Enable and read locator Analytics

Analytics is opt-in. Open Store Locator → Settings → Features, enable Analytics, choose Analytics retention (days), and save. New activity is then recorded in the plugin-owned analytics table; enabling it does not reconstruct past traffic.

Events the plugin records

Event	When it is recorded	Store attached?
Store view	A Store/detail record is viewed through the locator/detail flow	Yes
Search	The public search endpoint completes; the text term is retained when present	No
Direction	A visitor requests directions to a Store	Yes

The dashboard deliberately reports locator interactions, not page-view analytics for every WordPress request.

Read the Analytics screen

Open Store Locator → Analytics and select 7 days, 30 days, or 90 days.

• Store views, Searches, and Directions are totals inside the selected trailing window.
• Busiest day is the day with the greatest number of Store views.
• Views & searches plots daily values and fills days with no activity as zero.
• Top stores ranks up to ten Stores by view count.
• Top searches groups identical non-empty search terms and shows the ten most frequent.

Changing the range reloads all cards, chart values, and rankings; it is not merely a visual crop of the 90-day chart.

Retention and privacy

Retention accepts 0 for indefinite storage or a day count up to 3650. Expired rows are removed by scheduled cleanup, so deletion timing depends on WordPress cron receiving traffic or a real server cron invoking it.

Search terms can contain personal information typed by visitors. Choose retention deliberately and mention this data in the site's privacy notice where required. The plugin integrates with WordPress privacy exporter/eraser infrastructure and stores only a hash where an event needs an IP-derived identifier; it does not expose raw IP addresses in the Analytics screen.

When Analytics is empty

1. Confirm Settings → Features → Enable analytics is on.
2. Test while logged out and perform an actual Store view, text search, and Directions action.
3. Reload Analytics and use a range containing today's date.
4. Confirm REST requests to /wp-json/cliq-store-locator/v1/events are not blocked by a firewall/cache/security plugin.
5. Check that the WordPress database contains the plugin's store_views table.

Disabling Analytics stops new event recording but does not immediately erase retained rows. Use retention or uninstall behavior according to the site's data policy.