Configuring Claim forwarding for Experiments

When using the Experiments feature of Experience Optimization, you need to configure Claim forwarding and make sure that your list of Claims includes a Claim with the URI taf:request:cookies.

About this task

An Experiment defines variations of content (Content Variants) to display in a region of a webpage. The Content Variants are displayed randomly to website visitors within a given time frame. The objective of an Experiment is to see which Content Variant performed the best (resulted in the most conversions).

Experiments rely on cookies to store session data to ensure a visitor is always viewing the same Content Variant. When using this feature, you need to set up Claims to forward in the Ambient Data Framework configuration of the web application, and then add those Claims to the list of the globally accepted Claims in the Ambient Data Framework configuration of the Content Service.

Procedure

  1. In the configuration location of the web application, open cd_ambient_conf.xml for editing.
  2. Ensure that the file contains a ForwardedClaims section listing all the default Claims, plus any custom Claims, you wish to use.
    The following shows the minimum needed for Experiments:
    <ForwardedClaims CookieName="TAFContext">
      <Claim Uri="taf:request:full_url"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:request:cookies"/> 
    </ForwardedClaims> 
    The following example shows the section with additional claims for a session cartridge (such as for an in-process setup) and claims for Audience Manager:
    <ForwardedClaims CookieName="TAFContext">
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:refererdomain"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:useragent:isbot"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:authorization:type"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:session:lifetime"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:useragent:browser"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:useragent:os"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:authorization:isauthenticated"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:request:full_url"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:request:cookies"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:city"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:company"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:age"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:identification:source"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:prefix"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:birth:date"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:working:years"/>
    </ForwardedClaims>
  3. Save and close cd_ambient_conf.xml.
  4. Restart the web application.
  5. In the configuration location of the Content Service or Session-enabled Content Service, open cd_ambient_conf.xml for editing.
  6. Ensure that the file contains a GloballyAcceptedClaims section containing the same Claims you configured in the web application. If you are implementing Experience Optimization together with Audience Manager, ensure those additional Claims are included as well.

    Following our previous example, that would be the following:

    <GloballyAcceptedClaims>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:refererdomain"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:useragent:isbot"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:authorization:type"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:session:lifetime"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:useragent:browser"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:useragent:os"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:ambientdata:sessioncartridge:authorization:isauthenticated"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:request:full_url"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:request:cookies"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:keywords"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:segments"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:city"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:company"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:age"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:identification:source"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:prefix"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:birth:date"/>
      <Claim Uri="taf:claim:audiencemanager:contact:extendeddetail:working:years"/>
     </GloballyAcceptedClaims>
  7. Save and close cd_ambient_conf.xml.