The easy way to enable xDB tracking for Sitecore.Services.Client and Web API

There are several posts on the web that talk about the fact that Sitecore.Services.Client (SSC) and Web API don't allow xDB tracking due to the fact that they are session-less by default.

In this older post, Pavel explains the reason for this, and a provides a solution to make SSC or Web API session aware: http://jockstothecore.com/xdb-tracking-the-untrackable-part-1

In my post, I will demonstrate how to do this in 5 lines of code.

FXM Is Your Huckleberry

As described by the article, the key is to give the target route a session aware handler right after the SSC route (or Web API route) has been registered in the initialize pipeline.

FXM has a BeaconSessionRouteHandler already built in, because its SSC controllers track activity in xDB from external sites using the magical Beacon script.

So, using what FXM already gives you, all you need is the following "Session State Enabler" Processor in the initialize pipeline, right after the ServicesWebApiInitializer processor.

 Code

 using System.Web.Routing;  
   
 using Sitecore.FXM.Service.Handler;  
 using Sitecore.Pipelines;  
   
 namespace MyProject.Pipelines.Initialize  
 {  
   public class EnableEntityServiceSessionStateProcessor  
   {  
     public void Process(PipelineArgs args)  
     {  
       var route = RouteTable.Routes["EntityService"] as Route;  
   
       if (route != null)  
       {  
         route.RouteHandler = new BeaconSessionRouteHandler();  
       }  
     }  
   }  
 }  
   

Config

 <configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">  
  <sitecore>  
   <pipelines>  
    <initialize>  
     <processor type="MyProject.Pipelines.Initialize.EnableEntityServiceSessionStateProcessor, MyProject"  
     patch:after="processor[@type='Sitecore.Services.Infrastructure.Sitecore.Pipelines.ServicesWebApiInitializer, Sitecore.Services.Infrastructure.Sitecore']" />  
    </initialize>  
  </sitecore>  
 </configuration>  

 That's it! You can now perform xDB tracking in your SSC or Web API controllers.

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How to ensure that Web API and Sitecore FXM can be implemented together

As a Sitecore MVC developer, implementing a Web API within Sitecore is pretty trivial. There are several informative posts on the web showing you exactly how to get this going.

If you haven't already checked it out, I recommend that you read through Anders Laub's "Implementing a WebApi service using ServicesApiController in Sitecore 8" post.

The Problem

Where this and other posts on the web fall short, is that they don't indicate the correct sweet spot to patch into the initialize pipeline that won't cause havoc if you plan to implement Sitecore's Federated Experience Manager (FXM).

Sitecore's Web API Controller related to the FXM module is decorated with the following attributes:

 [ServicesController("Beacon.Service")]  
 [RobotDetectionFilter]  
 [ConfiguredP3PHeader]  
 [EnableCors("*", "*", "GET,POST", SupportsCredentials = true)]  

What this means is that Sitecore sets the "Access-Control-Allow-Origin" header value to the domain of every external site that is configured by FXM.

Placing your processor before the ServicesWebApiInitializer processor will remove these headers and result in FXM not being able to make cross-domain requests.

So for example, looking at Anders' example, a patch like this:

 <configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">  
  <sitecore>  
   <pipelines>  
    <initialize>  
     <processor patch:after="processor[@type='Sitecore.Pipelines.Loader.EnsureAnonymousUsers, Sitecore.Kernel']"  
      type="LaubPlusCo.Examples.RegisterHttpRoutes, LaubPlusCo.Examples" />  
    </initialize>  
   </pipelines>  
  </sitecore>  
 </configuration>  

will result in this FXM error:

No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'http://myexternalsite.com' is therefore not allowed access.

The Quick Fix

Fortunately, all that you need to do to fix this issue is to patch after Sitecore's ServicesWebApiInitializer.

So looking at the example again, this would fix the issue and result in FXM playing nice:

 <configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">  
  <sitecore>  
   <pipelines>  
    <initialize>  
     <processor patch:after="processor[@type='Sitecore.Services.Infrastructure.Sitecore.Pipelines.ServicesWebApiInitializer, Sitecore.Services.Infrastructure.Sitecore']"  
      type="LaubPlusCo.Examples.RegisterHttpRoutes, LaubPlusCo.Examples" />  
    </initialize>  
   </pipelines>  
  </sitecore>  
 </configuration>  

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