Overview

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Business Analyst System Administrator
Important

We strongly recommend that all new Commerce implementations use the Event Protocol to log events. The Event Protocol and Coveo Relay library are generally available for Commerce.

However, they’re in closed beta for Coveo for Service, Website, and Workplace implementations. If you’re interested in using the Event Protocol and Relay library for these implementations, contact your customer success manager (CSM).

Coveo Usage Analytics (Coveo UA) is a service that collects and stores data from your search solution. This data powers Coveo Machine Learning (Coveo ML), supports advanced usage reporting, and helps improve overall relevance.

We offer different methods to send events to Coveo UA, depending on your implementation needs:

  • Coveo UA Protocol: A JavaScript-based solution that captures user interactions and sends events directly from your search interface. It uses the coveoua library and is ideal for client-side tracking.

    Coveo | UA protocol diagram

  • Event Protocol: A streamlined, more explicit standard for sending analytics events to Coveo. Coveo recommends using the Event Protocol for new integrations. Compared to the Coveo UA Protocol, the Event Protocol uses the Relay library, and simplifies event tracking by reducing the number of events you need to log client-side.

    Coveo | Event protocol diagram

After you start sending events, you can then use the features in the Analytics section of the Coveo Administration Console (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) to learn about user activity by reviewing events, metrics, and dimensions in explorers, dashboards, and more.

Reports

A report is a customizable page in the Coveo Administration Console which helps you measure the usage of your search solution. Coveo offers two types of reports: dashboards and explorers. Both reports are compiled by UA report cards which are building blocks that display a data rendering of events, metrics, and dimensions recorded by Coveo UA in your Coveo organization.

Dashboards

A dashboard is a report type that includes UA dimensions and metrics data in graphical, tabular, or numerical form. Coveo organizations come with a default Summary dashboard that provides a quick overview of various data. Members with the required privileges can modify this dashboard in order to view the status and trends relevant to their organization (see required privileges).

The Analytics section of the Coveo Administration Console also offers the option to create a dashboard to include data specific to your needs. Its interface allows you to assess your organization’s search usage and can be structured by modifying the inclusion of specific cards, filters, and other elements.

Explorers

A explorer is a customizable report type that can be created within a dashboard and is designed to focus on a subset of data. Coveo organizations come with three pre-configured explorers: activity, relevance and content gaps. These default reports can be used as templates to create other explorers.

Events

An event is a signal describing a single action performed by a user in a Coveo-powered search interface. In the Coveo UA Protocol, actions are typically categorized as search, click, view, or custom events. In the Event Protocol, actions can be defined by a much wider range of events depending on your implementation, such as add to cart, purchase, and product impression.

When an action occurs, the event metadata is sent to Coveo UA. Interfaces built with the Coveo JavaScript Search Framework automatically send events to your Coveo organization. Additionally, developers have the option to log their own UA events.

Metrics

A metric is a computed numerical value that applied as selectable criteria within UA reports. Metrics can be viewed as an indicator, a time series, or as values within a usage analytics data table, and are a direct result of recorded events. Metrics are grouped by event categories and leveraged in usage analytics report cards.

Dimensions

A dimension is metadata gathered by Coveo-powered search interfaces. Along with the performed event, the metadata is sent to Coveo UA to indicate the context of the recorded event, which can then be leveraged in a report. You can use dimensions to better understand or filter metrics.

Leading practices

  • Ensure that you’re a member of a group with the required privileges to access and make changes in the Coveo Administration Console Analytics pages.

  • View your usage analytics data in different ways:

  • If your implementation is using the Coveo UA protocol, consider adding custom metadata to gather information specific to your environment. A developer can create a customData object to push custom metadata to standard search-related events and custom events (see Coveo Analytics Component). You can then create matching custom dimensions in the Coveo Administration Console for each custom metadata to make it available to dashboards and explorers.

    Example

    Your community search provides results for your knowledge base (KB). In your KB system, a developer adds code to push KB page visit custom events and metadata (such as page title, site, and URL) in a customData object.

    customData: {
  "pageTitle": "An awesome Page",
  "pageSite": "www.mysite.com",
  "pageUrl": "http://www.mysite.com/an_awesome_page",
  "pageReferrer": "http://anothersite.com/somepage",
  "pageLanguage": "English"
}

    As soon as some page visit events are recorded, an administrator creates a custom dimension for each customData metadata so that they can be viewed along with other standard or custom dimensions in the Visit Browser (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) and used in dashboards and explorers.

    Important

    Custom data can only be leveraged when using the UA Protocol. If you’re using the Event Protocol, keep in mind that custom fields have been replaced by predefined events and dimensions. To learn more about the available protocols, see Track usage analytics.

Ad blocker impact on UA data

Coveo UA is designed to improve your search experience on a designated search hub and therefore doesn’t follow users across other websites. However, certain internet filter lists may still contain references to Coveo files or usage analytics endpoints due to a broad "tracking" categorization.

Using either a native or a third-party ad blocker which refers to these filter lists can result in Coveo’s JavaScript files or outgoing usage analytics requests being blocked. As a result, in this scenario, user events in the search interface wouldn’t be sent to Coveo UA. For information on how to ensure that all requests are sent to Coveo UA, see When to use a reverse proxy.