Events

This topic provides information about standard events and how to register custom events. It is intended for use by Business Analysts or marketing professionals. The first part provides general information about events that you can use when writing scenarios actions. The second part tells you how to register custom events.

In general, an event is a notification that something has happened in a computer program. Events are used for a variety of things. You can use events with campaigns to enhance promotion of products and services. You can also use a special kind of event called a behavior tracking event to gather intelligence about customer interactions on an e-commerce site. E-analysis and e-marketing systems use this information to help you understand your customers so that you can improve your marketing and build long-lasting customer relationships.

This topic contains the following sections:

Standard Event Categories

Events are organized into categories. The following list presents each category of standard event along with a brief description:

Standard Events

This section describes standard events in more detail. You can use it to reference events when writing scenario actions. The following list presents each type of standard event along with a brief description:

Registering Custom Events

This topic contains basic information about registering custom events. This information includes background information about custom events, how to register events using the Events Editor in the BEA E-Business Control Center, and what you need to do when you make changes to custom events.

This topic contains the following sections:

Note: You cannot change any of the standard events supplied with the Campaign Manager for WebLogic, the WebLogic Commerce Server, or the WebLogic Personalization Server.

Overview of Creating a Custom Event

The creation of a custom event is a multiple-step process. The following list provides an overview of the process:

Why Register an Event?

When you create a custom event, you must register the event. Registering a custom event lets the E-Business Control Center know that the custom event exists. Registering permits campaign developers using the E-Business Control Center to create scenario actions that refer to the event. Registering also identifies the event's properties.

Whenever you change the event code, you must update the event registration. Conversely, whenever you change the event registration, you must also update the event code. A possible ramification of event modification is that the scenario actions that refer to the event's properties may need to be modified.

Registering a Custom Event

The Event Editor in the E-Business Control Center allows you to easily register a custom event. For the purpose of registering an event, you can consider an event property as a name-value pair. During the registration of a custom event, you specify the event's name, description, and one or more properties. Each property has a range, type of permissible value, and default value. The information you need to register for an event should be available from your Commerce Business Engineer (CBE) or Java developer.

The properties for a custom event includes the following information:

Note: When you set property values, you are not guaranteed that the property will adhere to these restrictions at run time. Events are not checked by the SchemaManager for adherence to a property schema. Therefore, you need to keep the event type definition and the event registration synchronized.

As the previous list suggests, a combination of property values are possible. The possible combinations of properties are listed here:

To create a custom event:

The type of window that appears depends on the values selected.

Entering Property Values and Setting the Default Value

Depending on the data type, different steps are required for entering values and setting default values. The following property categories are available:

Properties with Boolean or a Single Value and Single Default

To enter the default value for Boolean property or a property with a single value and a single default (unrestricted), complete the following steps:

Properties with Multiple Values and Single, Multiple, or All Defaults

To enter multiple property values and set one or more defaults (unrestricted), complete the following steps:

Properties with Date and Time Values

To enter date and time values and set one or more defaults, complete the following steps:

Updating a Registered Custom Event

Whenever you make changes to a custom event's code, you should update that event's registration. Updating the registration lets the E-Business Control Center know about the changes in the custom event and aids campaign developers using the E-Business Control Center to modify any scenario actions that refer to the event.

To update a custom event: