Piwik PRO SDK for Android

SDK configuration

Server

  • You need a Piwik PRO account on the cloud or an on-premises setup which your mobile app will communicate with. For details, please visit the Piwik PRO website.
  • Create a new website (or app) in the Piwik PRO web interface.
  • Copy and note the Website ID from “Administration > Websites & apps > Installation” and your server address.

Client

Including the library

Add dependencies to your app module build.gradle file (e.g. ~/git/MyApplication/app/build.gradle):

dependencies {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    compile 'pro.piwik.sdk:piwik-sdk:VERSION'
}

Replace VERSION with the latest release name, e.g. 1.0.0.

Configuration

In order to set up the Piwik PRO tracker, you have two options:

1. Extend PiwikApplication class with your Android Application class. It forces implementation of one abstract method. That approach is used in the Piwik PRO SDK demo app as below:

public class YourApplication extends PiwikApplication{
    @Override
    public TrackerConfig onCreateTrackerConfig() {
        return TrackerConfig.createDefault("https://your.piwik.pro.server.com", "01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef");
    }
}

2. Manage the Tracker on your own. To configure the Tracker you will need a server address and website ID (you can find it in “Administration > Websites & apps > Installation”):

public class YourApplication extends Application {
    private Tracker tracker;
    public synchronized Tracker getTracker() {
        if (tracker == null) tracker = Piwik.getInstance(this).newTracker(new TrackerConfig("https://your.piwik.pro.server.com", "01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef"));
        return tracker;
    }
}

It is not recommended to create multiple Tracker instances for the same target as it may lead to over-count of metrics. It is highly recommended to create and manage the tracker in the Application class (to make sure there is only one instance of the tracker). The Tracker is thread-safe and can be shared across the application.

Tracker tracker = ((PiwikApplication) getApplication()).getTracker();

The application is ready to use Piwik PRO SDK.

Using Piwik PRO SDK

It is recommended to use TrackerHelper class. It has methods for all common actions, which can be chained in a way that facilitates the correct order and use. Combine it with IDE autocompletion and using the SDK will be more convenient.

For tracking each event with TrackHelper, you will need to pass Tracker instance. The way of getting the correct Tracker instance depends on the configuration option (see section above):

1. Your Android Application class extend PiwikApplication class

Tracker tracker = ((PiwikApplication) getApplication()).getTracker();

2. You manage the Tracker yourself

Tracker tracker = ((YourApplication) getApplication()).getTracker();

In further examples we will assume usage of the first option.

Tracking screen views

Requires Analytics

During a valid tracking session, you can track screen views which represent the content the user is viewing in the application. To send a visit on the screen, set the screen path and title on the tracker. This path is internally translated by the SDK to an HTTP URL as the Piwik PRO server uses URLs for tracking views. Additionally, Piwik PRO SDK uses prefixes which are inserted in a generated URL for various types of action(s). For tracking screen views it will use a prefix screen by default, however, automatic prefixing can be disabled with the tracker.setPrefixing(false) option.

public class YourActivity extends Activity {
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        Tracker tracker = ((PiwikApplication) getApplication()).getTracker();
        TrackHelper.track().screen("your_activity_path").title("Title").with(tracker);
    }
}
  • A path (required) – each screen should be mapped to the URL path
  • A title (optional) – the title of the action being tracked. It is possible to use slashes (/) to set one or several categories for this action.

To automatically use the activity-stack as a path and activity title as a name, use the overloaded screen method:

public class YourActivity extends Activity {
   ...
   TrackHelper.track().screen(YourActivity).with(tracker);
   ...
}
  • An activity (required) – current instance of android Activity class.

In order to bind the tracker to your applications, use the screens method. This method will automatically track all open application activities(views) keeping the activity-stack as a path and activity title as the name:

TrackHelper.track().screens(getApplication()).with(tracker);

Tracking custom events

Requires Analytics

To collect data about the user’s interaction with the interactive components of the application, like a button presses or the use of a particular item in the game - use event method.

TrackHelper.track().event("category", "action").path("/main/actionScreen").name("label").value(1000f).with(tracker);

The track method allows the specification of the following parameters:

  • A category (required) – this String defines the event category. You may define event categories based on the class of user actions (e.g. clicks, gestures, voice commands), or you may define them based on the features available in your application (e.g. play, pause, fast forward, etc.).
  • An action (required) – this String defines the specific event action within the category specified. In the example, we are effectively saying that the category of the event is user clicks, and the action is a button click.
  • A name (optional) – this String defines a label associated with the event. For example, if you have multiple button controls on a screen, you may use the label to specify the specific view control identifier that was clicked.
  • A value (optional) – this Float defines a numerical value associated with the event. For example, if you were tracking “Buy” button clicks, you may log the number of items being purchased or their total cost.
  • A path (optional) – the path under which this event occurred.

