Note: This module has been tested on Sitecore 8.2+. If you find this does not work on prior versions, please submit an Issue and I will try to add support. You can also submit a pull request.
Sitecore Experience Analytics reporting supports a list control that renders tabular data. The data includes the Key along with Visits, Value per visit, Average duration, Bounce Rate, Conversion Rate, and Page views per visit. Only standard analytics data can be displayed in the out of the box list control. The columns are fixed and cannot be configured.
We had a requirement to customize the columns in the report. We also had the requirement to display non-standard analytics data. I did a bunch of research and did not find very many examples of how to achieve this. I did find the following article: Custom Dashboard Reports. It explains how to display aggregated data in a custom list. This is exactly what we needed. The article was very helpful, but did not provide a working example. I ended up needing to reflect into the Sitecore Media Framework 2.1 to find the missing pieces.
In an effort to help others, I am posting the complete and fully working code that I used to get this working. I modified the code from the original post to support using configurable types / methods instead of using SQL to provide the data. This comes in handy if you want to display results from the sitecore_analytics_index Lucene index.
You can follow the original blog post for an explanation of how this was built. The Sitecore Media Framework 2.1 that this example was based on is located here: Sitecore Media Framework 2.1.
I named the custom control Experience Analytics Table Control because the control returns tabular data with user defined columns. A control by this name also does not exist yet.
The Experience Analytics Table Control supports rendering custom data within the Sitecore Experience Analytics dashboard. The data is displayed in tabular form. The columns in the table are customizable. The look and feel matches the existing List Control. The data is provided via configurable types / methods. The methods provide the data that is displayed in the table.
Install the update package located here: https://github.com/onenorth/sitecore-experience-analytics-table-control/releases
NOTE: You can include the source code directly in your solution. This allows for further customizations.
The Sitecore Experience Analytics Table Control has a single configuration file z.OneNorth.ExperienceAnalyticsTableControl.config. This file needs to be placed in the App_Config/Include folder. The primary purpose of the file is to register the MVC route used for the web service that provides the data to the Experience Analytics Table Control.
Note: This configuration file must be placed after the Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics config files for the route to be setup correctly.
Samples that demonstrate usage are automatically installed via the update package. The samples appear in the Sitecore Experience Analytics Dashboard under Table Control Samples. The samples can be removed by deleting the following node in the Core database: /sitecore/client/Applications/ExperienceAnalytics/Dashboard/Table Control Samples.
NOTE: In general you should be using Sitecore Rocks to configure SPEAK Components. The following following examples use Sitecore Rocks.
The ExperienceAnalyticsTableControl is used in a similar fashion to the other Experience Analytics controls. The control is defined in the core database under sitecore/client/Applications/ExperienceAnalytics/Common/Layouts/Renderings. It has a Parameters template that defines the various settings that the control requires.
The ExperienceAnalyticsTableControl is included in layouts using Add Rendering. Note, you can find the control by searching for it by name. Once added to a layout, configure the Placeholder and define a Data Source.
Create a Data Source item based on the ExperienceAnalyticsTableControl Parameters template. Place this item under the Dashboard Page / PageSettings. Specify the Type and Method that will be used to provide the data to the Table. We will setup the Type and Method in the Code section below
Define the columns that you want in the table and specify the order. The columns are defined by adding child items under the DataSource item. The child items are of type ColumnField. The insert options have been already setup to support this. The HeaderText and DataField should be set appropriately. The DataField value should match the property names returned by the type/method exactly. It is case sensitive.
Now that we have the Items setup in Sitecore, we can code up our logic to return the data. The return type of the method should be ExperienceAnalyticsTableControlResponse. The actual data is contained within a ExperienceAnalyticsTableControlData collection.
SampleBasicDataSource
using OneNorth.ExperienceAnalyticsTableControl.Api;
using System;
namespace OneNorth.ExperienceAnalyticsTableControl.DataSources
{
public class SampleBasicDataSource
{
public ExperienceAnalyticsTableControlResponse Get(DateTime dateFrom, DateTime dateTo, string siteName)
{
var reportData = new ExperienceAnalyticsTableControlData<dynamic>();
var random = new Random();
var count = 10;
for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
var item = new
{
index = i,
id = Guid.NewGuid().ToString(),
datefrom = dateFrom.ToShortDateString(),
dateto = dateTo.ToShortDateString(),
sitename = siteName,
random = random.Next(0, 1000)
};
reportData.AddItem(item);
}
var content = new ExperienceAnalyticsTableControlResponse()
{
Data = reportData,
TotalRecordCount = count
};
return content;
}
}
}The above code is just a sample. Logic can be provided to retrieve data from various sources such as Lucene indexes or SQL databases. The order of the Get method parameters does not matter. The names of the parameters do matter. The names are exact matched against dateFrom, dateTo, and siteName. Additional parameters can be provided which will be populated from the Parameters field of the Data Source. The parameter name must match the key in the parameters field. You can take a look at the Parameter sample for an example.
The framework and logic can be extended to take data input from other sources such as other controls in the Layout. This will require customizations to the Table Control.
To customize the Table Control, pull down the source code. All Sitecore references come from the Sitecore public NuGet package repository. The appropriate NuGet feed needs to be added to Visual Studio for the project to compile properly
In order to generate the .update packages, TDS needs to be updated to reference the location of the Sitecore assemblies. To do this, open the Properties of the TDS.Core project. In the properties, navigate to the Update Package tab. Enter the location of the bin folder for the Sitecore installation in the Sitecore Assembly Path field.
NOTE: The NuGet packages don't currently include all the necessary assemblies for TDS.
The associated code is released under the terms of the MIT license.
The Sitecore Experience Analyzer Table Control was inspired by and has used code from: