Overview

Transaction Manager, the backend of the Transact platforms forms, will obviously log information on form submissions:

 

•Data on the original form request:

oThe user's IP address

othe agent string of the browser, from which holds information on

▪the Operating System (Windows, OS X, iOS, Android)

▪The version number of the system

▪the device (for example, Windows desktop, iPad, and so on)

▪the browser brand (i.e. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer) and version number

oThe referring page (i.e. the page containing the link the user activated to reach the form) and portal

oThe time stamp of the original request

oData and keys on the session, cookies and other technical information

•Whether the form was saved or abandoned, including

oWhen the form was submitted (if ever)

•The form's rendering time (vital information for optimizing form performance)

 

TM stores the data on each form request and also consolidates these data and renders them in various graphs and dashboards in TM.

 

Composer's Role in Analytics

Background Saving

Time was when the data entered onto a form was not saved back to the server until the end user submitted the form. Now, Composer has tools to:

 

•Configure background saving
where data is sent dynamically back to Transaction Manager before the form is submitted.

•The data can be either the values entered onto the form or an arbitrary numerical score where you ascribe various numerical values to some or all of the fields on the form

•Background saving can be set to take place at regular time intervals, or when the user navigates to another wizard-style page, or when the numerical score changes value

 

You may not want, for privacy reasons, to retain the actual data entered on the form by an end user who has not yet submitted this data, but still want to have data on where the user reached in the form before abandoning it so that you can modify the form so more users successfully get to the submit stage of entry. This substantially increases the value of the form to your business. Without such a feedback mechanism, you will not be able to make as many meaningful improvements to the form.

 

You activate background saving through "Structure -> <Top item of the structure tree> Edit Properties -> Policies tab -> Transaction Manager menu item -> Transaction Manager panel:

 

The Cancel Button in Maguire Forms

The Maguire template forms have a Cancel facility. This must either be activated when the new form is created, the Maguire template chosen in the "Create a New Form" Wizard and the "Include Cancel Feature" checked in the last page of the wizard dialog.

 

The resulting feature is a "Cancel" button. Currently this is not visible in the Wireframe, only in the Preview (here in both desktop mode and in triggered mobile responsive view):

 

Clicking on "Cancel" results in the form's data being saved to TM and the form's data and analytics being displayed in TM under "Home Dashboard -> Abandoned Transactions".

 

The Abandon Widget in non-Maguire Forms

The same function is available in non-Maguire templated forms. Place the "Palette -> Field Types -> Abandon Form Button" on your form. Probably the best places are in the Header and Footers (which are exposed in the Advanced Mode of the Structure Palette as the "Form Header" and "Form Footer" blocks below the Nuts & Bolts block.

 

You can even add a "Reason" text block for users to give the reasons for abandoning the form. We recommend the following technique to make the text block hidden and then become visible when users click on a "Close" button.

 

Use Click Action scripts to control the show/hide behavior of the "Close" and "Return" standard buttons. The most basic Click Action scripts to accomplish this (with no refinements whatsoever) are:

 

•For the "Close" button:
sfc.updateVisibility({Reason}, true, "exclude");

•And the "Return":
sfc.updateVisibility({Reason}, false, "exclude");

 

On the form, the fields look as follows (when placed into the "Form Footer" block"):

 

 

By careful configuration of the "Reason" text area, you can make the contents of this field be listed in the TM "Home -> Operations -> Abandoned Transactions" page in the Abandon Reason column. Use the Data Model Binding panel ("Edit Properties -> Data Model tab -> Data Model Binding panel").

 

The Binding Name used is one of the Default Form Data Mappings in TM. The double slash "//" just means a wildcard: in other words, the field mapped to AbandonmentReason can be anywhere in the form's structure. If there are more than one such field, TM will use the first it encounters in the tree. You should be setting the mapping unique for best results.

 

Scoring

We have seen how you can retain data from an abandoned form. However, due to privacy concerns, may not actually want to retain this data, and yet still get some metrics on the abandonded form so as to identify usability issues which could have contributed to its being abandoned in the first place. One way is to score the form to see how far the user managed to get to before abandoning or canceling. Scoring could also be useful in your analysis, even when you retain the incomplete data.

 

All you need do to set up scoring in Composer is add some simple scripting to "Structure Panel -> <form name> -> Nuts & Bolts -> Transaction Manager Support -> TransactionScore -> Edit Properties -> Rules tab -> Calculation panel":

 

 

The above script is a very simple and unsophisticated example. Whatever the script used. it must return an integer, which will, after you have exported the form, then be displayed in Transaction Manager under "Operations -> Abandoned Transactions":