I have tried to get the client ID with custom javascript but it cannot return the value. Below is the code is tried. Would like to seek help from all experts. Thanks.
function () {
return function () {
try {
var trackers = ga.getAll();
trackers.forEach(function(tracker) {
var cid = tracker.get('clientId');
tracker.set('dimension1', cid);
});
} catch (e) {}
}
}
It cannot return a normal client ID
Your custom variable returns a function, not a value (since the function is never actually executed).
A better way to get the clientId for each current tracker is to use a custom task in Google Analytics (tasks are basically individual steps in the tracker lifecycle, from checking if a client id exists to assemble the payload to actually sending the data). A task is a Javascript function that is added to the GA tag via the "set fields" configuration. Tasks have access to the tracker data model and can add, remove or modify values from the payload.
The only task you can use via GTM is the customTask, which as the name suggests, adds custom capabilities to the tracker.
If you create a custom javascript variable called e.g. "getClientId" with the following code:
function() {
// Modify customDimensionIndex to match the index number you want to send the data to
var customDimensionIndex = 5;
return function(model) {
model.set('dimension' + customDimensionIndex, model.get('clientId'));
}
}
then go to your GA settings tag, and in the "set field" configuration set the field name "customTask" with the variable as value, the clientId will be extracted from the data model and added to the payload as custom dimension.
Better than my explanation is Simo Ahavas GTM tip for setting the client id via custom tasks.
Related
How do I remove URL params from getting pushed to GA4 through GTM? I have tried many solutions but none seem to be working.
Which key in "Fields to Set" do I need to use so GTM replaces the url query param from all dimensions like page_path, page_location, path_referrer?
This article has been my life saver when dealing with URL params in GA4, but please use my experience and avoid the mistake of applying the script directly to page_location.
page_location is what I call a technical dimension that GA4 uses to sort referring websites according to its internal rules and do any other GA4 things. Remove URL params from page_location using GTM, and you'll stop seeing all channels, reliant on UTMs—so paid search, display, paid social, email etc (provided you use UTMs, of course). Don't forget: in this case, you remove the URL params in GTM before they get in GA, so if GTM strips params out, GA doesn't see them.
To illustrate my mistake, this is how my GA4 configuration tag in GTM looked like initially:
Bad idea. Don't touch page_location.
The best approach is to just create your own dimension which you would use to store 'clean' URLs, say, page_URI. The reason: you stop relying on GA built-in dimensions that (potentially) are prone to change and you create something of your own that you will have control over and can add to any event as a dimension.
Below is my version of the script in GTM, deployed as a Custom Javascript Variable:
function() {
var params = ['hash', 'email', 'utm_source', 'utm_medium', 'utm_campaign', 'utm_content', 'utm_term', 'gclid', 'fbclid', 'mc_cid', 'mc_eid', 'msclkid']; //Add URL params to be excluded from page URI
var a = document.createElement('a');
var param,
qps,
iop,
ioe,
i;
a.href = {{Page URL}};
if (a.search) {
qps = '&' + a.search.replace('?', '') + '&';
for (i = 0; i < params.length; i++) {
param = params[i];
iop = qps.indexOf('&' + param + '=');
if(iop > -1) {
ioe = qps.indexOf('&', iop + 1);
qps = qps.slice(0, iop) + qps.slice(ioe, qps.length);
}
}
a.search = qps.slice(1, qps.length - 1);
}
return a.href;
}
Two things to mention about the code:
List all params you want to strip out in the array params;
a.href = {{Page URL}} - the code makes use of GTM's built-in variable Page URL (hence double curly brackets) that captures the full URL (without hostname, though). If you feel fancy, you can replace it with plain JS.
So the code above now populates the GTM field/GA4 dimension page_URI in the main configuration tag and any other tags, where I think having a clean URI is useful:
I do realize that this approach uses up one GA4 dimension, but it's a price I'm willing to pay to have a clean URL in the absence of a better solution.
In the GA4 tag in GTM try to set page_location as Field to Set and a Custom JavaScript Variable as value with this definition:
function(){
return document.location.hostname + document.location.pathname;
}
i.e. (note: App+Web is old name of GA4):
You can also use the following JavaScript in the custom JavaScript variable instead of the custom JavaScript mentioned above.
