cxOverstat enables the capture of usability information from the visitor's web experience, as detected in the client and transmitted to Tealeaf. This information is anonymously collected for reporting purposes. Events can be used to specify specific conditions, such as a period of time, to record information.

Note: cxOverstat is a separately licensed product of the CX platform. For more information, contact your Acoustic representative.

When the cxOverstat JavaScripts are deployed on pages or ScreenViews of your web application, usability data such as X-Y location, relative location, and focal point are captured and transmitted to Tealeaf. A provided set of events is designed to capture the usability data.

You can optionally associate other events with usability dimensions by using the report group templates that are provided by Tealeaf.

Usability events

To support the tracking and recording of usability activities on your web application, Tealeaf provides a set of event objects to process usability data that is submitted in JSON format from the client framework.

The UI Capture solution provides more usability data that is not natively captured by Tealeaf. Specifically, you can create custom step messages to submit data of interest to you pertaining to the client activities of your web application.

cxOverstat usability data

cxOverstat data is submitted from the UI Capture solution, when it was enabled for cxOverstat.

cxOverstat data comes in the following forms:

cxOverstat objects must be enabled

In addition to providing the standard reporting and search capabilities, cxOverstat events are also used by the usability application itself.

For example, when the Tealeaf user displays the Form Analytics overlay in Browser Based Replay, the usability components in BBR query the Reporting database for the event data that pertains to form analysis for the current page or ScreenView.

Note: For correct capture and display of usability data in the cxOverstat overlays in Browser Based Replay, all hit attributes, events, and dimensions must be enabled through the Event Manager. By default, these objects are installed and enabled. Disabling can disable usability functions and data.

Event publishing

By default, the Canister publishes an event and its related dimensional data as soon as possible after it fires. With goal-based dimensions, the event and its data are not available until the end of the session, even though the event fires normally, as specified.

The firing of an event and its publication are different:

• Firing: When an event is evaluated to be true, it is deemed to "fire." In the Canister, when an event fires, a marker for the event is stored on the hit of the event where it was evaluated.
• Publishing: An event is considered to be published when the Canister makes the event and its recorded data available to other Tealeaf services, such as search indexing and the Data Collector.

GBD affects events and dimensions in the following ways:

• Events: Events that use goal-based dimensions still evaluate and fire normally. The results of the event evaluation are not written to the database or search indexes until the end of the session.

  Goal-based dimension events can be used as building blocks for other events between firing and the end of the session. They behave normally, except that goal-based dimensions must not be referenced.

• Dimensions: Goal-based dimensions are not evaluated at all until the end of session. Until the end of the session, these dimensions are NULL values.

  Note: Do not reference the value of a Goal Based Dimension in another event. The values are always NULL.
  Even for other End of Session events, it is not possible to guarantee that the dimension values are populated at the time that the other event is evaluated. It is still possible to record nulls for the dimensions that are associated with other End of Session events.

• Alerts: Since alerts do not use dimensions, alerts that are triggered on GBD events are generated at the time that the event fired, instead of at the time of event publication.
• Session Attributes: User-defined session attributes that reference GBD events are updated at the time that the event fires, instead of at the time of event publication.

When an event is published, the search index is populated with the event value and the related dimension values. If the dimension is configured for delayed publishing and the event is published immediately, then the search index is populated with the correct event value, yet all goal-based dimensions are recorded with NULL values. By forcing the event and the dimension to be published at the end of the session, the correct values for both event and dimension are recorded for indexing.

Note: The purpose of goal-based dimension events is to support the evaluation of dimensions later. As a result, all events that use Goal Based Dimensions must be published at the end of session, and thus cxOverstat does not contain any data about active sessions.

Data storage

After the cxOverstat step attributes and events are triggered, they are recorded in the standard locations for Tealeaf.

Session

When the Event Engine detects an event, it records the event as data in the request of the hit on which the event occurred, along with any related dimensional data. cxOverstat events are recorded in this manner.

Below is an example recording of the event + dimension combination in a request. These elements of data are written to the bottom of the request for each event that is triggered on the hit.

[TLFID_359]
Searchable=True
TLFID=359
TLFactValue=200
TLDimHash1=C6F8B06175B0630687EB80DF913A30CE
TLDimHash2=B0437419D4F0575FABDB726AAE61039C
TLDimHash3=3CFBA54F6873DFD55B0B09D32910B20E
TLDimHash4=0BDB5F014A7574C3B6DCCAD319321FED
TLDimHash5=7954797EAEBD4BD8B816EA63AF1CE05A
TLDimHash6=7954797EAEBD4BD8B816EA63AF1CE05A
TLDimHash7=7954797EAEBD4BD8B816EA63AF1CE05A
TLDimHash8=7954797EAEBD4BD8B816EA63AF1CE05A
TLDim1=/store/defaultpage
TLDim2=www.straussandplesser.com
TLDim3=store
TLDim4=206.169.17.19
TLDim5=TLT$NULL
TLDim6=TLT$NULL
TLDim7=TLT$NULL
TLDim8=TLT$NULL

For the listed event + dimension combination ([TLFID_359]), the event value (TLFactValue) is recorded for the Searchable event.

• Beneath the event value, each possible dimension value is listed in both hashed (TLDimHash) and standard (TLDim) form.
• Hashed dimension values are stored to support searching for dimension values that are longer than 32 characters.

Database

Usability data is stored as event counts of the predefined usability events. This data is stored in the Reporting database as normal event data. When a page or ScreenView for stored usability data is displayed in BBR, the application queries the Reporting database for the correct event counts to display in the selected overlay.

cxOverstat step attributes

To facilitate the tracking of usability data that is submitted from UI Capture, Tealeaf provides a set of step attributes to track this information.

• When cxOverstat is licensed and enabled, these attributes are automatically enabled and Tealeaf tracks usability data.
• A step attribute is a hit attribute that is configured to track values that are stored in JSON data that is submitted from a client framework.
• In the Events tab, these step attributes are contained in the System Step Attributes.

Note: If you are licensing cxOverstat for an existing Tealeaf installation, you must use the Upgrader to install the cxOverstat event objects.