', 'comment', 'search').
• dimension_4: Currently, this field is used for sending information about which platform is used to access ThoughtFarmer (e.g. 'Web', 'ThoughtFarmer/1.1', 'ThoughtFarmer/1.2', 'ThoughtFarmer/2').
• gt_ms: The amount of time it took the server to generate this action, in milliseconds. This value is used to process the Avg. Generation Time column in the Page URL and Page Title reports, as well as a site-wide running average of the speed of your server.

Data retention

Raw tracking data is retained for 60 days. Aggregated figures will be stored indefinitely.

Frequency of report aggregation

• Daily reports are calculated every 15 minutes.
• Weekly, monthly and yearly reports are calculated every 6 hours.
• Date Range reports are calculated in real time the first time you select a date range, and then cached for 2 hours.

Data Residency

ThoughtFarmer Analytics data is stored in our data centers, hosted by Cyxtera. Our Canadian data center is hosted in Vancouver, British Columbia, and our US data center is hosted in Seattle. Canadian and all other non-US customers use the Canadian data center. Cloud US customers use the Canadian data center.

On-premise US customers who opted-in to using Analytics US use the US data center. Analytics US complies with the Patriot Act. On-premise US customers who did not opt-in to using Analytics US use the Canadian data center. If you have any questions, please contact the ThoughtFarmer Helpdesk.

To log in to ThoughtFarmer Analytics Canada, go to https://analytics-ca.thoughtfarmer.com.

To log in in to ThoughtFarmer Analytics US, go to https://analytics-us.thoughtfarmer.com.

Known issues

• Choosing long date ranges may cause out-of-memory errors if you have busy site traffic.

Learn more:

• ThoughtFarmer Analytics overview