We use event and visit tracking to better recognize our user's needs. On the backend, we record our controllers and actions. On the client side, we track page's visited, elements clicked, and provide functions for JavaScript triggered events. Our primary tracking mechanism is based on the ahoy_matey gem.
For more information about Ahoy go to the repo page.
Our backend activity is tracked using a after_action filter.
# application_controller.rb
after_action :track_action
def track_action
ahoy.track "Processed #{controller_name}##{action_name}", request.filtered_parameters
end
Specific events can be tracked via Ruby events using the following:
ahoy.track "Viewed book", title: "Hot, Flat, and Crowded"
Our frontend is tracked using JavaScript. The ahoy.trackAll(); function in application.js tracks page view and click activity and stores it in the Visit model.
Specific events can be tracked via JavaScript events using the following:
ahoy.track("Viewed book", {title: "The World is Flat"});
The the current_user is automatically attached to the visit.
New proposals, reports and comments are generated with a visit_id column. The visit_id corresponds to the session visit associated with the model's creation. The visit can be used to observe a user's clickstream.
The visit association is done in the model using visitable and adding a UUID visit_id column.
By default, a new visit is created after 4 hours of inactivity.
Ahoy is built with developers in mind. You can run the following code in your browser’s console.
Force a new visit
ahoy.reset(); // then reload the page
Log messages
ahoy.debug();
Turn off logging
ahoy.debug(false);
Debug endpoint requests in Ruby
Ahoy.quiet = false
Visit and Event data can be viewed in the ActiveAdmin panel, usnder the Tracking menu item.
