The first screen that appears on logging in to Zstats is 'Add urls'.

At the top of each screen appears a menu of items clicking on which opens the respective screen.

Add urls: This is the first screen that appears on logging in and the primary one for using Zstats. Here you can generate short urls for your original urls. There is an input form of three fields for this purpose where you can input your data and submit it to get the short url required.

First field is for inputting original url which is to be shortened. The input url string, irrespective of url's physical existence, must be a valid url string http://mydomain.tld/myproducts/festivaloffer.html?item=prod12548

Second field is an optional field for attaching a description for your url. This description may help you get an idea about the url when you will have to review it later. Generally description includes details like where you gonna post the short url and what for etc.

Third filed is also an optional field for assigning your custom code for the short url to be generated. Filling this field gives you custom short urls of your own choice in place of script generated random urls. If you leave this field blank the script generates a random code for the short url.

Example: Suppose if you have installed your Zstats at http://mydomain.tld/promo/ and you want to generate a short url for your input url http://mydomain.tld/myproducts/festivaloffer.html?item=prod12548 then script generates an automatic short url something looks like http://mydomain.tld/promo/ax3. This is the short url generated for your input url. Instead of 'ax3' randomly generated code by script to assign to your input url you can choose your own code in place of script generated random code 'ax3' for your input url. For example if you want to generate a short url like http://mydomain.tld/promo/christmas_offer for your input url, you can do it so by inputting 'christmas_offer' through this third field.

Clicking on Add button after filling these fields to your choice generates a short url for your input url. Also the urls so generated by you are displayed in the table at the bottom of the screen. You can view or delete these urls by clicking on view, delete links displayed at the end of each row corresponding to the respective urls. If you are administrator you can edit the urls. Members see 'view' link while administrators see 'edit' link.

Clicking on the url in this table directly takes you to the 'View stats' screen where you can view the statistics related to that particular url.

Warning: Normally it is recommended not to delete a link after you posted it somewhere you have no control over. Suppose you generated short url and posted it in some forum. The deletion of short url later to its posting in the forum results into subsequent clicks on this short url gives a broken reference and you loose traffic coming from that forum for the deleted short url.

View stats: Once you created your urls and posted those somewhere, soon you get clicks by users and every click on your short url is recorded by Zstats. Details like time, date, referrer, IP, Qury string etc are recorded for every click on every url. Zstats also automatically resolves Country of origin for every click basing on respective IP addresses when you view the details of statistics.

Clicking on 'view stats' item on the top menu gives you the screen where you can view details of statistics related to all of your urls for whole period. You can also query statistics depending upon your choice.

* You can query details of statistics in a variety of ways. There are two drop down boxes one is for the urls and the other is for dates. If you want to view statistics related to a particular url you can just select it in the drop down box and details of clicks related to that particular url only will be displayed. Again you can select a particular date from the second drop down box and details of clicks for that particular url for that particular date will be displayed. In the same way you can first select a particular date and then a particular url. Though intermediate results are not the same for obvious reason the end result is the same in these two methods.

*** You can also select a particular url, or particular date or particular IP by directly clicking on them in the table of statistics.

A navigational header is displayed on the top of the details of statistics table to give you an idea about the particulars of statistics being viewed. At the end of each particular query phrase a close button appears and clicking on it removes the respective phrase from the query resulting into broadening of search from particular to general.

Query string: Query string is for advanced usage. Suppose you generated a short url http://mydomain.tld/promo/christmas_offer for http://mydomain.tld/myproducts/festivaloffer.html?item=prod12548 to post it somewhere so that people clicking on this short url be redirected to your original url. For example you want to post this short url at 'John doe's blog' & 'John Galt's blog' and you also want to distinguish the clicks recieved from these both blogs so that you can appraise the volume of clicks received from these both blogs separately. For this purpose you actually need to create two separate short urls for the same original url and post them in each blog so that you can have individual statistics available for the clicks received from each blog.

However creating more short urls for the same original url can be avoided by adding a query string at the end of short url and you can still distinguish the clicks received from each blog. When you post this short url you can add a query string of your own and this query string will be stored in details table. For this purpose add a query string like referer=Johndoe at the end of your short url like shown below

http://mydomain.tld/promo/christmas_offer?referer=johndoe and post it in 'john doe's blog' and

http://mydomain.tld/promo/christmas_offer?referer=johngalt and post it in 'john Galt's blog'

Remember! when you add query string to your short urls you must append your query string at the end of your short url immediately followed by a question mark and be sure that there are no spaces and special characters in query string.

Edit profile: This is screen for editing your profile. Remember the first user account you created when you install Zstats is administrator account. All subsequent sign ups are members.

Edit settings: Using this screen you can select how many number of clicks you can view per page in details of statistics table.

Change password: You can change your password here. If you forgot your password you need to click on the link supplied on the login screen to know your password as you cannot access this menu item.

Logout, Faq and Help items are self explanatory