GTM - return Enhanced Ecommerce object in variable/macro

Question

Situation

Enhanced Ecommerce tracking is fully implemented on some website. This is done by build-in feature Enhanced Ecommerce - use dataLayer.

Example:

var ecommercObject = {
      'ecommerce': {
        'purchase': {
          'actionField': {
            'id': 'T12345',                         // Transaction ID. Required for purchases and refunds.
            'affiliation': 'Online Store',
            'revenue': '35.43',                     // Total transaction value (incl. tax and shipping)
            'tax':'4.90',
            'shipping': '5.99',
            'coupon': 'SUMMER_SALE'
          },
          'products': [{                            // List of productFieldObjects.
            'name': 'Triblend Android T-Shirt',     // Name or ID is required.
            'id': '12345',
            'price': '15.25',
            'brand': 'Google',
            'category': 'Apparel',
            'variant': 'Gray',
            'quantity': 1,
            'coupon': ''                            // Optional fields may be omitted or set to empty string.
           },
           {
            'name': 'Donut Friday Scented T-Shirt',
            'id': '67890',
            'price': '33.75',
            'brand': 'Google',
            'category': 'Apparel',
            'variant': 'Black',
            'quantity': 1
           }]
        }
      }
    }

Desired behavior

I want to re-use Enhanced Ecommerce implementation for another analytics system.

So i need macro/variable in GTM, that returns Enahnced Ecommerce JavaScritp Object.

Current attempts

Custom JS: ECOMMERCE OBJECT

I tried in console this macro that works, but not in GTM.

(function(){

myStringArray = window.dataLayer;

var arrayLength = myStringArray.length;
for (var i = 0; i < arrayLength; i++) {

  if(myStringArray[i].ecommerce){
    return myStringArray[i];
  }

}
return false;

})()

DataLayer variable: ECOMMERCE OBJECT

I either tried Macro type DataLayer with dataLayer variable name "ecommerce". No effect.

Problem

When I use in custom TAG this code:

var eecom = {{ECOMMERCE OBJECT}}
console.dir(eecom);

It returns empty string.

Question

Is there any common solution to retrieve Enhanced Ecommerce object when it appears in dataLayer?

Is the window.datalayer variable even available when you use it? What is the rule/condition for the tag? — Blexy
Blexy: Trigger could be 'event' : 'purchase'; tag is firing correctly, but ecommerce object via macro is not available. I am either not sure, if macros are capable to pass JS object. — Jakub Kriz

Jakub Kriz Jakub Kriz · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-06T14:13:36

Google Tag Manager macro/variable

In GTM JavaScript macro is not capable to return a JS object. Niether JS variable is not capable to return JS object.

So finally I build this macro into the TAG and it works. Final solution looks like this:

var dl = window.dataLayer;
var eecom = "";
var al = dl.length;
for (var i = 0; i < al; i++) {
  if(dl[i].ecommerce){      
    eecom = dl[i].ecommerce;
    break;
  }
}