Installing Chord Analytics
To install Chord Analytics on a Shopify store, please start here: Using with Shopify.
The @chordcommerce/analytics library provides simple methods for sending tracking events to Chord from your website, with an optional debugging mode to validate event properties.
@chordcommerce/analytics is intended to be installed alongside a Customer Data Platform (CDP) tracking library like Segment's analytics.js. @chordcommerce/analytics sends Chord tracking events to the CDP tracking library, so they’re available for all connected integrations.
Chord's analytics library assumes that a CDP Javascript library is already installed on the site.
When using Segment, you can install analytics.js either via a code snippet or the npm package that Segment offers. You'll pass a reference to the analytics object created by Segment's analytics.js library when you configure Chord tracking.
To install @chordcommerce/analytics, run the following command in your project directory:
First, ensure that a CDP Javascript library is installed and configured in your project. Then, initialize @chordcommerce/analytics as follows:
@chordcommerce/analytics can be initialized with the following options:
Property | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
cdp | true | A reference to the CDP library, or a function that returns a reference to the CDP library. For example, if using Segment's analytics.js library, this could be window.analytics or () => window.analytics. If omitted, no tracking events are sent. |
debug | false | Defaults to false. When set to true, events are validated against Chord's tracking plan and errors are logged. We recommend enabling this for development and disabling for production. |
enableLogging | false | Defaults to true. When set to true, errors are logged using console.log. |
formatters | true | Functions that are used to construct tracking events. There are two types of formatters, objects and events. formatters.objects is required. See Formatters for more details. |
metadata | true | Event metadata. See below for details. |
stripNull | false | Defaults to true. When set to true, event properties with a null value are removed. CDPs typically treat null and undefined as separate values, so be sure you intend to send null values before setting to false. |
Metadata
Property | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
metadata.i18n.currency | true | The order currency in ISO 4217 currency code, uppercase. For example, USD. |
metadata.i18n.locale | true | The order locale. For example, en-US. |
metadata.ownership.omsId | true | A UUID assigned by Chord. This identifier is unique to the store, and will be the same across every environment and CDP source for a given store. |
metadata.ownership.storeId | true | A UUID assigned by Chord. This identifier is unique to the store, and will be the same across every environment and CDP source for a given store. |
metadata.ownership.tenantId | true | A UUID assigned by Chord. This identifier is unique to the store, and will be the same across every environment and CDP source for a given store. |
metadata.platform.name | true | The name of the e-commerce platform used. For example, Shopify. |
metadata.platform.type | true | The type of platform where the event originated. Either web or pos. |
metadata.store.domain | true | The domain of the site where the event originated. For Shopify, this should be the store slug that comes before .myshopify.com. |
Formatters are Javascript functions that are used to construct tracking event properties. There are two types of formatters, objects and events. You must define object formatters. Event formatters are optional. See Chord’s documentation for more details and example formatters.
Object Formatters
A formatter must be provided for each of the four core data types that are used in Chord events. This formatter function transforms input data into the type Chord expects. See Formatters for more details on object formatters.
Property | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
formatters.objects.cart | true | A function that creates a cart object. |
formatters.objects.checkout | true | A function that creates a checkout object. |
formatters.objects.lineItem | true | A function that creates a line item object. |
formatters.objects.product | true | A function that creates a product object. |
Event Formatters
A formatter can be provided for each event. This formatter is used to transform the event properties of a specific event after Chord constructs the event, just before it's sent to the CDP. See Formatters for more details on event formatters.
Optionally, you can instantiate ChordAnalytics with a custom type argument describing your data to improve type safety for formatters and SDK functions.
For instance, if you're working with objects like cart, product, etc., from a Shopify storefront API query, you might already have types like StorefrontCart defined for the response. Instantiate ChordAnalytics with a type argument:
Now, when you use an SDK method like chord.trackCartViewed({ cart }), cart has the StorefrontCart type.
Formatter types also support an optional generic type parameter for the function argument: