The Tree Construction process is built to run on auto-pilot. However, there are scenarios that require manual admin user involvement to get this process complete.
It is important to know that the “Tree” table comes empty out of the box, when you install Sitecore XP 8.0. This is because the Trees reflect the interaction data from customer’s xDB instance.
Consider the following scenarios:
Scenario 1: You just installed Sitecore 8.0 XP that references an empty xDB (*).
* empty xDB means no data in the Interactions collection.
This is a simple scenario. Since there was no historical data, the Path Analyzer will not perform Tree Construction for the past dates, however it will build maps for all new interactions the next day after all sessions are flushed to xDB, and the maps will be available for the analysis after that. This work is performed by the dailyMapAgent described in the Agents section below.
Scenario 2: You installed Sitecore XP 8.0 recently, it references to an existing xDB with some historic interaction data (*).
* the xDB data could either be migrated from the previous versions of DMS, transferred from other xDB or automatically generated by a script, it doesn’t matter.
In this case, it assumes that the connection string to the xDB with the historic data is in place at the moment of the first system use.
The Tree Construction process will kick off the historic data rebuild process for Path Analyzer’s needs in approximately 5 minutes after the first system start-up.
After this process finishes, the state of the Properties table in RDB should change to the following:
|
Key
|
Value
|
|
PathAnalyzer_newmaps
|
<empty>
|
|
PathAnalyzer_busy
|
False
|
|
PathAnalyzer_lastrunnewmaps
|
<timestamp in UTC>
|
This should also result in new records added to the Trees table. At this point, the Path Analyzer is capable of displaying maps in the UI, and you can start the map analysis on the available data set.
Scenario 3: You installed Sitecore 8.0 XP that references to an empty xDB(*), but afterwards changed the connection string to another xDB with some historic data.
* empty xDB means no data in the Interactions collection.
First of all, inspect the state of the Properties table in RDB. If it shows that the following key values are there, you must rebuild the data for all maps. Follow Scenario 4 below for instructions.
|
Key
|
Value
|
|
PathAnalyzer_newmaps
|
<empty>
|
|
PathAnalyzer_busy
|
False
|
|
PathAnalyzer_lastrunnewmaps
|
<timestamp in UTC>
|
Scenario 4: You need to rebuild all Path Analyzer’s maps for any reason some time after Sitecore 8.0 XP installation.
Prerequisites:
- The TreeDefinitions table has records present in the current RDB you use as a primary reporting database.
Your next actions depend on the following:
- If you use Sitecore XP 8.0 Update-2:
- Open /Sitecore/admin/pathanalyzer.aspx (login as admin required).
-
Click the Rebuild All Deployed Maps button.
This process will kick off a process of re-streaming all the xDB interaction data and rebuilding maps for the whole historic data set.
If the historic data rebuild process doesn’t start, please refer to the Troubleshooting section of the document.
- If you use any version of Sitecore XP 8.0 prior to Update-2 or you are running any Sitecore XP 8.0 version configured in the scaled mode:
- Execute the following SQL script on the primary reporting database:
IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [Properties] WHERE [Key] = 'PathAnalyzer_newmaps')
BEGIN
DELETE FROM [Properties] WHERE [Key] = 'PathAnalyzer_newmaps'
end
GO
DELETE FROM [Properties] WHERE [Key] = 'PathAnalyzer_lastrunnewmaps'
INSERT [Properties]([PropertyId], [Key], [Value])
VALUES (NEWID(), 'PathAnalyzer_newmaps', '68e713d8-a382-4378-8fb0-9d7f7ad14b25|8690c11c-621b-4515-ad63-267cd82a4ff3|e049ad86-d98b-4639-a450-77d1b294a270|6423e93e-197c-4c72-b864-a9cb59c99ffb|11efce5e-966b-4f02-b85c-ccd2ad8e16eb|a6261383-efca-4fc7-94c8-6818980f9bc0|d57b53be-cd98-4ec4-9767-c99f8a72ec0a')
Important: if you added any new maps in addition to 7 maps that Sitecore XP ships with, you need to modify the value of the inserted property by appending the corresponding item IDs from the map definitions items under Marketing Control Panel / Path Analyzer / Maps …
- Wait for approximately 5 minutes for the background agent to pick up the job.
When this value is inserted, the agent responsible for this historic Tree Construction process will pick this value up (could take up to 5 minutes to process) and kick off the historic data rebuild process for the maps matching these IDs.
If the historic data rebuild process doesn’t start, please refer to the Troubleshooting section of the document.