Continuum – Real-time visitor tracking add-on.

Continuum is a real-time visitor tracking add-on that logs visits and other actions on your website, collecting data about each user and their navigation patterns which can be literally viewed in real-time, as well as viewed at any time in the future.

Continuum has been discontinued and is no longer available. Thank you for the continued support over the years. Please consider an alternative add-on.

Installation #

Download and unzip Continuum, then follow the simple steps below:

Upload the system/expressionengine/third_party/continuum folder
Upload the themes/third_party/continuum folder
Install the Continuum module (Control Panel > Add-Ons > Modules > Install)
Open the Continuum settings (Control Panel > Add-Ons > Modules > Continuum) and enable logging

Updating #

Download and unzip the latest version of Continuum, then follow the steps below:

Overwrite the system/expressionengine/third_party/continuum folder
Overwrite the themes/third_party/continuum folder

Settings #

For security purposes logging is disabled by default. You can enable it on the settings page as well as change the following settings:

Logging
Whether Continuum should log actions

Log Anonymous Users
Whether Continuum should log actions by anonymous (not logged in) users

Maximum Number of Logged Actions to keep
The maximum number of logged actions that should be kept in the database (leave blank for no maximum)

Maximum Age of Logged Actions to keep
The maximum age of logged actions that should be kept in the database (in days, leave blank for no maximum)

Logging #

Continuum works by logging visits and other actions on your website. It collects data about each user and their navigation patterns which can be literally viewed in real-time, as well as viewed at any time in the future.

Precautions have been put in place to avoid logging visits by web crawlers and bots. Visits that are determined as being bounces (no activity after 3 minutes) are also removed.

Privacy #

Continuum saves the following data about your site users in the database. It also sets a cookie on their browser. Please ensure that this does not conflict with your site’s privacy policy before using Continuum.

Member ID
If the user is a member of the site then their ID is stored

IP Address
The IP address of the user

Individual Actions
The type of actions that the user performed (landing, visit, exit, etc.) as well as the url and timestamp of each action

Time of First Visit
A timestamp of the first time the user visited the site

Time of Last Visit
A timestamp of the last time the user visited the site

Template Tags #

A template tag allows you to log actions from within your templates:

{exp:continuum:log}
Use this single tag to log an action (notes is opti

{exp:continuum:log action="Add to Cart" notes="Product xyz"}

Developers #

Continuum was developed to be a progressive add-on which means that it can be extended easily and in many ways by other third-party add-ons.

Library #

Continuum abstracts its main functions into a library which can be called by other add-ons. To call the library use the following code:

// load continuum library
$this->EE->load->add_package_path(PATH_THIRD.'continuum/');
$this->EE->load->library('Continuum_lib');
$this->EE->load->remove_package_path(PATH_THIRD.'continuum/');

You can then call the available methods as follows:

// log an action
$this->EE->continuum_lib->log_activity($action, $notes);

// call clean up routine
$this->EE->continuum_lib->clean_up();

Extension Hooks #

The following extension hooks are available:

continuum_log_activity_start
Allows complete rewrite of activity logging routine

continuum_log_activity
Allows you to modify log data before inserting in database

continuum_log_activity_end
Allows additional processing at end of logging routine

continuum_clean_up_start
Allows complete rewrite of clean up routine

continuum_clean_up_end
Allows additional processing at end of clean up routine

Action #

The Continuum module has an ACTion that can be used to log form submissions. Use the following code to retrieve the AID:

$action_id = $this->EE->functions->fetch_action_id('Continuum', 'log_activity');