Since I chose to use SIM to install it I had to rename the zip file to "sitecore 8.0 rev. 141212"
I was particularly interested in Experience Profile where I can obtain a wealth of information about a specific visitor: their goals met, their score, value per visit, pages visited, etc, etc, etc. My assumption was that there would be some out of the box visitor information, at least a list of visitors. But the list was blank. The problem was that to use any Sitecore analytics I had to wire up the Mongo DB first.
Instructions I followed came from
There was a problem I encountered with installation.
Steps to fix this error can be found at http://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/installation-error-key-not-valid-for-use-in-specified-state.html
Because I was only testing it on my local environment I could skip several steps in the process, such as moving the Mongo DB folder to another location or setting it up as a service. Setting up as a service allows automatic start of the Mongo DB when I power up my machine. But if you don't mind manually running the exe file then it's not an issue. The connection strings were set up automatically which was a bonus.
The next step was to install MongoVue (http://www.mongovue.com/) It allows visualization into the database after you add a connection.
I set a simple goal (home page visit event) and went to the site in the browser. The next step is going to Sitecore dashboard and click on Experience Profile. From there you can navigate to any visitor (provided there are some).
The overview tab on a visitor detail page is where achieved goals are listed (under Latest Events).
The overview tab on a visitor detail page is where achieved goals are listed (under Latest Events).
One more thing. I needed set the session timeout to 1 min instead of the default 20 minutes in the web config file. Otherwise I'd have to wait for 20 minutes for analytics data to be reflected in the profile.
<sesstionState mode="InProc" cookieless="false" timeout="1">
