Last week I released Analytics Plugin for Confluence 1.2 on the Atlassian Plugin Exchange.

It’s been 6 months since the initial release which was only tested on Confluence 3.0. This time I’ve added a new dashboard section, full support for Confluence 3.1 & 3.2 and a pile of macro parameters as requested by Guy Fraser. The release notes are here. Confluence 3.3 is just around the corner, so I’ll add an update for that when it comes out.

Thank you

The Confluence community has shown a great deal of support and encouragement since the plugin was originally released. For example, Atlassian blogged about it before I got a chance to. So thanks to all for your support.

The plugin was name checked by Sherif Mansour – Atlassian’s Product Manager for Confluence in the Confluence State of the Union presentation at Atlassian Summit 2010 at the start of the month. Watch it all, but concentrate especially around 5:10!

This week Google approved the plugin for their Google Analytics Application Gallery — take a look here. The Apps Gallery has only been going for about a month so I’m really excited about being a part of it. The slight name change and new logo were done to fit in with the Application Gallery Policy.

In the future

The next release should support Confluence 3.3 and also complete tracking of all pages in a space — not just those with a URL starting /display/spaceKey/ — based on this hack :

// Add a page-level custom variable to record the space-key
if (typeof jQuery('meta[name=confluence-space-key]').attr("content") == 'string')
{
  pageTracker._setCustomVar(
    1, // This custom var is set to slot #1 of 5

    // The name acts as a kind of category for the user activity
    'confluence-space-key',    

    // This value of the custom variable
    jQuery('meta[name=confluence-space-key]').attr("content"), 

    3 // Sets the scope to page-level
  );
}

— If you want to use this hack now, try out this custom Google Analytics report which will allow you to take advantage of it now.

I’d also like to add full space specific tracking for attachments too.

A quick demo

And finally, this is what the new version looks like:

Related Posts

• Tracking Atlassian Confluence usage with Google Analytics
• 4 Useful Tips on Google Analytics Reporting for Confluence
• Announcing: Google Analytics plugin for Confluence – original release

I’ve previously written a number of posts about Confluence and Google Analytics (GA), including how to set up GA on Confluence and pointers for GA reports you should consider. Lastly, I wrote the Confluence Google Analytics Plugin (CGAP) which provides space specific GA reports from within Confluence.

However, I’ve not been entirely happy because there wasn’t a method to allow complete tracking of all space specific Confluence pages using CGAP or the reports that I’ve previously described.

This has been documented elsewhere, but briefly, the problem is with…

• pages with punctuation in the title e.g. This page is bad for Analytics, isn’t it? (hover on the link to see the URI)
• short URLs e.g. /x/2Bq9Ag
• space administration e.g. /spaces/spaceadmin.action?key=spaceKey
• page edits e.g./pages/editpage.action?pageId=XXXX
• page creation e.g. /pages/createpage.action?spaceKey=spaceKey&fromPageId=XXXX
• add/view attachments e.g. /pages/viewpageattachments.action?pageId=XXXX
• page history e.g. /pages/viewpreviousversions.action?pageId=XXXX
• view wiki markup e.g. /pages/viewpagesrc.action?pageId=XXXX

…and so on. I think you get the picture.

For any page where there is a real interaction with the wiki — such as page creation or page edits, attachment viewing or uploading — it is very difficult associate that interaction to the space where the interaction took place. Damn. That’s the main point really. Wikis are for collaboration — editing and creating content — not just passively reading.

It really bugs me that the URIs in Confluence aren’t built up so that they always provide a context of where you are. But what can we do?

This post suggests 2 possible solutions to this problem:

1. A Javascript only method
2. A Javascript and velocity templating method

Both have their drawbacks, but they do let you get a little closer to understanding what your users are doing within your Confluence spaces. Try them out and please report back on your preference or your own alternative solution.

The Javascript only method

In this method, we track a custom variable in GA where possible, so that we can attach a page view to the corresponding Confluence space.

Atlassian handily provide the following (example) meta tag on every page that has an associated space:

<meta id="confluence-space-key" name="confluence-space-key" content="~cczdas">

We can check for that meta tag and pass it into a custom variable in Google Analytics.

