Using Properties

Introduction

Opentracker enables you to customize your data with properties. A property is a piece of information that give events, sessions and users meaning. You can add as many properties as you need.

What is a Property

  • A property is a name/ value pair you add to your events, to describe the event specifics or give it meaning; Wikipedia describes this concept: name/ value pairs.
  • You can set the properties of an event. These properties are automatically passed to the parent objects: users and sessions. After inserting an event with property name/ value, the session and user will also have this property name/ value.
  • The last provided property will be stored and can easily be updated by sending the same name with a new value.
  • At a minimum you need to send two (2) properties: The site/ app name si that should be registered and an event property, see below for examples. The engine will generate the user, sessions and events.
  • You can send as many events as you like.
  • You can add as many properties to an event as you want.

Properties that effect the user interface (see image below for example)

If you are using Opentracker's  javascript,  Android or  iOS app libraries, you automatically collect a wide range of properties. An example of what can be displayed is demonstrated in the screenshot of the visitor's profile (image displayed below). Certain properties are  reserved properties, these properties are used by the Opentracker engine to help render specific features or calculate certain reports.

User interface properties

The following properties automatically get updated in the user interface:
Property Function
title Users' title
firstName First Name
lastName Last Name
userName User Name
email Email address of a user
phone User's phone number
mobilePhone User's mobile phone number
fax User's fax number
street Street name
postalCode Postal or Zip Code
city City
state State or Region
countryCode 2-letter country code
user_description Description of the user (eg, partner, competitor, lead, etc)
source Source of user's origin (eg, google ad, emailing June, etc)
currency User's currency
website User's website (personal or business)
isConverted If conversion was established. Boolean (true:false)
rating Give the user a rating
hasOptedOutOfEmail Has this user opted out?
age Age
gender Male, Female
Image showing capturing of properties for event tracking.
Click here to see a fully working javascript example using properties to count events

Examples of properties

The following properties are examples of what can be sent to Opentracker's event engine.

email

Tag users by assigning them a name or custom id example 
ot_tag("email", "user@mysite.com");

Visible in:

  • Visits/Users Online: user profile hover, user profile expanded, column selector
  • Click/Event stream: user profile
  • Top Events

video

Currently only visible in visits/ users online column selector
If a visitor/ user watched a video example 
ot_tag("video", "Product presentation");

Visible in:

  • Visits/Users Online: user profile hover, user profile expanded, column selector
  • Click/Event stream: user profile
  • Top Events

audio

Currently only visible in Visits/Users Online column selector
If a visitor/ user listened to a audio file example 
ot_tag("audio", "Podcast week 12");

Visible in:

  • Visits/Users Online: user profile hover, user profile expanded, column selector
  • Click/Event stream: user profile, separate event with icon for easy identification
  • Top Lists: audio files

download

Currently only visible in Visits/Users Online column selector
If a visitor/ user downloaded file example 
ot_tag("downloadType", "pdf");
ot_tag("downloadName", "spec sheet");

Visible in:

  • Visits/Users Online: user profile hover, user profile expanded, column selector
  • Click/Event stream: user profile, separate event with icon for easy identification
  • Top Lists: audio files

print

Currently only visible in Visits/Users Online column selector
If a visitor/ user used a print button on your site example 
ot_tag("print", "page12");

Visible in:

  • Visits/Users Online: column selector
  • Click/Event stream: separate event with icon for easy identification
  • Top Lists: printed pages

exit link/ destination/ ad

If a visitor/ user used a link or add, leaving your site example 
ot_tag("exit link", "http://myexitlinkcom");

Visible in:

  • Users Online: column selector
  • Click/Event stream: serparate event with icon for easy identification
  • Navigation: Ads / exit links

Segments

Adding Custom segments is limited by your account type. See pricing page for details.
Opentracker allows you to specify custom segments so you can segment your data in the reporting interface. This will allow you to look at your data according to the segments you specify. You need to define your segment for each page-view/ event with our map functions. example 
ot_tag("segment", "frontend");

Visible in:

  • All reports based on Opentracker's events engine
  • Visits/ users online: column selector

Custom event url

Overwrite or replace the url that is recorded and shown in the interface This url will also be used for generating thumbnails, if turned on. example 
ot_tag("location", "http://my.domain.com/myurl.html");

Visible in:

  • Visits/Users Online
  • Click/Event streams
  • Navigation: multiple reports

Reserved property

Reserved properties are used by the engine's internal logic. We advise to first test with a test account before moving towards production.
Reserved property Function
si your  registered site, app or account
eid event id
sid session id, overrides any session id encapsulated in ots if given.
uid user id, overrides any user id encapsulated in otui if given.
ots session state data: A variable which keeps track of the state of a session. Keeping track of state is expensive, in terms of resources. The state (like how many pages has been viewed) is kept on the client. The state is a string of numbers build up as follows: .... You'll find this state being kept in cookies, or a file on android or iOS device. The state is used in many reports, for example to calculate how long a person looks at a page. The session id can be determined from this state value.
otui user state data: A variable which keeps track of the state of a user. ....., The state is used in many reports.
proxy If the request sending the data has the property name 'proxy' defined then this signifies that this is not the original source of the data. This is useful if you are updating information from a proxy and do not want the engine to automatically populate geographic and user-agent based data. The variable increment is automatically set to false.
increment [true| false] The variable increment is by default true, meaning that reports based on counting will work for this request. If proxy is set then this automatically set to false.
browser the browser being used for this request (automatically detected from the user agent if not given)
browserVersion the browser version being used for this request (automatically detected from the user agent if not given)
connection the connection for this request, for example Cable or ADSL (automatically detected if not given)
eh effective screen height
ew effective screen width
fv [true|false] is this visit the first session?
ignore [true|false] ignore this event in the clickstream
ip override the request's ip number with this ip number. all geographic data will map to this ip number
lc url of this event
locale the language/ locale used for this event
otor the original referrer of the user id; given as: eg: 1279273431384.http%3A//google.com
otpe the previous location (url), used to calculate viewed time for pages
otr the referrer of the sessions id; given as: eg: 1279273431384.http%3A//google.com
platform the platform making this request (Eg Windows/ OS X). If not given, then this is automatically detected from the user agent.
pix if set then this api request returns a single pixel, this is useful if you want the api to return an image
ref the current referrer
sc screen colors
sh screen height
sw screen width
ti the title of the event, this shows up in the user's clickstream
tz the timezone given

Requirements:

  • The Opentracker tracking javascript needs to be in the page and loaded before you submit the custom events.