Smart Target 2014 with DD4T

Question

I am implementing Smart Target 2014 with DD4T Framework as per the approach in this article http://www.tridiondeveloper.com/dd4t-and-sdl-smarttarget-2014-integration. I have done following steps to create a sample page:

1. Created and configured promotion/Trigger inside SDL tridion using Targeting option. Trigger type is of Current Date.

2. Added markup on DD4T Page view for smart target region as below:

   <!-- Start Promotion Region: { "RegionID": "Header" } -->
   @Html.RenderSmartTargetRegionUsingView("Header", "General")
   <!-- End SiteEdit Promotional Region -->
   

Where Region is Header and my Component view is General.

1. Used AmbientDataHelper to fetch trigger using mbientDataHelper.GetTriggers(claimStore) . Complete code is:

ClaimStore claimStore = AmbientDataContext.CurrentClaimStore;
string query = AmbientDataHelper.GetTriggers(claimStore);
var queryBuilder = new QueryBuilder();
queryBuilder.Parse(query);
if (maxItems > 0)
{
  queryBuilder.MaxItems = maxItems;
}
queryBuilder.StartIndex = startIndex;
var pubIdUri = new Tridion.SmartTarget.Utils.TcmUri(publicationId);
Tridion.SmartTarget.Query.Builder.PublicationCriteria pubCriteria
= new Tridion.SmartTarget.Query.Builder.PublicationCriteria(pubIdUri);
queryBuilder.AddCriteria(pubCriteria);
RegionCriteria region = new RegionCriteria(regionName);
List<string> componentIds = new List<string>();
ResultSet fredHopperResultset = queryBuilder.Execute();
foreach (Promotion p in fredHopperResultset.Promotions)
{
 foreach (Item i in p.Items)
 {
    componentIds.Add(i.ComponentUriAsString + "|" + i.TemplateUriAsString);
 }
}
foreach (string s in componentIds)
{
  string[] compPresIds = s.Split(new char[] { '|' });
  string compId = compPresIds[0], templateId = compPresIds[1];
  IComponent comp = null;
  ComponentFactory cf = new ComponentFactory();
  cf.TryGetComponent(compId, out comp, templateId);
  var renderedCp = helper.Partial(viewName, comp);
  renderedRegionItemsList.Add(renderedCp);
}
return renderedRegionItemsList;

I have observed that AmbientDataHelper.GetTriggers(claimStore) is return empty string value. Can anyone suggest what I am missing.

Answer 1

The problem is likely that the triggers that your Promotion depends on are not in the query (which is logged as INFO, by the way), or there's a problem with getting the trigger values from the ADF.

Since you said the trigger is Current Date, that's a default trigger so there must be other factors preventing it. Maybe your region is incorrect, or you're not in the right Publication.

You could try setting the triggers in XPM (using footprints) and seeing if your Promotion shows up there. Also keep in mind that the Component Presentation(s) returned by the Promotion need to be published and available on the website.

Answer 2

AmbientDataHelper.GetTriggers(claimStore) depends on the SmartTarget config for your website as explained in the docs here: http://sdllivecontent.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL_SmartTarget_2014-v1/GUID-0071E368-984B-43DD-94C9-726727B5BD5B and you need to make sure you have the smarttarget_cartridge.jar file present in your website's bin/lib directory (among other jars required as explained in the docs).

Make sure that your website is configured for SmartTarget and logging is enabled (also in the docs) so that you can see what the exact problem is.