Learn about the analytics events available in AXIS.*
This article covers the analytics available within AXIS and explains the event types that can be tracked.
Read on to find out more or jump to a specific section of interest.
Note: The analytics events specified below are available out-of-the-box and are designed to work consistently across all Reference Apps. However, before you can use the data, your developers must first configure the events according to your specific business requirements and integrate with an appropriate 3rd party analytics tool.
What are AXIS Analytics?
AXIS Analytics are a set of built-in analytics events and event data, available through the Analytics API, that allow you to monitor activity in a standardized way across all the Reference Apps.
The AXIS Analytics API is designed to be directly integrated with 3rd party analytics SDKs. Track critical application events and gather information on user activity so you can adapt, react, and customize your offering.
Analytics give you a better understanding of your users, and of the performance of your assets. Data gathered from rows, pages and page elements that support user behavior tracking can inform the user groups and segmentation tags you create. They also provide an insight into users’ interests, allowing you to target content more successfully.
What types of events can be tracked?
Seven key event types can be tracked in AXIS:
- Application events track the application lifecycle
- User events track how users interact with the application
- Browse events track how users interact with pages and content
- Item events track how users interact with specific assets
- Video lifecycle events track the lifecycle of the video player
- Video interaction events track how users interact with the video player
- Error events track errors or exceptions within the application
Expand the accordions below to find out more about each event type.
Application events
Application events provide information on the various states your application goes through. Reviewing these events can help you troubleshoot problems.
The following application event states are captured:
| Event | Description | Context |
|---|---|---|
| App Started | Application initialized | This event is dispatched when the application is first initialized. It should be the first analytics event dispatched from the application. |
| App Ready | Application ready for user interaction | This event is dispatched when the user can start interacting with the application. The event is used to measure Time to Interactive (TTI). |
| App Suspended | Application suspended | This event is dispatched when the application state changes from foreground to background.
Applies to native apps. |
| App Restored | Application resumed after suspension | This event is dispatched when the application state changes from background to foreground.
Applies to native apps. |
| App Closed |
Application closed by user |
This event is dispatched when the application is manually shut down by the user.
Applies to native apps. |
| App Offline | Application has gone offline | This event is dispatched when the application goes offline or loses connectivity.
Not applicable to native apps. |
| App Online | Application has come back online | This event is dispatched when the application is back online or regains connectivity.
Not applicable to native apps. |
User events track the interactions your users have with your application, such as registering and signing in and out.
| Event | Description | Context |
|---|---|---|
| User Identified | Identifies a unique anonymous or authenticated user, or tracks a change in user status | This event is dispatched when an anonymous or authenticated user is identified. It’s dispatched immediately after the App Started event (see above) and whenever the user’s authentication or account status changes. |
| User Profile Selected | User has selected or switched profile | This event is dispatched when a user selects a profile or switches to a different profile. |
| User Signed Out | User has signed out of the application | This event is dispatched when the user signs out of the application. |
| User Actioned | An extension point for custom user or account events | This event is used as an extension point for tracking other user events. |
| User Registering | User has started or progressed the registration flow | This event is dispatched during each step of the registration process.
Applies to Reference web apps. |
| User Registered | User has successfully completed the registration flow | This event is dispatched when the user has successfully completed registration.
Applies to Reference web apps. |
Browse events track user interactions within pages and content in the application.
| Event | Description | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Page Viewed | Tracks a page or screen, based on the AXIS sitemap | This event is triggered every time the user navigates to a new page or screen on the sitemap. |
| Searched | Tracks the results of a keyword search | This event tracks a user’s search query and the corresponding results - including when zero results are returned. |
| Entry Viewed | Tracks a page entry viewed by the user | This event tracks when a user views a page entry (row) for the first time on a page.
The entry:
|
| Entry Interacted | Tracks the user’s interaction with an entry | This event tracks when a user scrolls a page entry (row). |
| Date Selected | Tracks user interaction with a date carousel/picker | This event tracks when a user selects a new date. |
| Channel Selected | Tracks user interaction with a channel carousel | This event tracks when a user selects a new channel. |
| CTA actioned | Tracks when a user actions a CTA | This event tracks when a user actions a CTA (‘call to action’, e.g., a button). |
*As defined during analytics configuration.
Item events track users’ engagement with specific assets in the application.
| Event | Description | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Item Focused | Optional. Tracks when a user hovers over or focuses on an item | This event is dispatched when a user hovers or focuses on an item.
