---
title: Why Raw Data Doesn't Match Our Reports
description: Explains why report totals differ from raw data exports, covering campus rollups, sessions, day-boundary splitting, exclusions, and stationary badge settings.
---
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# Why Raw Data Doesn't Match Our Reports
## How campus rollups, sessions, exclusions, and site settings turn raw detections into report totals
Our reports don’t simply display raw data as-is. We apply report logic, business rules, and site-specific settings to turn raw data into report results.
Below are some of the most common reasons for these differences.
## Campus-Level Data
Some reports are **campus-enabled**, which means they include not just the selected site, but also its child sites.
This can change hours significantly when a worker moves between sites in the same campus during the day.
For example:
- John is detected at Campus ABC: Bldg 1 at 4:00 AM.
- His last detection at Bldg 1 is at 8:00 AM.
- John is then detected at Campus ABC: Bldg 2 at 8:00 AM.
- His last detection at Bldg 2 is at 10:00 AM.
If you look at the sites separately, the hours may look like this:
- Bldg 1: 4:00 AM to 8:00 AM = 4 hours
- Bldg 2: 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM = 2 hours
A campus-enabled report may instead look at detections across the full campus and show that John was present somewhere on the campus from 4:00 AM to 10:00 AM, or 6 hours total.
Because of this, campus-enabled reports may not match reports or raw data that are based on only one site at a time.
## Sessions
Some reports use **sessions** to estimate time on site.
A session is a period of activity based on when detections are seen. If there is a long enough gap between detections, the system may treat that as the end of one visit and the start of another.
This means a session-based report may split a worker’s day into multiple separate time periods instead of treating the entire day as one continuous span.
For example, if a worker is detected from 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM and then not again until 8:00 PM to 11:59 PM, a session-based report may treat that as two separate visits totaling about 8 hours.
By comparison, a simple first-detection-to-last-detection calculation would treat that same day as nearly 24 hours.
### Why sessions are not used everywhere
Sessions can be helpful, but they depend on the quality and consistency of site detections.
If a site has strong sensor coverage, sessions may provide a more realistic estimate of time on site. But if workers spend time in areas with limited sensor coverage, the system may miss detections for long periods even though the worker never actually left.
In those cases, session-based logic can break one work period into multiple smaller ones and reduce the reported hours.
For that reason, sessions are used selectively. In many cases, a simpler method based on first detection and last detection provides more stable and predictable results.
# Day Boundaries
Some reports organize time by calendar day. When that happens, activity that crosses midnight may be split so that each day only includes the time that falls within that day.
For example, if a worker is detected from 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM, the report may count that as:
- 10:00 PM to 11:59 PM on the first day
- 12:00 AM to 2:00 AM on the next day
This is sometimes necessary so daily totals stay aligned to the reporting date.
# Exclusions
Not every report uses every exclusion. For example, daily reports don’t use date or day-of-week exclusions.
Common exclusions include:
- **Companies** — Some companies can be excluded from reports. This includes global exclusions for Sitemetric-related companies, as well as site-specific company exclusions requested by the customer.
- **Workers** — Specific workers can be excluded from reports. For example, a customer may ask us to exclude upper management or other individuals who appeared on site but should not be counted in labor-related reporting.
- **Zones** — Certain zones can be excluded from reports. For example, a customer may choose to omit areas such as a parking lot.
- **Dates** — Specific dates can be excluded from some reports. For example, a customer may choose to omit holidays such as December 25 or January 1. These exclusions are only used by certain reports, such as some Project Summary reports.
- **Days of the Week** — Some reports can exclude certain days, such as weekends. These exclusions are only used by certain reports, such as some Project Summary reports.
- **Visitors** — Visitors are usually excluded from standard worker reports and only included in visitor-specific reports.
- **Worker Types** — Reports can also be limited to certain worker types. By default, most worker reports include workers with the **LABOR** resource type, though other resource types such as **EQUIPMENT** may also exist in the raw data.
# Site-Specific Rules
Many reports also use site-specific badge rules that affect how detections are interpreted. For campus-enabled reports, only the parent site’s settings will be used.
- **Hours Before Stationary** — This setting determines how many hours of continuous detections must occur before a badge is considered “stationary.” A stationary badge often indicates that the badge was left behind and continued pinging, rather than being worn by a worker. The default is **16 hours**.
- **Exclude Stationary** — This determines whether stationary badges are removed from the report results. By default, stationary badges are **included** unless the site is configured otherwise.
- **Adjusted Stationary Hours** — In some cases, customers want stationary badges included, but with a more reasonable number of hours assigned to them, such as **8 hours** instead of the full detected time. Some reports also support an **average** option, which uses the average hours from recent non-stationary badge activity.
- **Adjusted Zero Hours** — Sometimes the system receives only a stray single detection, such as when a worker drives past a sensor. Some reports treat these as zero-hour situations and may either exclude them or replace them with an adjusted value, depending on the report and site settings.
- **Hours Between Sessions** — This is the session gap described earlier: the amount of time that must pass between detections before a new session is created. It only applies to reports that use session logic. The default is **10 hours**.
## Legacy vs. Standardized Reports
We now have a growing set of newer generic reports that are designed to behave consistently across customers. However, some customers still use reports that include customer-specific logic. In select cases, separate report logic may exist where a customer need could not be incorporated into a shared generic report without affecting the standard behavior of that report for others.
As a result, reports that appear similar may still calculate hours, headcount, or exclusions differently.
# Conclusion
Raw data is the starting point, but a report is a **processed result**. Before a report is generated, it may apply campus rollups, exclusions, worker-type rules, site-specific badge settings, and session logic. Because of that, a report should not be expected to match a raw data export line for line.
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