Autodata

Overview
Browser support and compatibilities
Plugins
Installation and usage
Advanced configuration
License

Overview

autoData is an agnostic Javascript Library which simplify analytics tags implementation and automatize data sending to Tag Management System (TMS).

Its original purpose was to keep automatic tracking logic from the library autotrack but open its possibilities to work with any Tag Management System (TMS), not exclusively Google Analytics.

Generally, each developer needs to write their tracking code using specific syntax, provided by the TMS. Also, each tag needs generally a listener and a dedicated Javascript code, particularly on a lot of simple events of user interaction. autoData is here to simplify these tasks by using a simple approach, the use of HTML data attributes and, if needed, a data object (i.e. data layer).

This library is simple to use, but not limited : developer can configure default parameters and override easily how data is parsed, enhanced or sent to TMS (which can become any data collector).

TMS taken into account by autoData :

Google Tag Manager
Tealium
Custom tag collector (see TMS)

Global documentation is hosted here : https://github.com/ekino/autodata

In this documentation you will find every information about the library

Its demo page
Core library API description and explanation
Plugins description and explanation
Development rules if you want to contribute

Browser support and compatibilities

Like autotrack, autoData will safely run in any browser without errors, as feature detection is always used with any potentially unsupported code. However, autoData will only track features supported in the browser running it. For example, a user running Internet Explorer 8 will not be able to track media query usage, as media queries themselves aren't supported in Internet Explorer 8.

All autotrack plugins are tested in the following browsers :

Chrome
Firefox
Safari 6+
IE Edge
IE9+
Opera

autoData could be integrated on a hybrid mobile app with some tricks but was not designed for.

Plugins

The autodata.min.js built file is small (25ko) and comes with all plugins included. The following table briefly explains what each plugin does, their usage is detailled here :

Plugin name	Plugin description
eventTracker	Enables declarative event tracking, via HTML attributes in the markup.
pageviewTracker	Enables automatic/overridden pageview tracking.
mediaQueryTracker	Enables tracking media query matching and media query changes.
outboundFormTracker	Automatically tracks form submits to external domains.
outboundLinkTracker	Automatically tracks link clicks to external domains.
jwplayerTracker	Automatically tracks events from jwplayer
flowplayerTracker	Automatically tracks events from flowplayer

Installation and usage

To add autoData to your site, you have to do two things:

Load the autodata.min.js built script file on your page

<script type='text/javascript' src='/path-to/autodata.min.js'></script>

Initialize autoData with needed plugins

autoData.init({
  plugins: {
    eventTracker: {},
    pageviewTracker: {}
  }
});

See documentation for more details : https://ekino.github.io/autodata/

Advanced configuration

autoData comes with a default configuration for tms and plugins. It can be overriden if needed. Also, autoData can be customized easily to fit with tag implementation needs. See documentation to learn how : https://ekino.github.io/autodata/

License

autoData is initially a forked version of googleanalytics/autotrack.

It inherits the same Apache license, Version 2.0

You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

Introduction