Setting Up Live Stats & Visitor Chat - Quick Start

Important: Please read this page before doing anything else. It will help you get up and running quickly.

This chapter will describe how to quickly setup visitor monitoring and live chat. It assumes you have just installed WhosOn and have not changed any of the default settings.

We will use 'page tagging' to monitor visitors as this is the quickest to setup and you don't need access to your web server log files.

Install WhosOn and run the Database Setup Wizard to create the WhosOn Database.

Now close WhosOn if it is running.

Step One - Post Install Checklist

Firewall

If you are using a firewall, ensure that ports 8080 & 8011 are open. This will allow WhosOn page tagging requests and WhosOn Client users to connect from the Internet. If you use port-forwarding on your router, ensure that traffic on these ports are forwarded to the WhosOn PC (most routers will do this automatically).

IIS

Ensure IIS is installed and running and that the Default Web Site is started. Ensure that the 'chat' virtual directory exists under the default web site (the WhosOn setup will have created this). Ensure the .NET Framework 2 is installed and enabled in IIS.

Step Two - Run The Chat Setup Wizard

Make sure the WhosOn Server is closed, then select Chat Setup Wizard from the WhosOn Start Menu - Chat Folder

Note: You need to complete this step even if you don't plan on using the WhosOn Chat feature.

WhosOn needs to know your public IP address. A 'public' IP address is the Internet IP address that is visible to other users on the Internet and is 'static'. A static IP address is one that does not change each time you connect to the Internet.

Select your Public IP address. Click the Lookup button if you do not know your public IP.

Users With Dynamic IP Address

If you do not have a static IP address you can use a service that maps a permanent DNS name to a dynamic IP. For example, http://www.nettica.com - once you have a permanent DNS name use this in the above entry.

Click Next to continue. You can click Next on each of the following steps and complete the wizard.

Step Three - Install And Start The WhosOn Server and Gateway services

Run the WhosOn Service Manager from the WhosOn Start menu.

If you haven't already done so, click the Install Services button to install the WhosOn Server and Gateway services.

Click the Start buttons to start both the WhosOn Server and Gateway services.

Step Four - Setup A Site In WhosOn

Using the WhosOn Service Manager, click the Action menu option, then select Add Site

The new site wizard will appear:

Unselect the Import A Site From IIS option and click Next:

Enter your site Name and Domain Name (you don't need to enter the http:// part). The domain does NOT need to be hosted on the WhosOn PC. It can be hosted anywhere. Click Next:

Select the Use The WhosOn Gateway option. Click Next:

Ensure the Allow Remote Access To This Site is enabled and click Next. This will enable us to view the site in the WhosOn Client.

We don't need to specify a site user name/password at this point.

Enter your Email address and contact name.. then click Finish to complete the wizard.

The site will be added to WhosOn.

You are now ready to embed the tracking code into your web pages. This is done using the WhosOn Client.

Step Five - Embedding The Tracking Code

Start the WhosOn Client from the WhosOn Start menu:

Right-click your site in the Monitored Sites Tree and select Site Properties:

Select the Tracking Code tab:

Click the Embedding Instructions button.

This will generate the tracking code files and place them in a folder on your PC. This folder will be opened along with instructions on what to embed in your pages.

Once the code is embedded you will start seeing visitors appear in your WhosOn Client. Right-click a visitor to view visit details or send chat 'invites'. Visitors will be able to click the:

..link to start a chat session. You will then be able to chat to yourself.

You can customize that chat graphics on the Visitor Chat tab of the Site Properties.

Server-Side Tracking

If your website is developed using a server-side language, such as ASP, ASPX or PHP, you can also track visitors via 'server-side' code. This is code that is executed on the web server before the page is sent to the visitor. This has advantages over 'client-side' tracking using Javascript. Click the Server-Side Tracking button to view the help page for more information.

Non-Javascript Tracking

If you want to track page views on sites that do not allow Javascript, like MySpace, Blogs, eBay sites etc or in your Email Signature, click the Non-Javascript Tracking button and paste the code shown into your pages. See: Tracking Visitors Without Using Javascript for more information.