JavaScript FAQ

Last updated 6/6/2023

About Winware

Winware automatically drives your customers to an "aha moment" with your product. "Aha moments" are those lightbulb moments when prospects or customers discover the compelling value in your product that aligns to their goals or needs. When your customers use your product to achieve their goals, they are more likely to buy, upgrade, and renew.

Uses of Winware's JavaScript:

Winware offers its customers a JavaScript. Use of Winware's JavaScript is optional. The Winware JavaScript provides two benefits:

1. Capture and share product usage and user meta data.

2. Capture user persona and goals.

Capture product usage and user meta data:

Winware can access product usage data in two ways:

1. Third party product analytics tools: You can share data using your existing product analytics tools or data lake. This does not require use of Winware's JavaScript. Most of these integrations are no-code and take less than an hour to set up. Simply share specific data with Winware's via BigQuery.

2. Winware's JavaScript: If you do not have great product analytics, you can add Winware’s own javascript to your sites to capture click event data. The Winware script pulls event data through its APIs. Winware's JavaScript does not capture PII data directly. Winware's Customers can use the JavaScript to pass users ID and/or each user's name/email to Winware so that it can match site usage behaviors to specific users. Passing Winware each user's name and email is not required, but it can help you use this data for sales activities, such as syncing with your CRM tool or email tool or just knowing if a specific account or user has completed any high impact features. Winware stores all event data on Google Cloud. Data is encrypted both at rest and in transit. Winware’s data capture is also asynchronous, so it doesn’t impact page load. More on that below.

What is the Winware JavaScript code snippet?

Winware measures a user's engagement for any web page/product that has it’s JavaScript code (“JS Script”) added to any HTML page.

How does the JavaScript code snippet work?:

The JavaScript allows Winware to measure click events and URLs per visit. Winware’s JS Script is an event listener that tracks HTML DOM events for any HTML page which has its code. Winware’s code ties the events to a specific element’s Selector. Below is an example of the Selector path that we would pull from the “Subscribe Now” button on ESPN. We would show all event data for that “Subscribe Now” button by linking it to its path. Winware works without requiring custom event tags. However, Winware also offers the option of using custom event tags. Use of custom event tags for specific features has the benefit of keeping consistent event data even if the element's selector changes (eg button moves to a different spot on the page). Winware also supports analyzing back-end/server side events.

Note: ESPN is not a Winware customer. This is an example to show that an element's selector path is publicly available information.

Will the JavaScript code snippet impact my page loading or site navigation?

The loading of the Winware JS Script should not impact page load. First, it is a small file, approximately 32b. Also, it is downloaded by a browser only once per user and stored in that user’s browser cache. Once the JS Script is loaded (after first visit), Winware uses sendBeacon API to send page analytics requests to the server. This means that the data being sent does not impact site navigation. A user would NOT need to wait for the request to be complete before the user could navigate to the next page. Read more here: https://golb.hplar.ch/2018/09/beacon-api.html

Does the JavaScript track Personally Identifiable Information?

The Winware Javascript does NOT track any PII. It tracks HTML DOM events and aggregates the data. We require customers to pass use their User IDs with each event. Optionally, Winware's customers can pass user name and email for every click event, which can help with sales and marketing activities, but this is optional.

Where can I find the JavaScript code snippet for my account?

When you create an account, you can get your unique JS code snippet here: https://app.winware.ai/settings/code.

Do I need to create tags for each event?

No. You do not need to create tags for each element that you want to track. Winware’s Javascript captures most web and mobile web behaviors automatically. You can analyze any type of data that can be modeled as a person (user) who does something (events).

There are several notable events that Winware’s JS script won’t capture out-of-the-box, such as:

  • Text events (e.g. filling out a form and hitting tab or enter on your keyboard instead of a clicking a button in the UI)
  • Events that are not auto captured. Example: pop-ups that haven’t been explicitly triggered by a page view or some type of user interaction.
  • Events that are mission-critical. This is typically any key conversion event, e.g. ‘Membership Started’, where you need the data in Winware to match your backend exactly. 

We call these events Custom Events. Winware also supports Custom Events.

To use Custom Events with Winware, add code similar to the below example in different places on a page to track those custom events

  • Example: user creates a text note. Custom code to add:
    ipa.track('Note created');

Winware also supports back-end events for analysis. Contact us if you have any questions about how our JavaScript or overall product works.