This varies by device type, e.g., for desktop apps the event is dispatched when a user hovers over an item for more than [x]* seconds while for TV it’s when an item is in focus for the applicable period. |
| Item Clicked | Tracks when a user clicks or selects an item thumbnail | This event is dispatched when a user clicks on or selects an item. |
| Item Detail Viewed | Tracks when a user views the detail page/screen for an item | This event is dispatched when an item detail page is viewed. Similar to the Page Viewed event above, this event contains additional context information about where the user arrived on the page from. |
| Item Overlay Viewed | Tracks when a user views the detail overlay of an item | This event is dispatched when an item detail overlay is viewed. |
| Item Watched | Tracks when a user clicks on the Watch CTA associated with an item | This event is dispatched when a user selects a Watch or Resume action for an item. |
| Item Bookmarked | Tracks when a user bookmarks an item | This event is dispatched when a user adds or removes a bookmark. |
| Item Followed | Tracks when a user follows an item | This event is dispatched when a user starts or stops following an item. |
| Item Rated | Tracks when a user rates an item | This event is dispatched when a user adds a rating to an item. |
| Item Offered | Tracks when a user clicks on an offer or entitlement CTA associated with an item | This event is dispatched when a user selects the primary CTA for an item they aren’t currently entitled to, e.g., Subscribe, Buy, Rent, etc. |
*As defined during analytics configuration.
Video lifecycle events track the lifecycle of the video player.
| Event | Description | Context | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video Initialized | Player is displayed to the user, but video playback not yet requested | This event is dispatched when the player page is first loaded. Used to track the user’s time to playback. waitTime starts to be accumulated from this point. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Video Requested | Player is initialized and the video URL is requested from the server | This event is dispatched once the player is initialized, and the video URL has been requested. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Video Buffering | Video has started buffering | This event is dispatched when the video starts to buffer.
If a spinner appears due to buffer depletion, then the accumulation of waitTime restarts from this point. |
||||||||||||||||||||
| Video Playing | Video starts (or restarts) playing for the user | This event is dispatched when the video starts playing for the user, either for the first time or resuming after an interruption. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Video Progressed | Video time changed | This event is dispatched every second when the time position changes during playback.
This can be configured/filtered to only report when playback status changes, or in percentile increments (i.e., 25%, 50%, 75%, etc.). Event points are defined in Presentation Manager’s System settings: Admin → Settings → System → Playback. |
||||||||||||||||||||
| Video Completed | Video playthrough is complete | This event is dispatched on completion of video playback. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Video Error | A playback error has occurred | This event is dispatched when the user encounters a video playback error.
|
Video Interaction events track a user’s interaction with the video player.
| Event | Description | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Video Actioned | An extension point for other video events, for example, changing bitrate, captions, etc. | |
| Video Paused | User pauses playback | This event is dispatched when the user pauses the video. |
| Video Resumed | User resumes playback | This event is dispatched when the user resumes playback after a Video Paused event. |
| Video Seeked | User requests seeking to a new playback point | This event is dispatched when the user requests the player to seek (skip) to a different position. WaitTime starts to be accumulated from this point. |
| Video Restarted | User restarts video from end-of-play screen | This event is dispatched when the user restarts the video from the end-of-play screen by clicking on the Replay button. |
| Video Chainplayed | User played next episode in the current show | This event is dispatched when playback of the next episode is triggered from the end-of-play screen, either automatically or manually by the user. |
Error events track errors and exceptions that occur within the application. These can include missing files, an unexpected API response, or an unknown error that prevents the application from continuing.
| Event | Description | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Client Error | Dispatched when an error or exception occurs within the client application. | This includes all HTTP 4xx Server errors, except those reported as Resource or Server Errors (see below) and those which are gracefully handled by the application business logic – e.g., 403 Forbidden when an item is not available because of rating restrictions and the user is prompted to enter a PIN. |
| Server Error | Dispatched after a server exception or unexpected response from the AXIS API. | This includes: (a) all HTTP 5xx Server errors, except 502 Unknown Error reported as an Unknown Error (see below) and (b) 407 Proxy Authentication Required only on iOS/tvOS due to SDK limitation. |
| System Error | Dispatched after a system-level exception (unresponsive, crashed, etc). | This applies to platforms that have the ability to know if/when they’re unresponsive or have crashed. |
| Unknown Error | A catch-all for any other exceptions that aren’t directly classifiable as client, server, or system. | Includes 520 Unknown Error. |
| Resource Error | Dispatched after a failed load event on a content resource (image, asset, page, list, etc). | Should only be triggered once per resource per session, to avoid the generation of excessive error events. Includes 404 Not Found, 410 Gone. |
About WaitTime
Waiting time (waitTime) is the cumulative interval between a video’s non-playing state and playing state. It can also be defined as a measurement of the absence of playback from a user perspective. It includes:
- when the player screen opens, and the user starts waiting for playback to begin
- later during playback, if the user drags the scrub bar to a new position causing a pause in playback, then from the moment the user releases the scrub bar
- where the player runs out of data due to a poor network, causing playback to stop and a spinner to appear while buffering takes place.
Related articles: