Google Tag Manager

Introduction

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool that allows you to manage and deploy marketing tags (e.g., snippets of code or tracking pixels) within your Absorb LMS portal. GMT lets you track almost anything, such as outbound links, button clicks, or more complex actions such as e-commerce product or promotion tracking. GTM works with non-Google products and manages code in a single location.

Important Notes

Absorb LMS currently blocks GTM's custom code/HTML functionality.
Please ensure your Ad Blocker is disabled as it interferes with GTM tracking.
The Absorb GTA/GTM integration only supports default properties and functions applied automatically when enabling this on your organization's LMS instance. Any custom properties, tags, code, or implementation of Analytics and Tag manager associated with the LMS beyond this is not supported by Absorb.
The following announcement here covers the upcoming GTM 4 upgrades.
- It is important to note that Absorb currently does not support GTM 4 at this time; however, we are currently scoping the work required to support this.
  • No GTM 4 upgrades/features are expected to function as part of the Absorb LMS GTM/Analytics integration available until further notice.
  • Once official support is released all GTM 4 related documentation and announcements will be updated accordingly.
- We recommend following this article for updates and be on the look out for updates within our Major release notes regarding improvements to GTM 4 support and functionality.

Table of Contents

Google Tag Manager Setup
- Part 1: Set up Google Tag Manager
- Part 2: Configuring settings in Absorb LMS Portal
Single-Page Application Configuration

Google Tag Manager Setup

Visit: Google Support: Setup and install Tag Manager

Absorb LMS has built an integration with GTM so you can better analyze the usage of your portal. If you currently leverage GTM within your organization, a System Admin can enable this feature within the Absorb Admin Interface and enter a Google Tag Manager (GTM) ID.

Important: Please note that this implementation is limited to the Learner Interface only.

A majority of the setup will take place on Google Tag Manager (third-party application). You will need a Gmail account to create a workspace and get a container ID. To learn more about the features and functionality available, visit: Google Tag Manager > Supported Tags.

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Part 1: Set up Google Tag Manager

Step	Action
1.	Visit: http://tagmanager/google.com/
2.	Create an account or use an existing tag manager account.
3.	Publish the workspace.
4.	Get the container ID.
Continue to Part 2: Configure settings in Absorb LMS Portal

Part 2: Configuring settings in Absorb LMS Portal

Step	Action	Image
1.	Log in to your Absorb LMS portal as a System Admin.
2.	Navigate to the Admin Interface > Portal Settings.
3.	Enter the container ID in the Google Tag Manager ID field.
4.	Save changes.

Single-Page Application Configuration

Since the Learner Experience is a single-page application, some tags may not "fire" or load on each page transition. In some cases, you may only want to fire once, and that's okay. In other situations where it relies on page transitions, the default setup will not work such as "All Pages Views". At the time of this article, GTM does not list support for single-page applications. To help, we've created the following workaround outlined below.

For context, check out this article.

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Step	Action	Image
1.	We've added an absorbPageview custom event when navigating around the LMS.
2.	It includes two (2) data layer variables: pathname and search (if applicable)In order to use these variables in your triggers, you must create a custom Data Layer Variable using those variable names
2.a	OPTIONAL To create custom variables in your triggers, you must use the Data Layer Variable and select either "pathname" or "Search" which is what is returned with our custom event. Please select Data Layer Version: Version 2 This Custom data layer is used in step 4, to trigger some custom events such as pathname = /catalog
3.	In order to fire a Google tag on this custom absorbPageview event, add a Trigger in Google Tag Manager with Event Name "absorbPageview."
4.	Next, add this Trigger to your tag. If you want a more specific " search " term or " pathname" to trigger your tags, please make use of the custom data layer variables.
5.	In order to save your settings and apply them to your portal, you must hit Publish.
6.	Please use Preview Mode, with Ad Blocker turned off, in order to trigger your Tags. Please add your portal's URL, once you hit submit then you will notice "Debugger Connected"
7.	Once you navigate to your site, you will see the absorbPageview event get triggered on the left-hand side according to the set parameters.