LiveWhale 3.0 includes a built-in Reporting interface and an Analytics system designed to provide basic usage insights without user tracking. Analytics data collection begins in LiveWhale 2.23 and is expanded and surfaced in LiveWhale 3.0.

Reporting

The Reporting section (linked in the Toolbox for users with the “View reporting and analytics” permission) gives calendar managers a consolidated view of activity across all groups. 

From the Dashboard, reporting users will see a quick summary of event traffic across all groups over the last 30 days, displayed as a line chart with a link to the Reporting tool for more details and flexible reporting options.

The full Reporting tool at /livewhale/?reporting includes five tabs, each of whose data can be sorted, filtered by different date ranges (by event date, date created, or date modified), and exported as a CSV.

Each data table is also sortable—click any cell in the header row to sort by that column in ascending or descending order.

• Events: Events and view counts within a date range, filterable by group. Shows total events and whether they are live, hidden, or upcoming. In the traffic chart, hover over any date to see a more detailed breakdown by device type.
• RSVPs: Events with RSVPs enabled and how many registrations they’ve received within a date range. 
• Submissions: Events submitted by users (rather than created directly by editors) within a date range, including who submitted them and when.
• Groups: Shows activity broken down by group, including calendar views, event views, RSVPs, submissions, events added, events edited, and active users.
• Search Keywords: Shows what terms calendar visitors have searched for within a date range, with search counts.

Note: traffic counts below a minimum threshold are displayed as <10 to avoid surfacing data sets that could potentially identify individuals.

System Administration (admins only)

Administrators also have access to a System Administration page including diagnostic messages and a Content Health section showing totals for users, events, and images across all groups, or filterable by group—including flags for images missing ALT text, captions, or credits.

System statistics such as LiveWhale version, PHP version, and database version are also displayed here. Diagnostic warnings from the Dashboard will link to this page.

LiveWhale Analytics

LiveWhale Analytics is intentionally limited in scope to be privacy-first. It is designed to help LiveWhale managers understand overall usage trends—such as traffic volume, device mix, and referrer categories—while minimizing data collection and avoiding personal data wherever possible. For more thorough or granular analytics tracking, you are always welcome to load your own GA4, GTM or other tracking code as part of your LiveWhale theme.

What LiveWhale Analytics Measures

LiveWhale Analytics records pre-aggregated, anonymized totals only, including:

• Total daily hits to each URL
• General device type (e.g., desktop, iOS, Android)
• General referrer category (e.g., search engine, social media, internal link, external link, direct URL)

This data is stored only as aggregated counts in each bucket, not as individual events or visit records.

What LiveWhale Analytics Does Not Do

LiveWhale Analytics does not:

• Track individual users or sessions
• Create user profiles, timelines, or behavioral paths
• Store user IP addresses or pseudonyms
• Use cookies, local storage, or persistent identifiers
• Perform cross-page, cross-session, or cross-site tracking
• Send analytics data to third-party services

There is no concept of a “visitor” or “user journey” in LiveWhale Analytics—only aggregated totals.

We intentionally designed LiveWhale Analytics to avoid user tracking, personal data processing, and client-side identifiers. As a result, we believe this anonymized, statistical approach does not require user consent under ePrivacy or GDPR.

Data Handling and Storage

All analytics data is:

• Anonymized and aggregated before being written to long-term storage
• Stored entirely within the LiveWhale architecture (your site’s filesystem and database)
• Never transmitted to or processed by third-party analytics providers

Where applicable, additional safeguards (such as minimum thresholds) are applied to avoid displaying very small data sets that could potentially identify individuals.

Analytics Tracking in LiveWhale 2.23+

LiveWhale Analytics data collection begins automatically in LiveWhale 2.23. Upgrading to LiveWhale 2.23 allows your site to begin accumulating anonymized, aggregated usage data ahead of upgrading to LiveWhale 3.0, so historical data is available once the 3.0 Reporting interfaces are enabled.

If you prefer not to collect this data, analytics collection can be disabled by adding the following in /livewhale/client/global.config.php:

$_LW->CONFIG['DISABLE_LIVEWHALE_ANALYTICS'] = true; // disable aggregate visitor statistics

When disabled, no analytics data will be collected or stored.