How long has a user been on a asp.net page (custom analytics)?

Question

Hi guys,

I am trying to come up with a way to measure how long a user has been on a page in my ASP.NET application. I am storing the userid, pagename, pageenteredtime and pagelefttime in a database. Each record has its own unique id as well, called featureuselogid.

At the moment, I can track when a user comes into the page with the page_load function on the server side. I store the userid, pagename and pageenteredtime.

After that im stuck, and need some guidance in the right direction. I need to record the time the user leaves the page. I know in javascript there is a window.onbeforeunload function, which will cover most cases (browser shutdown, links etc).

But how do I pass the featureuselogid to the javascript? If i can do that, I think I can make a webservice call from the javascript and update the record with the pagelefttime.

Am I going down the wrong path?

Cheers in advance.

Answer 1

When you render the page in ASP.net, include a javascript tag that assigns a variable to the value of a server side script:

<script language="javascript">
    var JS_featureuselogid = <%= featureuselogid %>;
</script>

Later in your javascript code, you can reference the JS_featureuselogid variable and get the value that was injected into it during page construction.

Answer 2

Just put the featureuselogid in a hidden field in the page, with a unique ID that will make it accessible to Javascript, or set a javascript variable.

Having said that, I believe that you are going to be able to most reliably detect Page_Load. You can determine the time between pages by measuring the time between Page_Load events. You won't get the browser closure, but IMO knowing when the user closes the browser is not all that meaningful.

Answer 3

You will have to run Javascript timer on the client that periodically calls the server. Once the call does not get logged at the expected time, it means that the user has left. Woopra does this, and it works reliably. For instance, sometimes people have a page loaded in a browser in the background for days, and there is no other way of detecting that they are still connected.

Users on laptops pulling the network cable, moving out of the coverage of a Wifi zone, etc etc there are too many scenarios where the onbeforeunload event will not reach a server anymore.