Essential Mode - Data Stream Options

In the basics guide (JENTIS Essential Mode) we covered how to install and use the Esssential Mode in JENTIS Tag Manager. With that in mind in this guide we will make a deep dive into Essential Mode tracking and options on further customizing your JENTIS setup.

Please be aware that this only covers technical functionalities of integration and is not in any terms a legal assessment or consulting.

Esssential Mode Basics

JENTIS Essential Mode is a setting that enables a data stream to operate in a fallback configuration. That can apply different schemas on individual property values, such as anonymization or pseudonymization of respective values transmitted to a connected tool.

So if you do not reach a certain level of justification (consent is denied) you can fallback on that tool to only receive data that for example does not require the same justification level (ie. consent). More details you will find in the general guide atJENTIS Essential Mode.

Vendor Justification Settings

Every vendor in JENTIS Tag Manager terms has a justification setting. Those options include: consent, legitimate interest, vital interest, contractual operation and others. Depending on those settings the JENTIS Consent Engine will decide what tools can operate at a certain moment. Where a vendor is a single data processor (ie. "Google Analytics") that can have multiple connections ("Tools" in JENTIS Tag Manager terms), where a vendors settings are applied the same to all connections (fe. if multiple connections of the same vendor are configured in a single container).

To change the setting of a vendor you must navigate to the Tools section in your JENTIS account. Here in the list of your configured tool instances you can edit a vendors settings, ie. Justification and Essential Mode on/off setting.

JENTIS Consent Engine Processing

The most important setting is either to select "Consent" or one of the other options. While "Consent" is selected a tools tags will not be executed until an explicit interaction of the user with the Consent Management was registered. Either consenting to the usage of that tool or denying consent. 

This sequence of processing is vital to better understand how and when tags are executed in the JENTIS Tag Manager. All vendors with the justification "consent" will not be executed any sooner than the explicit consent decision of the user, which in consequence means a bouncing user is never registered in a tool with that justification setting.

The following states a vendor can have in the JENTIS Consent Engine:

• true (consent given)
• false (consent denied)
• ncm (no consent - essential mode must be used)
• undefined (no status known yet)

The processing of data in JENTIS follows primarily the internal data schema and generic sequences. Where commands such as "track:submit" will initiate a State which in turn means triggers are evaluated and tags are activated. However a second layer atop on this foundation is the JENTIS Consent Engine. Without consent nothing moves, as long as the Consent Engine is turned on (which is the default).

Reprocessing

A special function of the JENTIS Consent Engine is the reprocessing of commands as consent information is updated. The following processing is only applied when a scope is not changed (ie. when a page is reloaded and therefor the JavaScript scope is reset). All tracking commands will be available and reprocessed every time a consent setting is changed on a tool (meaning a JENTIS vendor).

So all JENTIS States (ie. "track:event", "track:submit" or any other custom state implemented) will be processed in context of a consent. If that consent for a tool is changed the data will be reprocessed, if a tool is granted consent for example. To better understand this concept please see the following step by step section.

Note that on single page applications (reactJS and other frameworks that simulate navigation via the browser history API and load content asynchronously) a navigation within this app also resets this reprocessing. So even though a pageview or event might be pushed and still available in the scope technically, JENTIS will reset its internal cache and treat single page apps and regular page reloads the same. No reprocessing is possible in this circumstance.

To better take control if the reprocessing reset (per navigation on the same page scope) should be active or not there are two functions.

window.jentisApp.reprocessingCache_deactivate_reset();
window.jentisApp.reprocessingCache_activate_reset();

You can decide if in your application the reset of reprocessing must be active or deactivated. Per default the reset is active (meaning that a reset of the reprocessing happens on navigation within the page). To have a processing regardless of navigation you must call the "..._deactivate_reset()" function.

Step by Step Use Case

With that in mind we must also consider some loops and sequences that are very common scenarios. Let's examine those step by step.

Vendor settings for this example:

• myAnalyticsService: 
  • justification: legitimate interest
  • Essential Mode: enabled (on)
• myMarketingService:
  • justification: consent
  • Essential Mode: enabled (on)

Turn Off Consent Engine in JENTIS Tag Manager

With the following setting you can turn off the Consent Engine in JENTIS Tag Manager. This will result in a configuration where no consent is awaited and tracking can be activated at any time. However all JENTIS Consent functionality is lost at the same time, disconnecting your Tag Management from any consent information.

Navigate to your account administration settings and select “Consent Administration”. Here you will find a toggle to apply this decision.

Warning: Be sure to only use this mode in respect of all legal consequences that are subject of your compliance assessment.

This setting will give you the option to apply different tool and tag configurations based on consent and even before the moment a user interacted with a consent banner. You can combine this with JENTIS Essential Mode.