Custom development of the Smartech plugin for Netcore

‍Time of the project: 3 weeks

Scope:

• More detailed planning of an already defined scope and breaking it down into finer steps and tasks
• Completing full development of the Smartech plugin
• Supporting and performing other tasks to successfully complete the project
  

Effect: Custom development of the Smartech plugin provided by Netcore. Creating dedicated events to make the plugin work better and be more powerful.

Project objectives

Every successful and prudent company tracks user behavior and then responsibly stores and uses the collected data for marketing and business development purposes. Here's why Netcore needed our assistance to create a dedicated and powerful plugin for ecommerce owners who have websites and want to mark interesting events on those sites.

So, the project includes expert support in planning, development, and configuration of a custom Smartech Netcore plugin that can be installed on Magento websites. It captures all events performed by users and then enables marketing, tracking, and automation.

First, we started with additional planning and work breakdown to the already defined scope with the client. We made sure to incorporate Magento plugin development best practices from both a technical and business perspective so that the plugin would be easily scalable.

We've done all the necessary research and used the best approaches compared to other existing plugins and marketing automation solutions in the market.

Magento developer performed a complete plugin development, consisting of upgrading an existing plugin and creating some brand-new features and "events" from scratch.

The project was dynamic and had to run smoothly, so our client required a full-time commitment. We ensured that the team was highly engaged and provided overall support to the client. In addition, our expert gave the necessary guidance and iterated tasks to complete the project successfully.

Magento in a nutshell

Magento is the software chosen for this custom plugin development project. It's an ecommerce platform built on open source technology that provides online merchants with a flexible shopping cart system. The Smartech plugin had to be compatible with this platform and meet its requirements. 

Understanding of the Smartech plugin

Before we get into the details of what we developed for this particular project, let's discuss the plugin itself in a little more detail. Smartech is Netcore's flagship product. It's an AI-powered marketing platform that helps you listen to your customers, analyze their behavior, and boost conversions.

Now, picture this: An end-user wants to buy something on your ecommerce site, and you've already added some events. So, you can actively track all the page data, such as product name, product ID, product specs, etc. All this information about clicks or scrolls made on your Magento website is sent to Smartech to help you target the end-user with relevant communication and upsell or cross-sell your products.

Smartech is an all cloud-based omnichannel marketing automation solution that offers marketers an engagement platform across different channels, such as email, SMS, voice, social, web, or app. To wrap up, Smartech Netcore is a well-known plugin among marketers and product managers worldwide, which is available on the Magento marketplace.

Now, for easier understanding of the project goals, below you can find a summary of the technical background of Netcore's Smartech plugin prepared by magento developer:

1. The plugin had to have admin configurations to Inject the Smartech API key and details. Any updates or migrations within the plugin were possible through the Magento website. As a result, we needed a clear confirmation every time we wanted to integrate the Smartech plugin with Magento. The SoftwareSupp expert needed to synchronize data between Magento and Smartech, and this synchronization was done through authentication API keys and some other information from the Magento website.

2. Magento JavaScript had to import external Smartech JavaScript. Magento is built based on modules. A module is a logical group or a directory containing blocks, controllers, helpers, models related to a specific business feature. So, the SoftwareSupp expert took advantage of this capability and added Smartech JavaScript in one of the modules. The JavaScript that we've added was responsible for collecting and exchanging all the data. We've placed a JavaScript file in the module that captures the events in the client's server when the user browses the web page. Then, all the data collected through the JavaScript file was sent to Smartech. 

3. Smartech JavaScript had to be included in the Magento frontend pages and fetch data in every page header. So, this JavaScript file must have been available on every page of the Magento ecommerce website.

4. Data was fetched and sent to Smartech based on Magento frontend events.

5. Synchronization of historical data from Magento to Netcore Smartech. This included orders, customers, catalogs, and abandoned carts.

6. Real-time data synchronization. This includes checkout, purchase orders and abandoned cart.

Overall, the plugin is available for Magento websites. All the data from your Magento site is sent directly to the Smartech plugin to serve marketing purposes in a big way. Download the plugin and use it to track and engage your end-users. 

Smartech Netcore plugin - event categories implemented by Magento developer

Our client already had a partially-realised plugin and asked us to update it. They prepared a list of features, events, and additional attributes that should be included in the Smartech. Before implementation, the plugin offered only a few attributes, and we wanted to make it more useful and attractive.

The events we're about to go into were meant to run in the background and then capture and summarize all the end-user requests. So, when they browse and search for a product, the browser passes the information to the Smartech plugin through Magento. Now let's dive into the custom events for this project and explore some of them.

There were different sets of event categories and attributes. Our client wanted to make sure that tracking was, well, everywhere: From the home page to subsequent listing pages and shopping cart pages. It was necessary to capture data on every page to make sure nothing was missed and that Smartech was, in fact, an effective solution.

Here are the examples of event categories that have been implemented by Certified Magento developer:

• Page Browse. When a user browses any page, such attributes are sent to Smartech: Customer key, browser, user timings, visit, URL, STS, site ID, title, Purl, etc.
• Category Search. This way, the company using the Smartech plugin knows when a particular product category is searched.
• Product Search. A company using the Smartech plugin knows when a product is searched, specifically its name, price, special prices, tax class, stock status, weight, or visibility.
• Add/Remove to cart. The ecommerce store owner knows what product has been added to the cart and also gets information about the Product ID, price, name, type, image, product URL, currency, brand, or product quantity.
• Add/Remove to wishlist. A similar case to the "Add to cart" event. A company using the Smartech plugin can learn what's trending and what's not, and plan its marketing strategy with that in mind.
• Checkout. This event is crucial because the company can get all the data about the number of products, discount amount, coupon codes used, tax amount, and other things related to the checkout. 
• Product purchase. It's also one of the most important business metrics. We've added some events related to the purchase process. Now, a business using Smartech plugin can find the order number, amount, shipping city/region/country, shipping cost, or the payment method. 
• Sign Up, Log In, Sign In. We added events to track user behavior on the website to know the number and quality of all sign-ups and log-ins.
• Product Catalog Sync. A SoftwareSupp expert provided two endpoint URLs. One was for product updates (real-time synchronization), and the other was for the default product collection.
• Location tracking via browser location access as well as IP based. We added this event to send the user's browser location and IP address to Smartech via the Smartech script. ‍
• Product Collection. We created a custom API to fetch the abandoned cart list and send it to Smartech.
  

These are just a few of the events that we've been able to implement. The point is, we've taken a complete update of the plugin and turned it into a unique tool that enables modern marketers to map the customer journey to deliver a delightful Customer Experience.

Development of your plugin

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