In Confluence, go to Dashboard | Administration | Look and Feel | Custom HTML

Click on the “Edit” button and add this javascript snippet (with your tracker code) to the “At end of the BODY” section:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">

	window.onload = function(){
		try
		{
			var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXX-XX");

			// Add a page-level custom variable to record the space-key
			if (typeof jQuery('meta[name=confluence-space-key]').attr("content") == 'string')
			{
				pageTracker._setCustomVar(
				     1,                         // This custom var is set to slot #1 of 5
				     'confluence-space-key',    // The name acts as a kind of category for the user activity
				     jQuery('meta[name=confluence-space-key]').attr("content"), // This value of the custom variable
				     3                          // Sets the scope to page-level
				);
			}
		}
		catch (err) {}
	}

</script>

This means for each page, we’ve added a custom variable which can later be check against. We can now therefore easily check which page belongs to which space.

In Google Analytics, the custom variables report looks like this:

This doesn’t really tell us much, other than the number of page views for a space and a little more. To get at the real power of custom variables, we need to create a custom segment for each space. This will allow us to see all the interactions for the space.

Here’s a short video guide to creating custom segments for Confluence spaces:

Pros

• It’s really simple. Anyone with Confluence administration rights can cut and paste this code.
• It’s pure. This should not be affected by upgrades to the platform.
• It’s easily to support. Lots of people know Javascript.

Cons

• You’re moving into slightly advanced Google Analytics territory here.
• You’ll need to set up a separate custom advanced segment for each space. This may be somewhat dull.

I really like this approach, but haven’t managed to successfully add it into CGAP yet whilst maintaining access to historical data.

Javascript and velocity templating method

In this method, we trick Google Analytics into reporting the URL in a the format that works with content drill-down e.g.

• /pages/viewpage.action?pageId=XXXX becomes /display/spaceKey/Page+Title
• /x/2Bq9Ag (short URL) becomes /display/spaceKey/Page+Title
• /pages/editpage.action?pageId=XXX becomes /display/spaceKey/Page+Title/edit
• /pages/viewpageattachments.action?pageId=XXX becomes /display/spaceKey/Page+Title/view-attachments

We do this by adding a custom meta tag named “analytics.url.fix” from which we read the “fixed” URL using a little Javascript.

Edits

page.vmd in your theme:

## Add Google Analytics support for page edits, attachment views etc.
## Called by $!sitemeshPage.getProperty("page.googleAnalyticsUrlFix") in main.vmd
<content tag="googleAnalyticsUrlFix">
	#if ($mode == "view")
		<meta name="analytics.url.fix" desc="$req.contextPath/display/$page.spaceKey/$page.title" />
	#else
		<meta name="analytics.url.fix" desc="$req.contextPath/display/$page.spaceKey/$page.title/$mode" />
	#end
</content>

main.vmd in your theme:
Add after the title node in /html/head/title

## Call the googleAnalyticsUrlFix content tag in page.vmd, fail silently:
$!sitemeshPage.getProperty("page.googleAnalyticsUrlFix")

In Confluence, go to Dashboard | Administration | Look and Feel | Custom HTML

Click on the “Edit” button and add this javascript snippet (with your tracker code) to the “At end of the BODY” section:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
	window.onload = function(){
		try
		{
			var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXX-X"); 

			// Test for the meta[name=analytics.url.fix] tag & fix the url
			if (typeof jQuery('meta[name=analytics.url.fix]').attr("content") == 'string')
			{
	 			// console.debug('corrected pageview');
	   			var pageUri = jQuery('meta[name=analytics.url.fix]').attr("content").replace(/s+/gi, '+');
				pageTracker._trackPageview(pageUri);
			}
			else
			{
				// console.debug('default pageview');
				pageTracker._trackPageview();
			}
		}
		catch (err) {}
	}
</script>

Pros

• You don’t have to do anything on the Google Analytics side at all
• This is just great for the content drilldown screen in Google Analytics.
  • It means that pages with punctuation in the title can now be seen within their correct space.
  • The space owners can now be sure of the stats for viewing and editing pages within their space.
• This is great for the Google Analytics plugin for Confluence (CGAP)
  • All the page edits should be shown in the analytics report
  • It’s easily supportable. Lots of people know Javascript

Cons

• It’s a bit messy.
• You’ll have to apply this to every theme you support.
• Editing velocity templates isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
• I’ve no idea what will happen when you upgrade Confluence.
• It niggles me that we’re sending incorrect (though easily readable) pageview data to Google Analytics.
• It still doesn’t tie everything to the space, just the page interactions

To my mind, this is less elegant, but provides pretty much instant results.

