User data collection

In Dashly data is essentially fundamental for automating and personalizing communication with a user and for analytics, thus data collection should be properly set up for Dashly to be maximally useful.

"Data collection" is:

• User properties identification. Properties can be standard (name, email, phone) or custom, your project-specific (for example, orders count, date of registration, projects count, revenue from client, etc.).
• Tracking events. An event is a user action that you consider important (for example, making an order, registering, paying a subscription, visiting a page with tariffs, visiting a product page, etc.).

There are several methods for data collection:

• Visitors data tracking.
  An interface of admin panel, specialized for data collection setup not requiring coding. Visitors data tracking is described in detail in our knowledge base. This method is ideal for an easy start.

• JavaScript library description
  The easiest and recommended API using JavaScript on your site.

• REST API (Web API)
  Used for collecting data directly from your server, for example payment details.

Tracking events

In case you want to track visits of “Page1” page add following javascript into this page html:

dashly.track('Page1');

First argument - event name.
Second argument (optional) can be any number of additional attributes (event properties).

Examples

Track a “product viewed” event with additional data (name of product being viewed)

dashly.track(‘$product_viewed’, {
  '$name': 'Dress',
  '$url': 'http://example.com/dress',
  '$amount': '3000',
  '$img': 'http://example.com/dress.img',
});

Product viewed is a standard event, thus $product_viewed key should be used as event name. You can use REST API (example in CURL) if you are more comfortable with sending data directly from your server:

curl -X POST \
  --data-urlencode "event=$product_viewed" \
  --data-urlencode '$name=Dress' \
  --data-urlencode "$url =http://example.com/dress" \
  --data-urlencode "$amount=3000" \
  --data-urlencode "$img=http://example.com/dress.img" \
  -H "Authorization: Token XXX" \
  "https://api.dashly.app/users/{userid}/events"

Track registration event with additional parameters: email, phone, list of options, chosen by visitor

dashly.track('registered', {
  '$email': 'test@mail.com',
  '$phone': '8911177711',
  'interesting_functions': ['chat', 'emaling']
});

For REST API (example in CURL):

curl -X POST \
  --data-urlencode "event=registered" \
  --data-urlencode '$email=test@mail.com' \
  --data-urlencode "$phone=8911177711" \
  --data-urlencode "interesting_functions=['chat', 'emaling']" \
  -H "Authorization: Token XXX" \
  https://api.dashly.app/users/{userid}/events

Javascript track method detailed description can be found here: Javascript API, track.
REST API post method for events here: REST API, Events.

Properties identification

The following javascript method is used to identify user’s properties in our system:

dashly.identify({
  'nameProps': 'value',
});

Detailed descriptions of dashly.identify method.
Properties formats and list of standard properties is here.

For example get visitor’s email, phone and orders count on registry:

dashly.identify({
  '$name': 'Maks',
  '$email': 'super-maks@gmail.com',
  '$orders_count': 6,
  'RegDate': '2015-05-05T15:02:00'
});

For REST API (example in CURL)

curl -X POST \
  --data-urlencode "operations=[
{"op": "update_or_create", "key": "$name", "value": "Maks"},
{"op": "update_or_create", "key": "$email", "value": "super-maks@gmail.com"},
{"op": "update_or_create", "key": "$orders_count", "value": "6"},
{"op": "update_or_create", "key": "RegDate", "value": "2015-05-05T15:02:00"}
]" \
  -H "Authorization: Token XXX" \
  https://api.dashly.app/users/8173131/props

All properties with names starting with $ are standard properties ($name, $email, $phone, $orders_count). These are used in the interface, analytics and standard scenarios. Thus, we strongly recommend collecting this data. All the rest are custom properties (you create them). You are free to name them and choose data to store in them as you please.

Important! Custom properties names should not start with $.