In this custom JavaScript instead of creating a new anchor element, we simply are taking the full page URL and then using the JavaScript's in-built URL() method to convert it to a proper URL that can be programmatically managed and then manage it according to the need.
I'm sharing my script below:
Step 1
Create a custom JavaScript variable inside your GTM and add the following JavaScript code into it.
function() {
// Set the array with the list of query string you would like to remove being shown up in Google Analytics 4
var excuded_query_params = [
'add',
'the',
'query',
'strings',
'you',
'would',
'like',
'to',
'be',
'removed',
'from',
'GA4',
'analytics',
'report'
]
// Get the full Page URL from GTM in-build variables
var page_url_string = {{Page URL}}
// Convert the received URL from string format to URL format
var page_url = new URL( page_url_string )
var page_url_copy = new URL( page_url_string )
// Loop through the query parameters in the URL and if there is any query param which is in the excluded list,
// remove that from the full URL
page_url_copy.searchParams.forEach( function(param_value, param_name) {
if( excuded_query_params.includes( param_name ) ) {
page_url.searchParams.delete( param_name )
}
} )
// Return the final URL
return page_url.toString()
}
Please Note: as we are going to replace the value of page_location a default GA4 variable's data - it is highly recommended that you do not remove the utm_ query parameters from the URL as GA4 reports use that data internally and that may lead to report breaking. So, it's best that you do not remove query parameters like utm_souyrce, utm_campaign etc.
Step 2
Inside your GA4 Configuration Tag, click on Fields to Set and add a new field with the Field Name set as page_location and value set as this custom JavaScript variable.
Step 3
Now it's time to preview inside GTM and deeply.
I want to send an email with a content related to my data such as in following piece of code I found on Datasource script of Google AppMaker Project Tracker template. But I don't understand how it works. How that data.modifiedBy reflect to the record in my datasource?
Any help from the floors? Thanks ..
Look at the Notifications server side script in the template.
It has method notifyAboutItemChanges_ which is passing the data to this record.
function notifyAboutItemChanges_(changes) {
var settings = getAppSettingsRecord_()[0];
if (!settings.EnableEmailNotifications) {
return;
}
var data = {
appUrl: settings.AppUrl,
itemType: changes[0].Type,
itemKey: changes[0]._key,
itemName: changes[0].Name,
modifiedBy: changes[0].ModifiedBy,
changes: changes
};
// Email subject.
var subjectTemplate =
HtmlService.createTemplate(settings.NotificationEmailSubject);
}
This function is passing this data to your settings record.
So no magic here :) You need to pass the data to your record which will be replaced at run time with the values.
For more details on Email refer this sample app.
I'm in the process of learning meteor. I followed the tutorial to create microscope. If some one submits a post meteor will re render the template for all users. This could be very annoying if there are hundreds of posts then the user will come back to the top of the page and loose track of where he was. I want to implement something similar to what facebook has. When a new post is submitted template isn't rendered rather, a button or link will appear. Clicking it will cause the template to re-render and show the new posts.
I was thinking of using observeChanges on the collection to detect any changes and it does stop the page from showing new posts but only way to show them is to reload the page.
Meteor.publish('posts', function(options) {
var self = this, postHandle = null;
var initializing = true;
postHandle = Posts.find({}, options).observeChanges({
added: function(id, post) {
if (initializing){
self.added('posts', id, post);
}
},
changed: function(id, fields) {
self.changed('posts', id, fields);
}
});
self.ready();
initializing = false;
self.onStop(function() { postHandle.stop(); });
});
Is this the right path to take? If yes, how do I alert the user of new posts? Else, what would be a better way to implement this?
Thank you
This is a tricky question but also valuable as it pertains to a design pattern that is applicable in many instances. One of the key aspects is wanting to know that there is new data but not wanting to show it (yet) to the user. We can also assume that when the user does want to see the data, they probably don't want to wait for it to be loaded into the client (just like Facebook). This means that the client still needs to cache the data as it arrives, just not display it immediately.
Therefore, you probably don't want to restrict the data displayed in the publication - because this won't send the data to the client. Rather, you want to send all the (relevant) data to the client and cache it there until it is ready.
