Leveraging events in Affinity

Affinity utilizes events to broadcast crucial information, offering insights into user behavior and enabling the creation of synchronized custom content extensions.

Below is an overview of the various event types supported by Affinity and how they can be leveraged. Note that you must be on the Recharge Pro plan, or a Custom plan, to make advanced customizations to the Affinity customer portal.

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Platform:

• Shopify Checkout Intergration
• Recharge Checkout on Shopify

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Available events

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Events emitted by Affinity

The "Order changed" action event gets emitted when there’s a change that affects upcoming orders such as a new product was added, subscription was updated, or an order was rescheduled, etc.

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Events Affinity listens for

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Practical application of events

Synchronizing Advanced Content Extensions with Affinity

Slot-powered content extensions function as independent modules within the Affinity ecosystem, which requires two-way communication established through events. This ensures that changes in your extension and Affinity stay synchronized and reflect updates in real-time on both sides.

Lifecycle management

Slot content in Affinity is dynamically loaded, meaning it is not present in the Document Object Model (DOM) during the initial page render but is added shortly afterward.

When developing advanced content extensions, a best practice is to use Slots for hosting initial placeholder elements. You can then wait for these elements to be present in the DOM before initializing your custom code.

Example: Initializing Custom Code in a Slot

Slot preparation

<script type="text/html" data-recharge-slot="overview.header">
  <div id="placeholder-for-my-app"></div>
</script>

Javascript initalization

<script>
document.addEventListener("Recharge::slot::mounted", (event) => {
  if (event.detail.name === "header" && event.detail.pathname === "/overview") {
    // Initialize my app
  }
});
</script>

Respond to Affinity action events

Leverage action events in Affinity to adapt your custom content in response to user interactions. The example below highlights how you can monitor and respond to specific actions like rescheduling an order:

<script>
document.addEventListener("Recharge::action::reschedule", (event) => {
 //Refresh your slot custom content
});
</script>

Control Affinity from content extensions

Content within slots communicates with Affinity by emitting Directive events, which trigger designated actions. Use these actions to trigger specific events depending on the actions customers take.

Use the following example to emit a refresh event to trigger a page refresh, ensuring your customers access up-to-date data if they add a product to their next order from within a slot:

<script>
document.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent("Affinity:refresh"));
</script>

Create personalized flows

Use Affinity to craft user experiences that meet your unique business needs. You can intercept the default behavior when a customer initiates an action, such as skipping, rescheduling, or canceling an order, and instead initiate a custom flow.

The following example highlights how to add your custom flow when a customer initiates the reschedule action:

<script>
document.addEventListener("Recharge::click::reschedule", (event) => {
 // Display custom reschedule UI
});
</script>

See Personalize user journeys with custom flow extensions to learn how to use a custom flow to change the cancelation flow for customers depending on the products customers subscribe to.

Analytics

Use events to transmit data to your preferred analytics tools and gain insight int your users' behaviors:

• Use Click and Action events to observe the completion rates when customers perform actions such as skipping or rescheduling an order or ordering a product immediately. This is achieved by comparing the initial click, which shows intent, against the completion of the action.
• Use Navigation events to analyze user engagement and map out customer journeys within your portal. This helps in identifying popular paths and potential areas for improvement.
• Use Slot lifecycle events to evaluate the performance of your advanced extensions. Gather data on impressions to understand the reach and effectiveness of your extensions.