This gem integrates Omniture SiteCatalyst into your web app.
gem install omniture_client
This gem provides the ability to track a Rails application at the controller level. I prefer a completely sever-side implementation as opposed to using Omniture's s_code.js. This gem supports using both; however, the majority of the examples will be for a completely
You create reporters in 'app/reporters' directory, which correspond to your controllers. The example I will use is a MoviesController. Omniture client will first attempt to use MoviesReporter. If you have not defined the MoviesReporter, then it will use the BasicReporter, which is what all controllers that do not have any special functionality should use. If you have not yet defined a BasicReporter, then it will use a stub that tracks nothing. You will pretty much always at least want a basic reporter, and for controllers that need to track special events or custom variables you should use a custom reporter.
rails_project/
../app
..../reporters
....../movies_reporter.rb
....../basic_reporter.rb
../config
..../omniture.yml
You must configure the Omniture namespace, suite(s), version that you wish to use. Optionally, you can set up aliases to make things easier for yourself when coding reporters. Omniture uses c1, e1, r, etc to represent custom variables, e_vars, the referrer, etc. These param names are obscure and can be hard to remember so you can set up aliases for them. From the example below movie_title repersents custom varibale 2 (c2).
# config/omniture.yml
development:
base_url: http://102.112.2O7.net
ssl_url: https://102.112.2O7.net
suite: suite1
version: G.4--NS
aliases:
search_term: c1
movie_titles: e1
referrer: r
As well as the omniture.yml you need to also add the app/reporters directory to your load path. So in your enviroment file add the 2 following lines:
# config/enviroment.rb
Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
config.load_paths += %W( #{RAILS_ROOT}/app/reporters )
config.gem "omniture_client"
end
Lastly, you need to specify which of your controllers you want to track. In most cases you will want to track all controllers so add this line to your application controller:
# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
reports_to_omniture
end
The view code is straight foward. This is img tag is what actually sends the information to Omniture. It should probably be the last element in the body tag.
# app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
<html>
<head>...</head>
<body>
....
<img style='display:none' src="<%= @controller.omniture_url %>">
</body>
</html>
Here is an example of a controller we would like to track: # app/controller/movies_controller.rb class MoviesController < ApplicationController
# Uncomment the next line if it is not in your application controller
# reports_to_omniture
def index
@movies = Movie.all
end
def show
@movie = Movie.find(params[:id])
end
def search
@keyword = params[:keyword]
@movies = Movie.search(@keyword)
end
end
Reporters have access to all controller instance variables and methods. Below we use the @movie instance variable and request instance method which are from the controller instance. Also, be aware of the omniture.yml configuration, :search_term and movie_titles are aliases specific to this movies example. In your app you will want to use c1 and c2 or set up your own aliases in your omniture.yml.
class MoviesReporter < OmnitureClient::Base
var :pageName do
page_name = "Movie Page"
end
# We can use any instance methods from the controller, here we use the `request` method
var :r do
request.referrer
end
# trigger event5 if user is doing a search and trigger event6 if movie is R rated
var :events do
events = []
events << 'event5' if action_name == 'search' && @keyword
events << 'event6' if action_name == 'show' && @movie.rating == "R"
events
end
var :search_term do
@keyword if action_name == 'search'
end
# list prop that is delimited by |
var :movie_titles, '|' do
@movies.map{ |movie| movie.title } if action_name == 'index'
end
end
The pageName param is an extremely important param, the most important in fact. The r param which represents the referrer is also very important. The page name will default the the URL if you do not specify it, which is probably what you do not want. For the purposes of simiplicity I made the page name simple but in reality you will want it to be something like this:
var :pageName do
case action_name
when 'show' : "Movie - #{@movie.title}"
else 'index' : "Movie List Page"
end
end
That is it to get the basics up and running with Rails.
Sometime there is a need to track events or other custom variables on the server side. To do this Omniture provides a SOAP API, however, I preferred an alternative method. I preferred to use Rails' flash to store the custom event or variable and append it to the img tag on the next page load. Here is an example of tracking a successful movie creation as an Omniture event (event7).
# app/controller/movies_controller.rb
class MoviesController < ApplicationController
def new
@movie = Movie.new
end
def create
@movie = Movie.new(params[:movie])
if @movie.save
flash[:notice] = 'Movie was successfully created.'
omniture_flash[:events] = 'event7'
redirect_to(@movie)
else
render :action => "new"
end
end
end
This gem works with any ruby web framework. However, some of the functionality like server-side tracking is only implemented for Rails. Here is an example using Omniture Client to track a Sinatra app.
# application.rb
require 'omniture_client'
OmnitureClient.config({
:base_url => 'http://102.112.2O7.net',
:ssl_url => 'https://102.112.2O7.net',
:suite => 'suite1',
:version=> 'G.4--NS',
:aliases => {
'search_terms' => 'c1'
}
})
helpers do
def reporter
SinatraReporter.new(self)
end
end
get '/' do
@title = "home"
haml :index
end
class SinatraReporter < OmnitureClient::Base
var :pageName do
@title
end
end
You will also need to render the img tag in your views since this is the bit that actually sends the request to Omniture.
# view/index.html.haml
%img{ :style => 'display:none', :src => reporter.url }
A javascript implementation is slightly more obstrusive; however, there are a few extra reports you get access to in the Omniture web tool (ie. click map). So all the server-side code remains the same except for the the variable names. For example, instead of c1 we use s.prop1. To have a javascript implementation, you also have to remove the img tag from your layout and add the reporter variables to the s_code.js. I will use a RJS for this example but you could can handle it a number of ways.
# config/omniture.yml
development:
base_url: http://102.112.2O7.net
ssl_url: https://102.112.2O7.net
suite: suite1
version: G.4--NS
aliases:
search_term: prop1
movie_titles: e_var1
Here are the following script tags you will need. If you includes these DO NOT render the img tag shown in the examples above.
<script language="javascript" src="//INSERT-DOMAIN-AND-PATH-TO-CODE-HERE/s_code.js"></script>
<script language="javascript">
//<![CDATA[
<% @controller.reporter.vars.each do |var| %>
s.<%= var.name %>="<%= var.value %>";
<% end %>
s.t();
//]]>
</script>