For more resources, please visit:

Tracking exceptions

Requires Analytics

Caught exceptions are errors in your app for which you’ve defined an exception handling code, such as the occasional timeout of a network connection during a request for data. Exceptions are tracked on the server in a similar way as screen views, however, action internally generated for exceptions always use the fatal or caught prefix, and additionally the exception prefix if tracker.isPrefixing() this particular option is enabled(true). The URL corresponds to exception stack trace, including the package name, activity path, method name and line number where crash occurred. Bear in mind that Piwik is not a crash tracker therefore use this sparingly.

Measure a caught exception by setting the exception field values on the tracker and sending the hit, as with this example:

try {
   // perform action
} catch(Exception ex) {
   TrackHelper.track().exception(ex).description("Content download error").fatal(true).with(tracker);
}
  • An exception (required) – Caught exception instance.
  • A description (optional) – additional information about the issue.
  • An isFatal (optional) – true if an exception is fatal.

Tracking social interactions

Requires Analytics

Social interactions such as likes, shares and comments in various social networks can be tracked as below. This, again, is tracked in a similar way as with screen views but the social prefix is used when the default tracker.isPrefixing() option is enabled.

 TrackHelper.track().socialInteraction("Like", "Facebook").target("Game").with(tracker);
  • An interaction (required) – defines the social interaction, e.g. “Like”.
  • A network (required) – defines social network associated with interaction, e.g. “Facebook”
  • A target (optional) – the target for which this interaction occurred, e.g. “My Piwik PRO app”.

The URL corresponds to String, which includes the network, interaction and target parameters separated by slash.

Tracking downloads and app installs

Requires Analytics

You can track the installations and downloads initiated by your application. This only triggers an event once per app version unless you force it. It is recommended to track application install in the Android Application class:

    TrackHelper.track().download().identifier(new DownloadTracker.Extra.ApkChecksum(this)).with(getTracker());

That will use the package name, version and MD5 app checksum as an identifier, e.g. com.piwikpro.demo:12/7B3DF8ED277BABEA6126C44E9AECEFEA.

In case you need to specify more parameters, create the instance of the DownloadTracker class explicitly:

        DownloadTracker downloadTracker = new DownloadTracker(getTracker());
        DownloadTracker.Extra extra = new DownloadTracker.Extra.Custom() {
            @Override
            public boolean isIntensiveWork() {
                return false;
            }

            @Nullable
            @Override
            public String buildExtraIdentifier() {
                return "Demo Android download";
            }
        };

        TrackHelper.track().download(downloadTracker).identifier(extra).force().version("1.0").with(getTracker());
  • isIntensiveWork() - return true if this should be run async and on a separate thread.
  • buildExtraIdentifier() - return a String that will be used as extra identifier or null.

On the analytics panel, all downloads can be viewed in the corresponding section.

Tracking search operations

Requires Analytics

Tracking search operations allow the measurement of popular keywords used for various search operations performed inside your application. It can be done via the search method:

TrackHelper.track().search("Space").category("Movies").count(3).with(getTracker());
  • A keyword (required) – the searched query that was used in the app.
  • A category (optional) – specify a search category.
  • A count (optional) – we recommend setting the search count to the number of search results displayed on the results page. When keywords are tracked with a count of 0, they will appear in the “No Result Search Keyword” report.

Tracking content impressions and interactions

Requires Analytics

You can track an impression of an ad in your application as below.

TrackHelper.track().impression("Android content impression").piece("banner").target("https://www.dn.se/").with(getTracker());
  • A contentName (required) – the name of the content, e.g. “Ad Foo Bar”.
  • A piece (optional) – the actual content. For instance, the path to an image, video, audio or any text.
  • A target (optional) – the target of the content. For instance the URL of a landing page.

Tracking goals

Requires Analytics

By default, goals are defined as “matching” parts of the screen path or screen title. If you want to trigger a conversion manually or track some user interaction, call the method goal. Read further about what a goal is in Goal in Piwik PRO.

TrackHelper.track().goal(1).revenue(revenue).with(tracker)
  • A goal (required) – a tracking request will trigger a conversion for the goal of the website being tracked with this ID.
  • Revenue (optional) – a monetary value that has been generated as revenue by goal conversion.

Create, view or manage goals is available in the Analytics tab, “Goals” left menu, “Manage goals” section.