Which one to choose?

I really like the simplicity of the first solution. Just a little bit of Javascript to read a meta tag that’s already there. It’s likely to easily survive an upgrade. But I’m disappointed that as yet, I can’t get it to work nicely with CGAP.

For ongoing support reasons, I’d always say don’t mess with the platform. Don’t do anything which makes it more difficult to upgrade to the latest and greatest version. If you agree, then steer well clear of the latter option. If however, you absolutely have to start complete space specific tracking right now, no matter what, then the latter is then choice for you.

If someone using a desktop Twitter client (such as TweetDeck or Twirl) clicks on a link I’ve posted to my blog, the Google Analytics referer information will be blank. It registers as direct traffic to the website.

This is fine when linking to other people’s websites — I’m not worried about them — but I’d like to know where that traffic to my websites comes from.

I generally shorten URLs with a service like bit.ly (which does provide basic statistics on click throughs). The trouble here is that you still miss the referrer information on your Google Analytics account.

How can we capture that the source of the link was a Twitter post?

The Analytics Talk blog post — Twitter and Google Analytics: What to Track — gives a good solution to this problem.

Put simply, before you shorten the URL, add the following GA campaign request parameters to the end:
?utm_campaign=blog&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=micro-blog

e.g.
http://example.com/
becomes
http://example.com/?utm_campaign=blog&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=micro-blog

Now you can track referrers from Twitter clients within Google Analytics using
Traffic Sources | Campaigns. Nice.

Check out Twitter and Google Analytics: What to Track by Justin Cutroni for the details.

Aside: Justin’s Google Analytics Short Cut PDF book ($10 from O’Reilly) is a great read, but it was written in 2007 before the last GA update. I hope Justin gets the time to release an updated version soon.

Since I last added Google Analytics to a website, Google have changed from the old urchin.js file to the shiny new ga.js file. This means that I really ought to start using ga.js now.

The University of Nottingham uses Sungard’s Luminis portal system which produces some rather nasty looking URLs. Web analytics for this is rather a handful – bad URLs, multiple features per page (each of which we’d like to track) and often tracking would be nice across sub-domains.

With that in mind, and Google’s Tracking Code Migration Guide close at hand, I’ve written jGoogleAnalytics.js to allow me to track:

• clicks events
• form submit events
• cross subdomain
• cross domain (e.g. for eCommerce payment gateways hosted externally)
• new organic search engines
• all the features of Jason Huck’s GA jQuery integration

Download jGoogleAnalytics.js

Usage:

// At it's simplest
$.jGoogleAnalytics( 'UA-XXXXXX-X');

// More advanced version
$.jGoogleAnalytics(
	'UA-XXXXXX-X', // Your GA tracker code
	{
		anchorClick: false, // adds click tracking to *all* anchors
		clickEvents: null, // e.g. {'.popup': '/popup/nasty'}
		crossDomainSelector: false, // e.g. 'a.crossDomain'
		domainName: false, // e.g. 'nottingham.ac.uk'

		evalClickEvents: null, // e.g. {'#menu li a': "'/tabs/'+ $(this).text()"}
		evalSubmitEvents: null, // e.g. {'#menu li a': "'/tabs/'+ $(this).text()"}

		extensions: [
		'pdf','doc','xls','csv','jpg','gif', 'mp3',
		'swf','txt','ppt','zip','gz','dmg','xml'
		], // download extensions to track

		external: '/external/', // prefix to add to external links
		mailto: '/mailto/', // prefix to add to email addresses
		download: '/download/', // prefix to add to downloads

		organicSearch: null, // e.g. {'search-engine': 'query-term', 'google.nottingham.ac.uk': 'q'}
		pageViewsEnabled: true, // can be disabled e.g. if only tracking e.g. click events
		sampleRate: null, // e.g. 50 - set the sample rate at 50%
		submitEvents: {'#personUK': '/personsearch/uk'}
	}
);

I’ve not added any eCommerce tracking to this release as we simply don’t have the need for it.

If you use this script, pplease leave a comment!