This documentation covers aspects of the Context Ad Serving and Analytics (CASAA) module concerning system overview and usage.
The CASAA module is a pluggable framework module for Drupal websites that supports and manages ad serving and analytics systems without the need for creating or adding any script to templates. With the built-in plug-and-play aspect, admins can tag content using URL paths and Drupal's taxonomy system to provide highly detailed and controlled analytics as well as manage well-targeted ad campaigns with ease in real-time.
Philosophy:
Allowing admins to create and manage tagging for their site's content has always been a major topic and Drupal allows them to achieve such with its taxonomy system. One problem that came about though was how to connect that same tagging practice to the ad-serving and analytics systems that they were using which, in almost every case relied on developers to write and manage the code to do so. With the CASAA that step has been integrated to where now, through an organized interface, inspired by the Views module, they can connect values and settings of their existing ad-serving and analytics systems to the taxonomy without the need of a developer to manage code and whatnot. This helps in eliminating the extra step of a requiring a developer and allows site admins to be able to work closer with the ad teams, etc. in managing the sites outside systems in almost real-time.
With current sites already running the system we have already seen an increase in the efficiency of the ad teams to be able to create new campaigns quickly in keeping up with the speed of news, as well as the teams to be able to maintain highly detailed metrics of what users are doing and viewing on their site.
The Documentation itself:
The rest of the documentation will go through everything ranging from basic installation, creating and managing tagging, as well as, the developers documentation which, allows new plug-ins to be developed for systems that aren't currently supported expanding the flexibility of the core framework to handle anything that admin's need.
The CASAA module allows for site admins to create and manage mapping settings that attach values and settings to the ad-serving and analytics systems to the already established categories and URL paths in their site.
The following sections will cover everything from basic installation to creating managing mapping settings/tagging for the systems used.
After you have downloaded the module and plug-in bundle (currently included with the initial download), install as you would any other module for drupal by placing the taking the entire contents of the expanded archive provided by Drupal into the /sites/all/modules directory of your Drupal site.
When that is complete, goto Administer -> Site Building -> Modules (admin/build/modules) to enable the framework module and any component plug-ins that you wish to use. You must enable all of the sub-modules for your plug-ins to work.
*Please note that enabling any of the plug-ins without enabling the core framework will cause a WSOD (white screen of death)!
*Also note that for sites already using the Context Management Framework (CMF) that installing the CASAA module will install as an upgrade from the CMF and will disable all CMF components. Your existing data and mapping settings will be conserved and migrated into CASAA automatically. For more info please refer to Upgrading from CMF to CASAA.
After enabling the module/plug-ins go to Administer -> User Management -> Permissions (admin/user/permissions). Here, you should enable permissions for the roles that will administering the CASAA module and the tagging/mapping settings for your site.
After installing the system, enabling the necessary plug-ins, and allocating user permissions, the next step is to begin adding account settings for the systems that are being used.
After you have properly installed and enabled the module/plug-ins and configured the user permissions, it's time to setup the account information and global settings for each plug-in system.
Go to Administer -> Site Building -> CASAA Settings (admin/build/casaa) to access the interface for the CASAA module. Under the Global Settings tab you may enter the account information for the systems the you will be using.
In the Global Settings tab you are presented with options for what type of mapping settings you wish to use, Path (URL) mappings and/or Taxonomy term mappings. With those options you may choose to have either path mappings or taxonomy mappings. You may also have both.
*note: choosing either will not remove or delete previous settings that you already have set. It is only an option to help you manage your interface and what you can see and/or manage.
Underneath the global settings for the CASAA module you will see a list of plug-ins installed. There you may insert/add the settings for your accounts with those systems as well as provide default mappings and any other settings that are provided.
Also, with each system installed you will see a checkbox labeled "Enabled" that indicates whether or not it's in use. You may use that option to be able to turn on/off the system in real time as you need it without having to disable the module itself.
* Note: do not disable the module for your plug-in! it may cause an issue that may affect the systems that you're currently using.
After you have entered in the account info and everything else you need you are now ready to begin mapping your site and take control of your ad-serving and analytics!