The easiest way involves having a timestamp in your data to work from. You can then couple this with a Reactive Variable to only add new documents to your displayed set when that Reactive Variable changes. Something like this (code will probably be in different files):
// Within the template where you want to show your data
Template.myTemplate.onCreated(function() {
var self = this;
var options = null; // Define non-time options
// Subscribe to the data so everything is loaded into the client
// Include relevant options to limit data but exclude timestamps
self.subscribe("posts", options);
// Create and initialise a reactive variable with the current date
self.loadedTime = new ReactiveVar(new Date());
// Create a reactive variable to see when new data is available
// Create an autorun for whenever the subscription changes ready() state
// Ignore the first run as ready() should be false
// Subsequent false values indicate new data is arriving
self.newData = new ReactiveVar(false);
self.autorun(function(computation) {
if(!computation.firstRun) {
if(!self.subscriptionsReady()) {
self.newData.set(true);
}
}
});
});
// Fetch the relevant data from that subscribed (cached) within the client
// Assume this will be within the template helper
// Use the value (get()) of the Reactive Variable
Template.myTemplate.helpers({
displayedPosts = function() {
return Posts.find({timestamp: {$lt: Template.instance().loadedTime.get()}});
},
// Second helper to determine whether or not new data is available
// Can be used in the template to notify the user
newData = function() {
return Template.instance().newData.get();
});
// Update the Reactive Variable to the current time
// Assume this takes place within the template helper
// Assume you have button (or similar) with a "reload" class
Template.myTemplate.events({
'click .reLoad' = function(event, template) {
template.loadedTime.set(new Date());
}
});
I think this is the simplest pattern to cover all of the points you raise. It gets more complicated if you don't have a timestamp, you have multiple subscriptions (then need to use the subscription handles) etc. Hope this helps!
As Duncan said in his answer, ReactiveVar is the way to go. I've actually implemented a simple facebook feed page with meteor where I display the public posts from a certain page. I use infinite scroll to keep adding posts to the bottom of the page and store them in a ReactiveVar. Check the sources on github here and the live demo here. Hope it helps!
Here is the problem :
I am currently programming a chatapp based on what i found on github (https://github.com/sasikanth513/chatDemo)
I am refactoring it with iron-router.
When I go to the page (clicking on the link) I get an existing chatroom (that's what I want)
When I refresh the page (F5) I get a new created chatroom ! (what i want is getting the existing chatroom ...)
Here is the code in ironrouter :
Router.route('/chatroom', {
name: 'chatroom',
data: function() {
var currentId = Session.get('currentId'); //id of the other person
var res=ChatRooms.findOne({chatIds:{$all:[currentId,Meteor.userId()]}});
console.log(res);
if(res){
Session.set("roomid",res._id);
}
else{
var newRoom= ChatRooms.insert({chatIds:[currentId, Meteor.userId()],messages:[]});
Session.set('roomid',newRoom);
}
}
});
You can find my github repo with the whole project : https://github.com/balibou/textr
Thanx a lot !
Your route data depends on Session variables which will be erased after a refresh. You have a few options but the easiest would be to put the room id directly into the route: '/chatroom/:_id'. Then you can use this.params._id to fetch the appropriate ChatRooms document. Note that you could still keep '/chatroom' for cases where the room doesn't exist, however you'd need to redirect to '/chatroom/:_id' after the insert.
In meteor, the Session object is empty when the client starts, and loading/refreshing the page via HTTP "restarts" the client. To deal with this issue, you could persist the user's correspondent id in a Meteor.user attribute, so that you could easily do:
Router.route('/chatroom', {
name: 'chatroom',
data: function() {
var currentId = Meteor.user().profile.correspondentId;
var res=ChatRooms.findOne({chatIds:{$all:[currentId,Meteor.userId()]}});
console.log(res);
if(res){
Session.set("roomid",res._id);
}
else{
var newRoom= ChatRooms.insert({chatIds:[currentId, Meteor.userId()],messages:[]});
Session.set('roomid',newRoom);
}
}
});
This would work, with the proper permissions, but I would recommend not allowing the direct update of that value on the client (I don't know if you want users to be able to override their correspondentId). So if you want to secure this process, replace all that code with a server method call, where your updates are safer.
