I thought I should write up my latest exchange with WebEx Technical Support so others can benefit from the knowledge.
I ran a webinar with a client using their WebEx Event Center account. Afterwards, I waited the usual 24 hours for reports to become available. Don't ask me why it takes WebEx 24 hours to compile information on who attended a webinar when every other vendor does it instantly; that's just the way it is.
Then I ran the official Registration Report and the official Attendance Report. I have to run two separate reports because different information is captured in each. For instance, the Registration Report includes things like Lead Source and custom registration fields. The Attendance Report includes things like Join Time and Leave Time.
Next I attempted to merge the information for people who attended the webinar. Seems pretty straightforward… I have all the names and email addresses in each report along with a Yes/No column in the Registration Report labeled "Attended."
But the data wouldn't match up. The Attendance Report had information on 262 attendees. The Registration Report had 278 names showing "Attended" as a YES. Why did my Registration Report show 16 extra attendees?
The answer from a very nice and professional technical support engineer is that "The Registration Report counts as an attendee everybody who tried to enter the webinar. The Attendance Report only lists people who actually joined the session." So if a registrant clicks their login link and makes it to the login page, then has technical problems and can't see any part of the webinar, they are still listed as a YES in the "Attended" column.
Sigh. Now you know. Ignore the attendance column in the WebEx Registration Report. It is useless. The only way to match up attendee data carried in the two reports is by using the shorter list of names in the Attendance Report and cross-linking to the corresponding records in the Registration Report.
I think WebEx could do with two improvements here. First, change their labeling in the Registration Report… "Attended" is misleading and inaccurate. Second, eliminate the need for customers to run and merge two separate reports. The Attendance Report should contain ALL data about each participant.
