[RFC][Architecture] Core Component Data Layer

[joerghoh]

Feature Request

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
When working in the website analytics and target business, lots of data points should be measured and tracked in order to optimize the page or create an optimized experience for a visitor. At the moment these data points are not provided in a comprehensive way, so when you want to add tracking to the page, it must be thoroughly analyzed to extract the relevant data from the DOM; this is typically not a very reliable solution, as the DOM structure might change with every release.

Describe the solution you'd like
A CEDDL compliant datalayer allows the analytics consultant to access these data points directly (provided they are attached to the datalayer). For details regarding the datalayer see https://www.w3.org/2013/12/ceddl-201312.pdf.
The implementation should add the relevant Javascript objects (JSO) and prepopulate the datalayer as much as possible. The implementation should provide 2 extension points:

• a directly manipulation of the JSO via javascript (which should require no implementation at all, but rather only documentation)
• a "server-side" way to add data to the datalayer, which in turn creates proper javascript to manipulate the JSO.

Scope
This is just the basis for the datalayer itself and the relevant extension points. I would raise more issues to make individual components providing data to the datalayer.

Are there alternatives?
Nope!

Documentation
This is a feature which is not targetting end-users or authoring users directly, but helps Analytics or targeting folks to make their work easier. And please note, that this datalayer implementation is technology and vendor independent.

[bpauli]

@joerghoh, thank you for bringing up this feature request.

[vladbailescu]

Maybe something to consider for the future: https://www.ceddlbyexample.com/getting-started

[gabrielwalt]

(CQ-4256701)

[vladbailescu]

Initial proposal #619

[janexner]

Might be better to be "EDDL", rather than CEDDL-compliant. CEDDL has not really been the success we all hoped for.
See https://jimalytics.com/tag-management/the-event-driven-data-layer/ for some info/opinion on EDDL

[gabrielwalt]

+1 to @janexner's comment:

• we shouldn't blindly follow the CEDDL spec where it is bloated.
• we should make the data layer event-driven.

See:

• API: https://github.com/adobe/adobe-client-data-layer
• Branch: https://github.com/adobe/aem-core-wcm-components/tree/feature/datalayer
• PR: Feature/telemetry dev #949

[gylesfohl]

@gabrielwalt just curious if this is still being worked on?

[jckautzmann]

@gylesfohl hi, yes, this is being worked on in PR #949 .