Topics
Device Preparation
Prepare your device for recording a Journey by installing a security certificate, defining the device's profile in LiveConnect, and understanding how to change your device's proxy and port settings. A device can be any Android or iOS phone or tablet, a Windows, Macintosh or Linux desktop, or OTT devices, such as Apple TV.
Android apps for the Nougat OS or higher (7.0+) need special setup before the certificate instructions here will work. See Preparing Apps with Android Nougat (7.0) and Above for details.
Install the LiveConnect Certificate
As part of the setup for LiveConnect, you will need to complete a one-time install of an ObservePoint root certificate on each of your testing devices. This certificate lets LiveConnect capture all of the network calls that the app or web page passes through a proxy.
Add a New Device Profile
You will also need to set up a device in LiveConnect for each device that you will use for testing. This is a one-time process per device. Click LiveConnect > Add New Device.
Create a New Journey
In the LiveConnect interface, locate your device profile from the Device Type menu (e.g., Phone & Tablet, PC & Desktop, Smart TV & Game Console) and then Click the device profile in question. Click New Journey.
Configure the LiveConnect Proxy
Before recording the Journey, configure the proxy settings of your devices so that all traffic is sent through the ObservePoint LiveConnect proxy. Use the Proxy IP and Port shown on the Journey page. Each new Journey requires you to update the proxy's port setting, though the IP address remains the same.
LiveConnect Journey Proxy and Port settings. The port changes with each new Journey.
Recording the Journey
After configuring and activating your device proxy settings, click Start Recording and navigate through the app or website on your device. In this Journey example, we are testing the ObservePoint training site jpstyle.us. Upon arriving at the JP Style home page, the LiveConnect interface shows Tags Found on this page such as Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics. Click the triangle to the left of the tag name to view variables and values passed to the tag vendor. Turn on Primary Tags to focus on the tags that are most important to you.
Journey Tags Found
Add Journey Steps
While recording, you can add Steps to group tags by each action, page or screen view executed during your Journey.
Journey Steps and Notes
You can rename each Step, add notes, and attach images, test instructions, or additional explanatory notes so that test results are easily understood by other team members.
Document Attachments
Deleting Steps
You can remove steps while recording a Journey so that your Journey is better organized or to combine tags with a previous step. While recording a Journey, hover over a step and click the X.
Hover and click the X
When a step is deleted, any tags already recorded in a step are merged into the step above it.
Journey Report
Assign and Apply Rules
In LiveConnect, Rules are based on Journey Rule logic meaning that the rule passes if rule requirements have been met at least once during the Journey. Apps often send out analytics in batches, which makes it harder to associate a rule with a specific user interaction. Best practice for apps is to create many specific rules and evaluate whether or not they get passed sometime during the Journey.
LiveConnect lets you apply existing rules or create new rules on-the-fly.
To apply existing rules to a Journey, click Assign Rule and select the ones you want. Be sure to click Apply in order to preserve the selections.
Alternatively, click Assign Rule > Create New to build a new rule using variables and values discovered within a tag. The values that show come from the currently selected tag (highlighted in yellow) in the Tags Found window. Apply any rules you create to the Journey and save it to the Rule Library by clicking Add Rule.
You may add rules while recording the Journey or retroactively after the Journey has been saved. Click Reprocess Rules to see the results.
Depending on when you add the rule, you may or may not see the current rules listed in the Assign Rules box until after the data has been reprocessed.
Request Log
The Request Log shows the sequence of all requests made. Click on a request to analyze network performance through the Request Info and Response windows. Quickly find an item by filtering the requests with a keyword search or a regular expression. If a network request is also a tag that has been captured, it will automatically highlight in the Tags Found window.
Sending SSL requests through a proxy may trigger server warnings that can appear on the platform you are testing. If you need to set specific SSL requests to bypass the LiveConnect Proxy, check Manage SSL and then toggle off Enabled SSL for the requests that need to bypass the proxy.
LiveConnect Request Log lets you examine all requests and turn on bypass the proxy if filter requests to find
Once you are done testing, click Stop Recording and then Save and Finish. Your test will be saved and available for review in the LiveConnect interface.