Getting to the Bottom of User Behavior
Infragistics® Analytics Framework gives all of the Infragistics controls for Silverlight (both in their line of business and data visualization toolsets) support for the Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework (MSAF). Infragistics has gone farther than many other component vendors in implementing custom extensions for key controls that let you track the detailed user behaviors of these controls, and their framework has a lighter footprint that makes it easier to deploy with your Rich Internet Applications. You can learn more about the Infragistics Analytics Framework at www.infragistics.com, or right here as I walk you through some of its key features.
Read more about the superior Web Analytics for Silverlight supported by the Infragistics Analytics Framework.
Background on Web Analytics for Microsoft Silverlight
Web Analytics are what underpin today’s online services, empowering companies to track relevant end user behaviors and then tailor their services to cater to the specific tastes of their audience or market segment.
Figure 1. Infragistics Analytics Framework includes this Silverlight dashboard for visually analyzing end user behavior.
What Infragistics brings to the table for developers building RIAs using its NetAdvantage® for Silverlight Data Visualization and NetAdvantage for Silverlight Line of Business products is one of the best-designed frameworks for Web Analytics based on the Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework. Called the Infragistics Analytics Framework, it empowers these developers to track user behavior in their online, offline and out-of-browser RIAs running on Microsoft Silverlight 4.
Because it has been built on top of the rock-steady foundation of the MSAF, the Infragistics Analytics Framework gives you Web analytics support in its Silverlight UI controls with a competitive advantage in understanding your application and its users’ behavior. It adds functionality over and above what kinds of user tracking is made possible with MSAF, so that RIAs built with the Infragistics toolset provide you with valuable business intelligence that you can analyze, monetize and capitalize.
Download a 30-day free trial of NetAdvantage for Silverlight Data Visualization so you can build business intelligence solutions capable of sophisticated Web analytics.
Download a 30-day free trial of NetAdvantage for Silverlight Line of Business so you can create feature-rich interactive applications with full Web analytics support available.
Extended Web Analytics for Key Silverlight Controls
Not only do all Infragistics controls in their Silverlight Line of Business and Silverlight Data Visualization packages support the standard control analytics events of the MSAF, but Infragistics has gone further to identify the most important use cases that center around your users’ data interaction and application navigation.
Some of these events that you’ll recognize rightaway include paging (such as browsing through the pages of an online catalog), node clicks (navigating between folders in a document repository), and selection of menu commands (allowing you to track when a user activates certain features of your Silverlight application).
With over two dozen custom events and properties, key controls such as xamGrid™ (a high performance Silverlight data grid), xamTree™ (a hierarchical tree-structured representation of your data) and xamMenu™ (a versatile navigational interface for menus and more) each support the ability to collect extended Web analytics information that’s highly relevant to you.
What’s the Comparative Advantage with Infragistics Analytics Framework
Infragistics Analytics Framework gives you complete support across ALL Silverlight UI controls in the Infragistics toolset for the capabilities of MSAF, no controls are left out or excluded. For key controls like the data grid, tree and menu there are custom-built wrappers that enrich your Web Analytics with extended information to track relevant usage scenarios like paging back and forth, node clicks and menu selections.
Each of these custom-built wrappers exists in a separate assembly, so that if you only want to track the events in one control then you only have to deploy it’s assembly and not deploy or reference any of the others. This gives the Infragistics Analytics Framework a smaller and lighter footprint than many other implementations of Web Analytics for Silverlight that require a full set of assemblies to be deployed even when only one or a few controls are being used.
If you are new to the framework, then Infragistics Analytics Framework includes a Silverlight 4 test application that you can use for learning purposes or troubleshooting. The presence of a highly-stylized Silverlight dashboard enables you to visualize collected data and Web Analytics through the framework’s included Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) endpoint, which is based on the SOA 1.0 protocol in MSAF.
Summary
With the importance of Web Analytics to today’s online services, the Infragistics Analytics Framework gives you the advantage when you need to analyze, monetize and capitalize on the behaviors of your Silverlight application’s end users behaviors. These powerful framework rests on an already rich and interactive user interface control toolset in Infragistics’ NetAdvantage for Silverlight Line of Business and NetAdvantage for Silverlight Data Visualization, each empowering you to create sophisticated RIAs that support real world analytics from top vendors including comScore, Google Analytics, Omniture, PreEmptive Solutions, WebTrends and many others.
Learn more about the superior Web Analytics for Silverlight supported by the Infragistics Analytics Framework.
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