Tracking ecommerce transactions

Requires Analytics

If your organization depends on online sales, you need detailed analysis to transform raw e-commerce stats into actionable insights. Revenue, orders, conversion rates, and a host of other product statistics can be analyzed by integrating Piwik with your e-commerce solution.

SDK provides the order method that can be used for tracking the orders (including the order items). Sample usage:

Tracker tracker = ((YourApplication) getApplication()).getTracker();
EcommerceItems items = new EcommerceItems();
// EcommerceItems.Item("<sku>").name("<product>").category("<category>").price(<cents>).quantity(<number>)
items.addItem(new EcommerceItems.Item("0123456789012").name("Polo T-shirt").category("Men's T-shirts").price(3000).quantity(2));
items.addItem(new EcommerceItems.Item("0129876543210").name("Leather shoes").category("Shoes").price(40000).quantity(1));

TrackHelper.track().order("orderId",124144).subTotal(33110).tax(9890).shipping(1000).discount(0).items(items).with(tracker);
  • orderId (required) – a unique String identifying the order
  • grandTotal (required) – Total amount of the order, in cents
  • subTotal (optional) – the subTotal (net price) for the order, in cents
  • tax (optional) – the tax for the order, in cents
  • shipping (optional) – the shipping for the order, in cents
  • discount (optional) – the discount for the order, in cents
  • items (optional) – the items included in the order, use the EcommerceItems class to instantiate items

Tracking campaigns

Requires Analytics

Tracking campaigns URLs configured with the online Campaign URL Builder tool, allow you to measure how different campaigns (for example with Facebook ads or direct emails) bring traffic to your application. You can track these URLs from the application via the campaign method:

TrackHelper.track().campaign(new URL("http://example.org/offer.html?pk_campaign=Email-SummerDeals&pk_keyword=LearnMore")).with(getTracker());
  • A URL (required) – the campaign URL. HTTPS, HTTP and FTP are valid, however, the URL must contain campaign name and keyword parameters.

Tracking custom variables

Requires Analytics

A custom variable is a custom name-value pair that you can assign to your users or screen views, and then visualize the reports of how many visits, conversions, etc. for each custom variable. A custom variable is defined by a name — for example, “User status” — and a value – for example, “LoggedIn” or “Anonymous”. It is required for names and values to be encoded in UTF-8.

Each custom variable has a scope. There are two types of custom variables scope - visit scope and screen scope. The visit scope can be used for any tracking action, and the screen scope can only be applied to tracking screen views.

To set the custom variable of the screen scope, use the variable method in the tracking chain:

TrackHelper.track()
       .screen("/custom_vars")
       .title("Custom Vars")
       .variable(1, "filter", "price")
       .variable(2, "language", "en")
       .with(getTracker());

To use the custom variable of the visit scope, use the visitVariables method in the tracking chain:

TrackHelper.track()
       .visitVariables(1, "filter", "price")
       .visitVariables(2, "language", "en")
       .event("category", "action")
       .with(tracker);

Please note that for the Default custom variables option, use the custom variables of the visit scope with indexes 1-3.

Custom variable is defined by three parameters:

  • An index (required) – a given custom variable name must always be stored in the same “index” per session. For example, if you choose to store the variable name = “Gender” in index = 1 and you record another custom variable in index = 1, then the “Gender” variable will be deleted and replaced with a new custom variable stored in index 1.
  • A name (required) – this String defines the name of a specific Custom Variable such as “User type” (Limited to 200 characters).
  • A value (required) – this String defines the value of a specific Custom Variable such as “Customer” (Limited to 200 characters).

Tracking custom dimensions

Requires Analytics

To track a custom name-value pair assigned to your users or screen views, use Custom Dimensions. Note that the custom value data is not sent by itself, but only with other tracking actions such as screen views, events or other tracking action:

TrackHelper.track()
       .dimension(1, "visit")
       .dimension(2, "dashboard")
       .screen("Home screen")
       .with(tracker);

1 and 2 are our dimension slots and visit, dashboard are the dimension values for the tracked screen view.

TrackHelper.track()
       .dimension(1, "visit")
       .dimension(2, "billing")
       .event("category", "action")
       .with(tracker);

1 and 2 are our dimension slots and visit, billing are the dimension values for the tracked event.

Tracking user profile attributes

Requires Audience Manager

The Audience Manager stores visitors’ profiles which have data from a variety of sources. One of them can be a mobile application. It is possible to enrich the profiles with more attributes by passing any key-value pair e.g. gender: male, favourite food: Italian, etc. It is recommended to set additional user identifiers such as email or User ID which will allow the enrichment of existing profiles or merging of profiles rather than creating a new profile. For example, if the user visited the website, performed some actions, filled in a form with his email (his data was tracked and profile created in Audience Manager) and afterwards started using a mobile application, the existing profile will be enriched only if the email was set. Otherwise, a new profile will be created.

