How is Origin Context tracked with Events?

Ryan Morlok

When clicking on an item in my WestlawNext favorites, I see Favorites in the Origin Context in Crazy Train. Likewise when I click on a Frequently Used Item, I see FrequentlyUsed in the Origin Context column.

Looking at the URLs before I click on the links, I see an originationContext query string parameter that contains the above values.

How does this value get into Crazy Train? Does the harvester take it off of the URL directly, or does it end up as part of an event some where?

Gregg Dale

The simple answer is that if you see it in its own field in Crazy Train, it was populated in the Page Event as the OCID parameter, and it was populated by the Page Event's creator from that value in the URL. But, to elaborate: The OCID parameter in the Page Event is, however, no longer required (at least, it is no longer required to be populated), so it may or may not be populated, even when the OriginationContext is in the URL. Origination Context is a component used to calculate Access Method which is reported to Online Charges for billing purposes. The Cobalt Events/Billing application used to calculate the access method, so the Origination Context (OCID) was required. Later, the calculation of access method was moved to UDS (I believe to support retrieving pricing information for Warn screen). Since Access method (accessMethod) is now supplied to the Cobalt Events/Billing application, it no longer uses the OCID parameter.