Putting @km.initialize and identify in the right place...

[dougfulop]

Is the most efficient place to put the following in the application controller?

@km ||= KM.initialize(your_api_key)
@km.identify(current_user.email)

Also, can both of these be delayed?

Thank you!
Doug

[nfm]

Hi Doug,

Neither KM.initialize nor @km.identify send a request to the KISSmetrics API, so they don't need to be delayed. I'll update the readme to make that clearer. Only #record, #alias and #set send requests, and can be delayed.

I have a class in my lib/ directory, containing something like the following:

class KISSmetrics
  def self.record(event, properties = {})
    if Rails.env.production?
      begin
        @km ||= KM.new(APP_CONFIG[:kissmetrics][:api_key])
        @km.identify(properties[:identifier])
        @km.delay.record(event, properties)
      rescue => e
        # Don't break the app if something goes wrong here. Send yourself an error notification with Airbrake, Exceptional, or whatever
      end
    end
  end
end

Then, in a controller, you'd do something like this:

def index
  KISSmetrics.record('Visited #index', identifier: current_user.email)
end

That way, things are nice and DRY and every event sent to KISSmetrics is delayed.

Let me know if you need any more help :)

[dougfulop]

I created a KISSmetrics.rb file in my /lib folder and I put KISSmetrics.record('Created a feature', identifier: current_or_guest_user.email) in my FeaturesController.create action.

Am I missing something (or need to tell rails to load this file)?

I got the error: uninitialized constant FeaturesController::KISSmetrics

Also, do I need to create a method in the KISSmetrics.rb class for alias as well?

[nfm]

@dougfulop The file should be lowercased - /lib/kissmetrics.rb, and you'll need to require it somewhere. I do that in an initializer:

# /config/initializers/kissmetrics.rb
require 'kissmetrics'

You'll also need to add lib/ to config.autoload_paths, if it's not there already:

# config/application.rb
config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/lib)

You'll then be able to use KISSmetrics from anywhere in your app. The alternative to the initializer is to add require 'kissmetrics' to whatever classes you want to access it from.

If you want to use the alias API call from within your app, you should write a similar method to KISSmetrics.record.

[dougfulop]

So is this a good way to go about it?

in /lib/kissmetrics.rb

  def self.alias(properties = {},alias_to)
    if Rails.env #.production?
      begin
        @km ||= KM.new('apiKeyRemovedForPost')
        @km.identify(properties[:identifier])
        @km.delay.alias(properties[:identifier], alias_to)
      rescue => e
        # Don't break the app if something goes wrong here. Send yourself an error notification with Airbrake, Exceptional, or whatever
      end
    end
  end

and a call to KISSmetrics.alias(identifier: guest_user.email, current_user.email) in ApplicationController (after the user logs in and the guest user account is converted into an actual user account)?

[nfm]

@dougfulop Yep, that looks good.

I assume commenting out the .production? is just for testing? If not, you'll want to separate your dev and production KISSmetrics events out somehow :)

[nfm]

@dougfulop Also, you should remove your API key from your comment, or generate another one.

[dougfulop]

Unfortunately, the line KISSmetrics.alias(identifier: guest_user.email, current_user.email) generates the error syntax error, unexpected ')', expecting tASSOC.

[nfm]

Hi @dougfulop, the alias method just takes two arguments: name and alias_to. Dropping the identifier: will make it work.

I'm in the process of putting some more time into the gem, and everything should be clearer soon! Please note that the official repository has also moved to https://github.com/paydirt/delayable_km