For sending profile attributes use audienceManagerSetProfileAttribute method:

getTracker().setUserMail("john@doe.com");
...
TrackHelper.track().audienceManagerSetProfileAttribute("food", "pizza").add("color", "green").with(getTracker());
  • A name (required) – defines the profile attribute name (non-null string).
  • A value (required) – defines the profile attribute value (non null string).
  • An add (chain method) – used to specify more attributes to the user within the same event.

Aside from attributes, each event also sends parameters which are retrieved from the tracker instance:

  • WEBSITE_ID - always sent,
  • USER_ID - if it is set. Read more about the User ID,
  • EMAIL - if it is set. Read more about the email,
  • VISITOR_ID - always sent, ID of the mobile application user, generated by SDK
  • DEVICE_ID - an Advertising ID that, by default, is fetched automatically when the tracker instance is created. To turn off automatic fetch, use the setTrackDeviceId(boolean isTracked) method:
getTracker().setTrackDeviceId(false);

Profile attributes for the user that are tracked will be shown on the Audience Manager - Profile Browser tab.

Audience manager events are dispatched together with analytics events. Therefore, settings set in the tracker for analytics events processing (dispatch interval, cache size and age, etc.) will be same for audience manager events. Once the audience manager event is dispatched, it is no longer stored locally.

Reading user profile attributes

Requires Audience Manager

It is possible to read the attributes of a given profile, however, with some limitations. Due to security reasons (to avoid personal data leakage), it is possible to read only attributes that were enabled for API access (whitelisted) in the Attributes section in Audience Manager. To get user profile attributes use the audienceManagerGetProfileAttributes method:

        getTracker().audienceManagerGetProfileAttributes(new Tracker.OnGetProfileAttributes() {
            @Override
            public void onAttributesReceived(Map<String, String> attributes) {
                // handle result
            }

            @Override
            public void onError(String errorData) {
                errorData = TextUtils.isEmpty(errorData) ? "Network error": errorData;
                // handle error
            }
        });
  • An OnGetProfileAttributes (required) – callback to handle request result (call is asynchronous), has two methods void onAttributesReceived(Map<String, String> attributes) and void onError(String errorData).
  • An attributes (output) – dictionary of key-value pairs, where each pair represents the attribute name (key) and value.
  • An errorData (output) – in case of error, only this method will be called. The method passes the error string.

Checking audience membership

Requires Audience Manager

Audiences are allowed to check whether or not the user belongs to a specific group of users defined in the data manger panel based on analytics data and audience manager profile attributes. You can check if the user belongs to a given audience, for example, to show a special offer. To check it, use the checkAudienceMembership method:

getTracker().checkAudienceMembership(audienceId, new Tracker.OnCheckAudienceMembership() {
            @Override
            public void onChecked(boolean isMember) {
                // handle result
            }

            @Override
            public void onError(String errorData) {
                // handle error
            }
        });
  • An audienceId (required) – ID of the audience (Audience Manager -> Audiences tab)
  • An OnCheckAudienceMembership (required) – callback to handle request result (call is asynchronous), has two methods void onChecked(boolean isMember) and void onError(String errorData)
  • An isMember (output) – a boolean value that indicates if user belongs to audience with given ID
  • An errorData (output) – in case of error, only this method will be called. The method passes the error string.

Advanced usage

User ID

UserID will allow the association of events from various sources to the same user. Each time a new visitor enters your page, Piwik PRO assigns a cookie containing a random string of characters. The purpose of this cookie is for Piwik PRO to be able to recognize the same visitor whenever the website is visited again. However, instead of a random string, you can assign your visitors with your own human-friendly name (ex. visitor email). More about UserID. In order to set UserID, use the setUserId method:

getTracker().setUserId("John Doe");
  • A UserID (required) – any non-empty unique string identifying the user. Passing null will delete the current UserID

User email address

Used only by Audience Manager

The user email address is an optional parameter for user identification. Similar to UserID, it allows the association of events from various sources to the same user. To set user email use the setUserMail method:

getTracker().setUserMail("john@doe.com");
  • A userMail (required) – any non-null string representing email address

Setting up an email helps the Audience Manager to enrich existing profiles or merge profiles which come from other sources (if they also have an email). Check Tracking user profile attributes for more information.

