The recorders that are provided with the Scenarios module give you a way to collect the visitor- and site-related data that you can use for analysis and display in business reports.
Recorders are based on scenario events. (For more information on scenarios, see Creating Scenarios in the ATG Personalization Guide for Business Users.) Events are JavaBeans, and you can collect data from any JavaBean property that represents a single entry. For example, you can collect data from properties that contain strings or integers but you cannot collect arrays, sets, or hashes.
Each recorder has four required components, as follows:
A Data Collection object that collects the data before it is logged.
A mapper that maps the columns in the SQL database to Java data-types.
A dataset, which bundles groups of data together and filters it based upon sampling criteria.
A scenario that personalizes the data collection, defining the circumstances under which it takes place. (Note: read-only reports do not require a scenario.)
The Scenarios module provides several standard recorders for performing common data collection tasks. For example, it provides a Page Visit recorder that tracks a range of activities related to personalized site visits. The rest of this chapter describes the process of creating your own recorders.
