Piwik (deprecated) – open source web analytics¶

Piwik is an open analytics platform currently used by individuals, companies and governments all over the world. With Piwik, your data will always be yours, because you run your own analytics server.

Deprecated¶

Note that Piwik is now known as Matomo. New projects should use the Matomo integration. The Piwik integration in django-analytical is deprecated and eventually will be removed.

Installation¶

To start using the Piwik integration, you must have installed the django-analytical package and have added the analytical application to INSTALLED_APPS in your project settings.py file. See Installation and configuration for details.

Next you need to add the Piwik template tag to your templates. This step is only needed if you are not using the generic analytical.* tags. If you are, skip to Configuration.

The Piwik tracking code is inserted into templates using a template tag. Load the piwik template tag library and insert the piwik tag. Because every page that you want to track must have the tag, it is useful to add it to your base template. Insert the tag at the bottom of the HTML body as recommended by the Piwik best practice for Integration Plugins:

{% load piwik %}
...
{% piwik %}
</body>
</html>

Configuration¶

Before you can use the Piwik integration, you must first define domain name and optional URI path to your Piwik server, as well as the Piwik ID of the website you’re tracking with your Piwik server, in your project settings.

Setting the domain¶

Your Django project needs to know where your Piwik server is located. Typically, you’ll have Piwik installed on a subdomain of its own (e.g. piwik.example.com), otherwise it runs in a subdirectory of a website of yours (e.g. www.example.com/piwik). Set PIWIK_DOMAIN_PATH in the project settings.py file accordingly:

PIWIK_DOMAIN_PATH = 'piwik.example.com'

If you do not set a domain the tracking code will not be rendered.

Setting the site ID¶

Your Piwik server can track several websites. Each website has its site ID (this is the idSite parameter in the query string of your browser’s address bar when you visit the Piwik Dashboard). Set PIWIK_SITE_ID in the project settings.py file to the value corresponding to the website you’re tracking:

PIWIK_SITE_ID = '4'

If you do not set the site ID the tracking code will not be rendered.

User variables¶

Piwik supports sending custom variables along with default statistics. If you want to set a custom variable, use the context variable piwik_vars when you render your template. It should be an iterable of custom variables represented by tuples like: (index, name, value[, scope]), where scope may be 'page' (default) or 'visit'. index should be an integer and the other parameters should be strings.

context = Context({
    'piwik_vars': [(1, 'foo', 'Sir Lancelot of Camelot'),
                   (2, 'bar', 'To seek the Holy Grail', 'page'),
                   (3, 'spam', 'Blue', 'visit')]
})
return some_template.render(context)

Piwik default settings allow up to 5 custom variables for both scope. Variable mapping between index and name must stay constant, or the latest name override the previous one.

If you use the same user variables in different views and its value can be computed from the HTTP request, you can also set them in a context processor that you add to the TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS list in settings.py.

User tracking¶

If you use the standard Django authentication system, you can allow Piwik to track individual users by setting the ANALYTICAL_AUTO_IDENTIFY setting to True. This is enabled by default. Piwik will identify users based on their username.

If you disable this settings, or want to customize what user id to use, you can set the context variable analytical_identity (for global configuration) or piwik_identity (for Piwik specific configuration). Setting one to None will disable the user tracking feature:

# Piwik will identify this user as 'BDFL' if ANALYTICAL_AUTO_IDENTIFY is True or unset
request.user = User(username='BDFL', first_name='Guido', last_name='van Rossum')

# Piwik will identify this user as 'Guido van Rossum'
request.user = User(username='BDFL', first_name='Guido', last_name='van Rossum')
context = Context({
    'piwik_identity': request.user.get_full_name()
})

# Piwik will not identify this user (but will still collect statistics)
request.user = User(username='BDFL', first_name='Guido', last_name='van Rossum')
context = Context({
    'piwik_identity': None
})

Disabling cookies¶

If you want to disable cookies, set PIWIKI_DISABLE_COOKIES to True. This is disabled by default.

Internal IP addresses¶

Usually, you do not want to track clicks from your development or internal IP addresses. By default, if the tags detect that the client comes from any address in the ANALYTICAL_INTERNAL_IPS (which takes the value of INTERNAL_IPS by default) the tracking code is commented out. See Identifying authenticated users for important information about detecting the visitor IP address.

Thanks go to Piwik for providing an excellent web analytics platform entirely for free! Consider donating to ensure that they continue their development efforts in the spirit of open source and freedom for our personal data.