Content retrieval service (CRS) is enabled and managed by Acoustic with input from members of your application developers. CRS provides an efficient and automatic way of retrieving static content from URLs captured in sessions.

What is static content?

Static content are files (referenced in the pages of an application) that are unlikely to change during the course of a visitor's session. Examples include cascading stylesheets (CSS files), JavaScripts, and images (files in formats such as JPEG, GIF, and PNG).

Static content can include things like the navigation menu, your website logo, or any other information on the header or footer that does not depend on inputs from the visitor.

With CRS, you allow Acoustic cloud servers to retrieve static assets for you.

Note: Static assets need to be accessible on the website for about 1 day after sessions start using them, to give the CRS enough time to retrieve them.

When CRS is enabled, replay uses assets from the day of the session, rather than the time of the replay. This can be beneficial if the asset is s no longer available on your website when you replay the session days later.

If CRS has been enabled for your organization by Acoustic, you can access the CRS dashboard from the menu bar, by selecting user name > Admin and then selecting the Asset Manager tab.

Preparing to use CRS

Preparing to use CRS is a cooperative effort involving members of your organization and Acoustic.

Members of your team must provide Acoustic representatives a list of the domains and the file extensions that you want to capture before CRS is enabled.

Note: CRS does not retrieve static content that have the following file extensions:

• .js
• .pdf
• .doc
• .xls
• .php
• .txt

Benefits of using CRS to upload static content

• CRS is automated

  CRS captures static assets from sessions automatically, eliminating the need for users to upload static assets manually.

• Decreased "fetching" from your website

  CRS fetches once per URL, rather than once per replay, thereby reducing the number of times the static assets are downloaded from the original website.

  Without CRS, if you replay one thousand sessions that share the same static asset, Tealeaf could theoretically retrieve the static asset one thousand times. With CRS, Tealeaf retrieves your files once (per URL), regardless of the number of replays.

• Fix broken replays

  In cases where static assets are removed from your website.

Limitations of using CRS for uploading static content

• CRS requires a different URL per version of static asset

  A CRS implementation works only if your organization uses one URL per version of the static content. For example, if you have two versions of file.css, CRS needs 2 URLs (for example, www.domain.com/v1/file.css and www.domain.com/v2/file.css) to retrieve the asset.

• Do not add unique connection identifiers in the URL

  For example, do not include session ids (www.domain.com/v2/session123/file.css), security tokens (www.domain.com/v2/token234ews/file.css), or a dynamically generated file name in the URL (www.domain.com/hrs3e.css).

• Only URLs with a file extension are captured

  CRS ignores and does not download URLs without extensions.

• Replay rule limitations and considerations
  • UseProxy rule set to false is incompatible with CRS, and cannot be used.

    If your organization bypasses the Tealeaf Replay Proxy to retrieve static content, you must remove this rule if you want to use the CRS.

  • Replay rules that modify URLs impact the CRS

    Be aware that Replay rules that change URLs are going to be applied by the CRS before retrieving the static content.

  • Considerations for the Remap URL replay rule

    Before CRS existed, if an Tealeaf customer deleted old versions of their static asset from their website, they could use a Replay rule to change the URL to retrieve the latest version of the static asset.

    For example, if domain.com/v1/file.css no longer existed, but was still needed by an older session, the customer could use the RemapURL rule to change the URL to domain.com/*/file.css, where the domain.com/*/file.css would always retrieve the latest version of the file form their website. If you use the RemapURL rule in a similar manner and you are using CRS, CRS would retrieve the incorrect file.

    If you set ignoreFromCRS parameter to true in the RemapURL rule, CRS does not apply the rule when downloading the static asset, or when retrieving the asset from the Tealeaf CMS. The URL changes only when Replay cannot find the file in the CMS and must retrieve it from the original website.

File extensions supported by CRS

CRS supports retrieving static assets with the following file extensions.

• jpg
• jpeg
• png
• svg
• css
• ico
• wof
• eot
• tif
• tiff
• ttf
• bmp
• woff
• woff2
• otf
• gif

Monitor the status of assets retrieved by CRS

The CRS tab on the Asset Manager provides access to the CRS dashboard, where you can track the status of assets retrieved by the CRS.

For more information see, "Monitor the status of assets retrieved by the content retrieval service" in Manage replay assets from asset manager.