David Scott Blackburn

My Application Usage Tracking System This document explains why the system was developed, its design and implementation. Business Requirements Need to track the web application usage. How often is the application accessed, how many different users access the system, what features of the site are accessed, and how these visits change over time. System Requirements A simple system was decided upon. A system to keep track of who, where, and when a particular web page is visited. This information will be stored when a page is accessed. The information captured is simple: • • • Place Visited, this value is supplied when the tracking is made. When Visit is made, this value is generated when the tracking is made. Who is Visiting, this value is stored and is accessible by all other tracking calls. In order to standardize the Place value and give more meaning to the places visited, a list of places will be created. This way, the places can be better organized for later study and more meaning can be derived from the tracking information. When will be a timestamp taken at the time when the visit is made. Who, the Id of the tracked user. Takes much more thought of how to implement. A simple non-intrusive method needs to be devised to identify who is tracked. After much thought, the initial who id will be a string version of the first timestamp taken by the system. This value will be stored on the client so that further tracking can access this value. The storage of the who id has caused a lot of problems. This is discussed at the end of this document. Design What needs to be created then is a place (Database Table) to store the tracking data(Data Structure); a standard method of writing the information to the data store (Stored Procedure); a standard method of that method (Web API); finally, JavaScript functions and a .Net Class needs to be developed so that JavaScript and ASP.Net code can make tracking calls. In detail this is defined as • • • • • • • • Database Table: Tracking Data Structure: ReqTrackingInfo - Request Tracking Information Stored Procedure: addTrackingInfo Web API: This will be handled by the site’s - MyWebAPI JavaScript Function: TrackIt() C# Class: Tracker JavaScript Usage: trackIt("ProductionTimer"); C# Usage: Tracker tracker = new Tracker(Request, Response); tracker.addUsage("Gallery"); Tracking System Database Tables Contact * Tracking * Column Name Data Type Column Name Allow Nulls Data Type place nvarchar(20) ContactId int who nvarchar(30) Name nvarchar(50) whenTS datetime2(7) Email nvarchar(50) VisitorType nvarchar(30) Comment nvarchar(254) Who nvarchar(30) Rating tinyint Actual bit Created datetime2(7) Allow Nulls WhoControlTable * Column Name Places * Column Name Data Type Place nvarchar(20) ParentPlace nvarchar(20) DisplayName nvarchar(50) KeyPlaceName nvarchar(20) SortOrder int SortOrderKey int IsGeneral bit IsKey bit IsApplication bit Allow Nulls Data Type Who nvarchar(30) Name nvarchar(50) ContactEmail nvarchar(50) Created datetime2(7) Verified bit CreatedPlace nvarchar(20) Allow Nulls Place to CreatedPlace Place to App ConnectedUser * Column Name Data Type Who nvarchar(30) App nvarchar(20) AppWhoId nvarchar(30) Allow Nulls The primary table is the Tracking table The primary key to the tracking table is the When Time Stamp as it is the field that will always unique in this table under the usage of this application. The Places table controls the values used in the Place column. The who control table, along with the Connected User tables are temporary tables used to analyze who is using the entire system and is used to connect tracking system to the Contact table and to other applications controlled by the system such as the Notebook and Production Timer apps. Data Structure ReqTrackingInfo – Request Tracking Information public class ReqTrackingInfo { public string Place { get; set; } public string Who { get; set; } public string WhenTS { get; set; } } Stored Procedure A very simple stored procedure addTrackingInfo that takes 3 parameters, place, who and when. These are for simplicity all variable character parameters. The when variable is converted to a timestamp. These values are inserted into the Tracking Table. addTrackingInfo @place @who @when NVARCHAR(20), NVARCHAR(30), NVARCHAR(30) Web API MyWebAPI is the API Controller that handles the Posted REST call to the http://www.DSBburn.com/api/MyWebApi/Track URL with the payload contained in the ReqTrackingInfo data structure. This action then makes a call to the Stored Procedure addTrackingInfo. JavaScript Function to set tracking information function trackIt(placeName) This function does the following: Creates a local persistent cookie for the current web page that tracks when the page was visited. If a cookie already exists, then use it otherwise create a new one. If this is a return visit that has occurred within 10 minutes then return with no tracking information saved. Otherwise save the current time. Retrieve the who session variable value. If It doesn’t exist then retrieve the general cookie value for the who id. If that doesn’t exist then create a new who id, and store the value as a general cookie. Set the session variable value to the cookie value. Set the ReqTrackingInfo data structure. Make an AJAX call to the Web API using the ReqTrackingInfo data structure. The Web API does not return any value. C# Class This class is accessible for any ASP.NET MVC application that uses the Tracker system. The addUsage method will act similarly to the JavaScript TrackIt() function. JavaScript Usage The way to use this function is to within an initialization function call the TrackIt() function. This is done by doing the following: 1. Define in the HTML as part of the tag an onload JavaScript event function 2. Define the event function function initializeForm() { extractCookies(); trackIt("ProductionTimer"); … } Note that the extractCookies(); is a function that extracts all of the app level cookies this needs to be done outside of the function so that the local cookies and general cookies are extracted. This will store the visited place ProductionTimer. C#/ASP.Net MVC Usage In order to use the Tracker class you must reference its namespace. The suggested place to place the call define and call the addUsage method is in the controller class that defines the web page’s view. For instance in the DSBburnAbout page it would be in the Default Controller’s Abouit ActionResult method. It would look like this… public ActionResult About() { Tracker tracker = new Tracker(Request, Response); tracker.addUsage("DSBBurnAbout"); return View(); } The Who Problem The main problem I have had with this system has been persisting on the client side the Who value. The first thing I tried was using cookies. However, many phone browsers and computer users either reject or don’t allow persistent cookies. A partial solution was to use session variable. The first time accessed the who cookie was accessed, if it didn’t exist then a new who value was created, regardless this who value was then stored as a session variable and this value would be used for the current and subsequent session tracking. However, it appears that mobile browsers do always utilize session data. Another solution needs to be found to solve this problem. This is not a high priority problem. There is a work around at the reporting end and it will do until this problem is fully resolved.