Visitor ID

To track user sessions on difference sources, the VisitorID parameter is used. VisitorID is randomly generated when the tracker instance is created, and stored between application launches. It is also possible to reset the VisitorID manually:

tracker.setVisitorId("0123456789abcdef");
  • A VisitorID (required) – unique visitor ID, must be 16 characters hexadecimal string.

Every unique visitor must be assigned a different ID and this ID must not change after it is assigned. We recommend using UserID instead of VisitorID.

Sessions

A session represents a set of user’s interactions with your app. By default, Analytics is closing the session after 30 minutes of inactivity, counting from the last recorded event in session and when the user will open up the app again the new session is started. You can configure the tracker to automatically close the session when users have placed your app in the background for a period of time. That period is defined by the setSessionTimeout method.

tracker.setSessionTimeout(30 * 60 * 1000);
  • A timeout (required) – session timeout time in ms.

You can manually start a new session when sending a hit to Piwik by using the startNewSession method.

tracker.startNewSession();

Dispatching

Tracked events are stored temporarily on the queue and dispatched in batches every 30 seconds (default setting). This behavior can be changed with following options:

  • setDispatchInterval(0) - incoming events will be dispatched immediately
  • setDispatchInterval(-1) - incoming events will not be dispatched automatically. This lets you gain full control over dispatch process, by using manual dispatch, as in the example below.
    Tracker tracker = ((MyApplication) getApplication()).getTracker();
    tracker.setDispatchInterval(-1);
    // Catch and track exception
    try {
        cartItems = getCartItems();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        tracker.trackException(e, e.getMessage(), false);
        tracker.dispatch();
        cartItems = null;
    }

In case when more than one event is in the queue, data is sent in bulk (using POST method with JSON payload). It is possible to compress the data before dispatch by using setDispatchGzipped method during the app initialization. See the example below for details:

    private void initPiwik() {
      ...

        //configure dispatcher to compress JSON with gzip
        getTracker().setDispatchGzipped(true);

      ...
    }

To take advantage of compressed requests you have to configure HTTP server of the tracker. Use mod_deflate (on Apache) or lua_zlib (on Nginx). Helpful resources:

Custom queries

You should be able to use all common actions through the TrackHelper utility, but in some instances, you may want full control over what is sent to the server.

The base method for any event is track. You can create your own TrackMe objects, set the parameters and then send it:

TrackMe trackMe = new TrackMe()
trackMe.set...
/* ... */
Tracker tracker = ((YourApplication) getApplication()).getTracker();
tracker.track(trackMe);

Default custom variables

SDK can automatically add information about the platform version, OS version and app version in custom variables with indexes 1-3. By default, this option is turned on. This can be changed via the setIncludeDefaultCustomVars method:

getTracker().setIncludeDefaultCustomVars(false);

In case you need to configure custom variables separately, turn off this option and see the section above regarding tracking custom variables.

Local storage limits

You can set limits for storing events related to maximum size and time for which events are saved in local storage as below. Events older than the set limit will be discarded on the next dispatch attempt. The Piwik backend accepts backdated events for up to 24 hours by default.

To change offline cache age use the setOfflineCacheAge method:

tracker.setOfflineCacheAge(80085);
  • A limit (required) – time in ms after which events are deleted, 0 = unlimited, -1 = disabled offline cache. By default, the limit is set to 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000 ms = 24 hours.

You can also specify how large the offline cache may be. If the limit is reached, the oldest files will be deleted first. To change offline cache size use the setOfflineCacheSize method:

tracker.setOfflineCacheSize(16 * 1000 * 1000);
  • A limit (required) – size in bytes after which events are deleted, 0 = unlimited. By default, the limit is set to 4 * 1024 * 1024 bytes = 4 Mb.

Opt out

You can enable an app-level opt-out flag that will disable Piwik PRO tracking across the entire app. Note that this flag must be set each time the app starts up and will default to false. To set the app-level opt-out, use:

getTracker().setOptOut(true);

Dry run

The SDK provides a dryRun flag that, when set, prevents any data from being sent to Piwik. The dryRun flag should be set whenever you are testing or debugging an implementation and do not want test data to appear in your Piwik reports. To set the dry run flag, use:

getTracker().setDryRunTarget(Collections.synchronizedList(new ArrayList<Packet>()));
  • A dryRunTarget (required) – a data structure the data should be passed into List<Packet> type. Set it to null to disable dry run.

License

Piwik PRO Android SDK is released under the BSD-3 Clause license.

Copyright 2018 Piwik PRO team

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  • Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
  • Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
  • Neither the name of Piwik team nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.