Google Analytics tracking for Alfresco Share

Author: Will Abson

This project defines a tracking module which can be used to track usage of Share using Google Analytics.

Tracking can be enabled on a per-site basis by adding the supplied Trackable Container aspect to the site folder, using the Repository Browser. The Tracking Enabled property supplied by the aspect must be set to true, and the Tracking UID property should be set to the value of your Google Analytics site ID, i.e. UA-xxxxxx-x.

Alternatively, global tracking of Share usage can be enabled by setting <global>true</global> in the supplied configuration file org/alfresco/components/tracking/footer.get.config.xml.

The add-on should work with Alfresco version 3.3 and greater.

Installation

The component is packaged as a single JAR file for easy installation into Alfresco Share.

To install the component, simply drop the google-analytics-tracking-<version>.jar file into the tomcat/shared/lib folder within your Alfresco installation, and restart the application server. You might need to create this folder if it does not already exist.

In Alfresco 4.x, you need to enable the Google Analytics tracking module within the module deployment console, once you have started Alfresco. You can access the console by visiting the following URL.

http://servername:port/share/page/modules/deploy

Once you have added the module to the Deployed list, you must then click Apply Changes to make the changes take effect.

Building from Source

An Ant build script is provided to build a JAR file containing the custom files, which can then be installed into the tomcat/shared/lib folder of your Alfresco installation.

To build the JAR file, run the following command from the base project directory.

ant dist-jar

The command should build a JAR file named google-analytics-tracking-<version>.jar in the build/dist directory within your project, which you can then copy into the tomcat/shared/lib folder of your Alfresco installation.

Alternatively, you can use the build script to hot deploy the JAR file directly into a local Tomcat instance for testing. You will need to use the hotcopy-tomcat-jar task and set the tomcat.home property in Ant.

ant -Dtomcat.home=C:/Alfresco/tomcat hotcopy-tomcat-jar

After you have deployed the JAR file you will need to restart Tomcat to ensure it picks up the changes.

Configuration

To configure site-based tracking:

1. Log in to Alfresco Share and using the Repository Browser, navigate to the Sites folder
2. Locate the container for the site you wish to configure tracking for, then click View Details to bring up the detail page for the container
3. In the Folder Actions section of the detail page, click the Manage Aspects dialogue and use this to add the Trackable Container aspect
4. Now click the Edit Properties action to edit the tracking parameters, ensuring that the Tracking Enabled property is set to true and that Tracking UID is set to the value of your GA site ID

Alternatively, enable global tracking of Share usage by copying the file alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/tracking/footer.get.config.xml to the tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco/web-extension/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/tracking directory. In the newly created file, set <global>true</global> and enter your GA site ID in the <trackingId></trackingId> element. You will need to reload Share’s web scripts or restart the application server for these settings to take effect.

Once this configuration has been applied, tracking will function automatically when users visit the relevant pages.

More Information