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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to IBM WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0.0.9 and Feautre Pack 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in new editions.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Presentation layer
WebSphere Commerce uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The view layer is in charge of retrieving data from the database through the use of data beans and formatting it to meet the display requirements. The view layers determines whether the request is sent to a browser or streamed out as XML. JSP files present a clean separation between data content and presentation.
Analytics for IBM WebSphere Commerce
WebSphere Commerce provides a framework that you can configure to integrate your store with an external Web analytics solution. This framework includes a tag library that you can use in store page JSP files to provide appropriate analytics information to the external analytics system.
Integrating a store with IBM Digital Analytics for WebSphere Commerce
WebSphere Commerce provides a framework and tools to simplify the process of setting up your site to use IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics. IBM Digital Analytics is an industry leading hosted web analytics solution. The framework is implemented as a tag library designed to act as an intermediary layer between WebSphere Commerce and IBM Digital Analytics. The tools include an auto tagging utility to place analytics tags in your store pages. The tools also include a utility to generate a file that contains your catalog hierarchy for IBM Digital Analytics. This solution can significantly reduce the time that is required to deploy web analytics
IBM Digital Analytics integration with Web 2.0 starter stores
The WebSphere Commerce Web 2.0 starter stores use Rich Internet Application (RIA) technologies such as Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Dojo widgets. With these technologies certain customer interactions with store page content do not result in a full page refresh. IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics provides a framework to track these intrapage interactions, in addition to interactions that result in a full-page refresh. This framework ensures that IBM Digital Analytics collects accurate analytics data about how customers are using your Web 2.0 store.
IBM Digital Analytics events
The event listener for IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics is a JavaScript object that is incorporated into the store JSP file. The IBM Digital Analytics event listener detects IBM Digital Analytics events and calls the appropriate IBM Digital Analytics tag functions. The tag functions forward the analytics data to IBM Digital Analytics.
IBM Digital Analytics element event
When the event listener for IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics detects a IBM Digital Analytics element event, the event listener calls the IBM Digital Analytics cmCreateElementTag function.

IBM Digital Analytics element event

When the event listener for IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics detects a IBM Digital Analytics element event, the event listener calls the IBM Digital Analytics cmCreateElementTag function.

The IBM Digital Analytics element event gathers the following data to populate the IBM Digital Analytics cmCreateElementTag data tag:

elementId: A required parameter that specifies an identifier for the element that the customer is interacting with. This identifier should be a distinct name for the element such as Product Fast Finder.
category: An optional parameter that specifies the category of the particular element.
pageId: An optional parameter that specifies the ID of the page on which the element is located. By default, the pageId is used as the title of the page.
pageCategory: An optional parameter that specifies the category of the page on which the element is located.
location: An optional parameter that specifies the location of the element on the page, for example, top navigation or sidebar.
storeId: An optional parameter that is the store ID of the store to which the page currently being viewed belongs. If you do not include this parameter, the storeId value is extracted from the current URL.