A significant benefit of working online is that everything is already in a data format - we log "everything"! So there is a good foundation for providing effective reports. The skill is to understand what you are looking for, its' relevance to assessing key performance indicators.
Typically a web service will log the activity on web pages. As a User browses from page to page, the web server responds by sending files and other data to the User. This is usually all logged on a continuous basis, in simple txt log files. But these files only tell a small part of the story.
They won't necessarily record the on-page activity nor be able to put any of this into context. Your web service platform must do this.
In our Xpor platform we watch "everything" that is going on. If a User changes something, we log who that was and what they did. (We also provide a roll back feature for many of those actions).
The administrator can access this logged activity and generate reports as required. Who did what, when and in what context.
For those people who have developed knowledge and skills with Google Analytics, the GA service can be easily plugged into your web service and applied to all / any of the sites pages.
Please contact us for further information and a demonstration of how effective a well-reported web service can be.