Report Summary is missing

[David]

For some reason when I download an AdWords report, such as the campaign summary report I am missing the total row.

I looked around the internet and saw in 201409 version there is a new parameter called skipReportSummary that can be used to hide the summary, so I tried setting this to "false" because I want it there. But this did nothing.

I am confused because I thought the default behavior was for the summary to be there. The report header is there by default and for testing I have tried setting skipReportHeader to "true". This works and removes it, while setting it to "false" keeps it. Setting skipReportSummary to "false" does nothing however.

Any reason why this would be?

I can calculate the totals myself, problem is I don't know how some of the totals in AdWords are calculated. EG I need to get the total for Cost / conv. I thought it was just total cost divided by total converted clicks but this is not the case. The value I get is about 20% higher than AdWords, and this is using the AdWords interface to get the totals for the division. Same result via the API. This is when I looked into seeing if i could pull the value that AdWords lists in the total row.

My code for a report request is below but I'm doubtful the code has a problem since it works for the skipReportHeader and I am getting the individual rows exactly as requested. I am using the PHP library latest version.

            $user = new AdWordsUser();
            $user->SetClientCustomerId($clientCustomerId);
           
            // Load the service, so that the required classes are available.
            $user->LoadService('ReportDefinitionService', "v201409");

            // Create selector.
            $selector = new Selector();
            $selector->fields =array("Cost", "Conversions");
           
            $selector->dateRange = new DateRange($dateFrom, $dateTo);
           
            // Create report definition.
            $reportDefinition = new ReportDefinition();
            $reportDefinition->selector = $selector;
            $reportDefinition->reportName = 'Criteria performance report #' . uniqid();
            $reportDefinition->dateRangeType = "CUSTOM_DATE";
            $reportDefinition->reportType = "CAMPAIGN_PERFORMANCE_REPORT";
            $reportDefinition->downloadFormat = 'XML';

            // Set additional options.
            $options = array('version' => "v201409");
           
            $options['skipReportHeader'] = false;
            $options['skipReportSummary'] = false;
 
            // Download report.
            ReportUtils::DownloadReport($reportDefinition, $filePath, $user, $options);

[David]

I should add that I've just tried outputting a report to CSV and the total row is there. It's just when outputting to XML that it is missing.

I've also discovered that the column I need for the Cost / conv data is CostPerConversionManyPerClick but I can't find the maths needed to arrive at the total.

What's wrong with XML and totals?

[Anash P. Oommen (AdWords API Team)]

Hi David,

skipReportHeader and skipReportSummary headers work only for csv/tsv reports, they don't apply to XML reports. If I remember correctly, XML reports don't have summary footer at all.

About the math: it depends on how you have setup conversion counting in AdWords UI. See https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/3438531 for more details. I'd also recommend asking this question on the product forum: https://www.en.adwords-community.com/

Cheers,
Anash P. Oommen,
AdWords API Advisor. 

[HK]

I realize this is an old thread, but is there a specific reason why the summary can't be included in the XML response? It is definitely something we would use. Our current solution is based on parsing XML and not a flat file, so it'd simplify the implementation on the client side if it could be added to the XML as well.

Thanks,

Hans 

[FK]

Is there any documented difference between the download formats?

The other options seem to work:

  options['skipReportHeader'] = true;

  options['skipColumnHeader'] = true;

Why is there a lack of summary rows in XML documents? (please link to a source)

[Anash P. Oommen (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

CSV / TSV reports were historically made for the UI users / API users who wanted to display results directly to the users without much processing. So they included summary rows. XML reports were meant for developers who wanted to process the rows further, so we kept only the raw data rows in this report.

The reason why we support the skipReportHeader and skipColumnHeader headers is because many users prefer parsing a csv file instead of an XML file - not all programming languages have good support for XML parsing.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a source I can link you to. You could either calculate the summary rows yourself, or switch to a reporting format that supports it. In case you need help figuring out how to calculate various summary rows, feel free to open a new thread on the forum.

Cheers,

Anash P. Oommen,

AdWords API Advisor.