Another (and more common case) solution was given by David Weldon, if you don't mind having ids in your URL (and therefore not a single url)
I have a mysql database with the tables "deliverables", "tags" and "deliverables_has_tags". I want to link tags to a deliverable.
This is what I do in my javascript file:
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
$(function () {
var object = {};
$.ajax({
type: "GET",
url: "/Deliverable/Tags",
dataType: "json",
success: function (data) {
object.tags = data;
}
});
function split(val) {
return val.split(/,\s*/);
}
function extractLast(term) {
return split(term).pop();
}
$("#tags")
// don't navigate away from the field on tab when selecting an item
.bind("keydown", function (event) {
if (event.keyCode === $.ui.keyCode.TAB &&
$(this).data("ui-autocomplete").menu.active) {
event.preventDefault();
}
})
.autocomplete({
minLength: 0,
source: function (request, response) {
// delegate back to autocomplete, but extract the last term
response($.ui.autocomplete.filter(
object.tags, extractLast(request.term)));
},
focus: function () {
// prevent value inserted on focus
return false;
},
select: function (event, ui) {
var terms = split(this.value);
// remove the current input
terms.pop();
// add the selected item
terms.push(ui.item.value);
// add placeholder to get the comma-and-space at the end
terms.push("");
this.value = terms.join(", ");
return false;
}
});
});
</script>
I can add multiple tags in my textbox.
But now I want to save this in my repository.
In my Action method in controller:
repository.AddDeliverable(model.Title, model.Description, model.UsernameID, data, datatwo, model.VideoUrl, model.AfstudeerrichtingID, model.ProjectID);
Tags action:
public JsonResult Tags()
{
var data = (repository.GetTags()).ToArray();
return Json(data, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}
In my repository:
public IQueryable<string> GetTags()
{
return from tag in entities.tags
orderby tag.tag_name
select tag.tag_name;
}
I have no clue how to save this in my database.
Can anybody help me?
If I correctly understood your question, you have implemented your tag handling as follows:
There is MVC action method that returns the view with input placeholder containing no data
The placeholder itself is probably input type=text with id=tags
On 'dom ready' you fire ajax request to retrieve your tags from database, json-serialized as array; when it arrives you store it to tags variable (no error handling(!))
At the same time you decorate your input with jqueryui autocomplete that reacts on user input and returns items from the tags variable
Since input already contains tags (comma separated), your filter is first letters of the last tag
So, you have a situation when user has input a few comma separated tags (probably some of them can be new) and now wants to save it to the database. For each input, if that is a known tag you have to store it to "deliverables_has_tags". If there is a new tag, you have to store it both to "tags" and "deliverables_has_tags".
Most common scenario would be having a 'Save' button to start saving process.
Let's analyze what you have to do in the process.
1) Button click
On button click you use js to convert your comma separated tags string
using logic like split(term) to the array, and serialize it. You can
do serialization using serializeArray and manually create JSON
object, or serialize the whole form using
$('#yourForm').serialize(). I would choose the first option
because that way I get more control over JSON format and avoid
problems with MVC default model binder.
2) Ajax call
When the JSON object is ready to be sent, you fire an ajax POST
request to your MVC POST action method. When you save state always
avoid GET because new versions of browsers can scan thru your page and
actively preload urls using GET requests. You don't want this here. Of
course, use your data as a data-parameter in the ajax call.
3) Action method
When the request arrives, you have to process it in your controller
using a new action method. Typically in this case you will have
something like public JsonResult SaveTags(SaveTagsModel saveTags) {
... } which saves tags using your repository and returns result that
says something like 'OK' or 'ERROR' (sth like
response.isSaved=true/false). Tricky part can be designing view model
according to your JSON object - this could help. And regarding
collections this could be valuable info.
When saving, use transaction to ensure everything is saved at once.
First check if each tag exists in the database and insert those who
don't exist. After that, check for each tag if there is appropriate
n-n relation in deliverables_has_tags and insert it if there isn't.
I believe that you should use same repository encapsulation for both
operations.
In the post action, include FormCollection collection as argument and gather your tags from that. There is no automatic way. You could implement some custom model binding, but that is probably not worth the effort.