# About Statistics Server

The IDOL Statistics Server provides statistics about interactions between end users and one or more IDOL servers. Interactions can occur when:

- users send actions directly to IDOL.
- users interact with IDOL through a front-end application such as Find, or a third-party application.

You can determine what statistics to measure by defining statistical criteria in the Statistics Server configuration file. These statistics can include the following examples:

- actions that do not return any results.
- the top 25 queries in the past day, week, month, and so on.
- the average number of queries in a particular time period.
- the total number of hits for a specific term.

Statistics are entirely user-defined: a flexible set of parameters allows you to measure a wide range of statistics. You can also specify how often the statistics are reported.

In order to compute statistics, information about relevant events must be pushed to the Statistics Server. When a user interacts with IDOL, a script or the front-end application sends the Statistics Server an XML record, known as an XML event. If the event matches the criteria of any of the configured statistics, it is included in the statistical tally.

You can use statistics for many reasons; to construct a profile of end users, to see which queries or terms are most popular, to refine promotions, and so on.

You can install Statistics Server when you install QMS with the IDOL Server Installer. It is primarily intended for use with IDOL Data Admin.

TIP: You can view information on ACI requests, errors, and other statistical information about your server or component in the IDOL Admin user interface. For more information, refer to the IDOL Admin User Guide.

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