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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.
Customizing IBM Digital Analytics events for Web 2.0 starter stores
You can customize events for IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics for Web 2.0 starter stores in three different ways.
Sending additional data to IBM Digital Analytics for a IBM Digital Analytics event
Each of the predefined events for IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics supports a set of parameters to provide the analytics data that IBM Digital Analytics requires. You can add custom parameters to the JSON object if required. Any custom parameters are appended to the end of the IBM Digital Analytics data tag.

Sending additional data to IBM Digital Analytics for a IBM Digital Analytics event

Each of the predefined events for IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics supports a set of parameters to provide the analytics data that IBM Digital Analytics requires. You can add custom parameters to the JSON object if required. Any custom parameters are appended to the end of the IBM Digital Analytics data tag.

Example

Consider a IBM Digital Analytics page view event with the following JSON object:


  { pagename: "Coffee Makers",
     referralURL: "http://www.google.ca",
     category: "Catalog" }

Because only the pagename and category parameters are known to the IBM Digital Analytics event listener, the following IBM Digital Analytics data tag is generated (the null values represent the known, but unspecified search parameters):


  cmCreatePageviewTag("Coffee Makers", "Catalog", null, 
     null, "http://www.google.ca")

Each IBM Digital Analytics event corresponds to a view, and each view corresponds to a view JSP file in the WC_eardir/Stores.war/ directory.


IBM Digital Analytics event	View	JSP
IBM Digital Analytics page view event	AnalyticsPageView	AnalyticsPageView.jsp
IBM Digital Analytics product view event	AnalyticsProductView	AnalyticsProductView.jsp
IBM Digital Analytics cart view event	AnalyticsShopcartView	AnalyticsShopcartView.jsp
IBM Digital Analytics registration view event	AnalyticsRegistrationView	AnalyticsRegistrationView.jsp
IBM Digital Analytics element event	AnalyticsElementView	AnalyticsElementView.jsp
IBM Digital Analytics conversion event	AnalyticsConversionEventView	AnalyticsConversionEventView.jsp

Each view generates the analytics data in JSON format for the corresponding IBM Digital Analytics event. The JSP file that creates the JSON object is made up of two parts:

The view JSP file, which generates the core data that IBM Digital Analytics requires.
The extension view JSP file fragment, which generates additional custom data.

For example, the AnalyticsElementView.jsp file includes the AnalyticsElementViewExtension.jspf file in the WC_eardir/Stores.war/Madisons directory. To customize the view JSP file, update the extension file.