Meet the new DigitalPulse Debugger
When I started at Omniture nearly five years ago, one of the first basic tools I got to know was the JavaScript Debugger—you know, that bookmarklet you install among your browser bookmarks so that you can quickly and easily see exactly what is being captured in SiteCatalyst any web page. Over the years, I have moved on to more advanced (and complex) debugging tools, such as packet monitors and Google Chrome’s developer console. But when I just need to see the variables and values that a page is passing into SiteCatalyst, I still click the little entry in my bookmark toolbar.
I am pleased to share with you the latest version of this nifty little utility: the DigitalPulse Debugger. We’ve given it the name “DigitalPulse Debugger” because it fits in nicely with Adobe DigitalPulse, our implementation/site auditing product which will automatically crawl your site and detect places where SiteCatalyst and/or Test&Target code has not been placed, or where it may have been placed with errors of various kinds (variables receiving the wrong values, variables that are too long, image requests that are too long, etc.). It seemed like a natural fit. We’ve also changed the location of the Debugger, which does mean that you’ll need to update your bookmarklets. We did this for a few reasons, but most importantly the new location allows the DigitalPulse team to add amazing new features much more quickly. We think you’ll agree that it’s worth updating your bookmarklets for that.
So, how do you install the DigitalPulse Debugger? If you don’t already have the JavaScript Debugger installed, just create a simple bookmark or favorite in your browser of choice (we’ve tested in IE, Firefox, Safari, and—your developer’s favorite—Chrome). Then, replace the URL of the bookmark with the following code (and make sure you get all of the code!):
javascript:void(window.open(%22%22,%22dp_debugger%22,%22width=600,height=600,location=0,menubar=0,status=1,toolbar=0,resizable=1,scrollbars=1%22).document.write(%22%3Cscript%20language=%22JavaScript%22%20id=dbg%20src=%22https://www.adobetag.com/d1/digitalpulsedebugger/live/DPD.js%22%3E%3C/%22+%22script%3E%22));
If you do have the Debugger already, just replace the URL with the code above. (You can also download the Debugger and additional information from Knowledge Base ID 534.)
Then just go to any page on your site that has been tagged Adobe Online Marketing Suite code and click the bookmark. You should see a small pop-up window looking something like this:
You’ll notice that the DigitalPulse Debugger still does everything you have come to expect from the JavaScript Debugger, but now offers some helpful new features:
- Reports on Test&Target, Recommendations, and Survey in addition to SiteCatalyst data collection
- Provides the total length of the SiteCatalyst request on the page
- Shows the “friendly names” for image request elements (e.g. “eVar7” instead of “v7,” and “Current URL” instead of “g”)
- Gives additional request information, such as whether the the implementation uses first-party cookies
- Allows you to change and save settings based on the products and features you wish to use
One important thing to note is that, due to a change in data collection code beginning with H.21, the old version of the Debugger may not correctly decode multi-byte characters in variable values if your site is using this (or a newer) code version. The new DigitalPulse Debugger does display these variable values correctly for international character sets, so you can get a clearer sense of the data being collected from pages that use multi-byte characters.
The DigitalPulse Debugger will refresh as you move from page to page, showing you the data collected across your entire site, but it still requires you to walk through your site manually. If you’d like a more powerful debugging tool that will scan your site for you, saving you time and uncovering a wide variety of potential issues with your data before these issues rear their ugly heads, check out Adobe DigitalPulse.
Huge shout-out to Adam Egbert of Adobe Consulting for his hard work on this project, as well as to everyone else who contributed to the improvement of this handy little tool.
(Note: The old JavaScript Debugger will continue to be available for your use indefinitely.)
_As always, if you have any questions about anything in this post, or about anything else related to the Adobe Online Marketing Suite, please leave a comment here or contact me on Twitter and I’ll do my best to get you the information that you need. In particular, feel free to share feedback about this new DigitalPulse Debugger and we’ll do our best to implement your requests in a future release!
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