Tracking Events and Purchases with Iterable's Mobile SDKs

Iterable's mobile SDKs can track events, which correspond to actions taken by your app's users. Events can be related to messages you've sent (for example, a user opening an in-app message) or to a particular feature or piece of content in your app (for example, a user signing up for a new account).

You can use events in segmentation and journeys to help you reach the right users with the right content.

# In this article

# Custom event names

In general, it's a good idea to avoid using spaces in custom event names, since you'll need to use a special Handlebars syntax to reference a field name that contains a space.

For example, for an event saved when a user complete's the sign-up process for your service, completedSignup is a good event name but completed signup is not.

# Tracking custom events

To use track an event using Iterable's mobile SDKs, use syntax such as:

Swift

IterableAPI.track(
    event: "customEvent", 
    dataFields: ["key": "value"]
)

Objective-C

[IterableAPI track:@"custom_event" dataFields:@{@"key": @"value"}];

Java

IterableApi.getInstance().track(
    "customEvent", 
    dataFields
);

JavaScript (React Native):

Iterable.trackEvent(
  "completedOnboarding",
  {
    "includedProfilePhoto": true,
    "favoriteColor": "red"
  }
);

# Tracking purchase events

To help you track information related to purchases and revenue, Iterable's mobile SDKs include a trackPurchase method.

Swift

// Example dataFields
let dataFields: [String: Any] = [
    "Store_Address": [
        "Street1": "123 Main St",
        "Street2": "Apt 1",
        "City": "Iter-a-ville",
        "State": "CA",
        "Zip": "90210"
    ]
]


// Create an array of CommerceItem objects
let item : CommerceItem = CommerceItem(
    id: "TOY1",
    name: "Red Racecar",
    price: 4.99,
    quantity: 1,
    sku: "RR123",
    description: "A small, red racecar.",
    url: "https://www.example.com/toys/racecar",
    imageUrl: "https://www.example.com/toys/racecar/images/car.png",
    categories: ["Toy", "Inexpensive"]
)

let items = [item]

// Make the call to Iterable's API
IterableAPI.track(purchase: 4.99, items: items, dataFields: dataFields)

Objective-C

// Example dataFields
NSDictionary<NSString *, id> *dataFields = @{
    @"Store_Address": @{
            @"Street1": @"123 Main St",
            @"Street2": @"Apt 1",
            @"City": @"Iter-a-ville",
            @"State": @"CA",
            @"Zip": @"90210"
    }
};

// Create an array of CommerceItem objects
CommerceItem *item = [[CommerceItem alloc]
                        initWithId:@"TOY1"
                        name:@"Red Racecar"
                        price:@4.99F
                        quantity:1
                        sku:@"RR123"
                        description:@"A small, red racecar"
                        url:@"https://www.example.com/toys/racecar"
                        imageUrl:@"https://www.example.com/toys/racecar/images/car.png"
                        categories:@[@"Toy", @"Inexpensive"]];

NSArray<CommerceItem *> *items = @[item];

// Make the call to Iterable's API
[IterableAPI trackPurchase:@4.99F items:items dataFields:dataFields];

Java

// Example dataFields
JSONObject store_address = new JSONObject();
final JSONObject dataFields = new JSONObject();

try {
    store_address.put("Street1", "123 Main St");
    store_address.put("Street2", "Apt 1");
    store_address.put("City", "Iter-a-ville");
    store_address.put("State", "CA");
    store_address.put("Zip", "90210");
    datafields.put("dataFields", store_address);
} catch (JSONException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

// Create an array of CommerceItem objects
CommerceItem item = new CommerceItem(
    "TOY1",
    "Red Racecar",
    4.99,
    1,
    "RR123",
    "A small, red racecar",
    "https://www.example.com/toys/racecar",
    "https://www.example.com/toys/racecar/images/car.png",
    new String[] {"Toy", "Inexpensive" }
);

List<CommerceItem> items = new ArrayList<CommerceItem>();
items.add(item);

// Make the call to Iterable's API
IterableApi.getInstance().trackPurchase(new Double(4.99), items, dataFields);

# Offline events processing

Mobile apps built with Iterable's mobile SDKs can queue up events created when a device is offline (for example, because there isn't a network connection available, or because airplane mode is on), and then send them to Iterable the next time the app is in the foreground with a network connection.

To use this feature, upgrade your apps to use:

• Iterable's iOS SDK, version 6.4.5+
• Iterable's Android SDK, version 3.4.7+
• Iterable's React Native SDK, version 1.3.3+

After you've upgraded your apps to use these SDK versions and your customer success manager has enabled offline events processing for your account, your apps will automatically capture and save offline events. Iterable's mobile SDKs provide offline processing for the following types of events:

• Purchase
• Push open
• In-app open
• In-app click
• In-app close
• Inbox session
• In-app delivery
• In-app consume
• Custom events tracked manually

When your app is next in the foreground with an internet connection, it will send any queued offline events back to Iterable.

# Timestamps

When sending offline events to Iterable (when a network connection has been reestablished), Iterable's mobile SDKs include values for two timestamps:

createdAt - The date and time when the user triggered the event.
sentAt - The date and time when the event is sent to Iterable.

Iterable uses the difference between an event's sentAt time and the server time when the event is received to adjust the event's sentAt and createdAt times to be in sync with server time. When you query events from Iterable's API, you'll see both of these timestamps.

# Differentiating offline and online events

To determine if a particular event saved in Iterable was originally captured offline, check its attributes for mismatched createdAt and sentAt values. This indicates that the event was captured at one time and saved at another, as is the case for offline events.

If an event doesn't have a sentAt value, it was captured online (sentAt is a new field introduced with this feature.

# Multiple users

When users sign out of your app, Iterable's mobile SDKs delete any captured offline events that haven't yet been saved back to Iterable.

# Storage limits and timeframes

Iterable's mobile SDKs will capture up to 1000 offline events, and then stop capturing new offline events. However, there's no limit to the amount of time for which offline events can be saved on a device.

# JWT-enabled API keys

Iterable's mobile SDKs support offline events processing for JWT-enabled API keys and non JWT-enabled API keys.

However, when using a JWT-enabled API key, if the JWT token happens to get invalidated between a time that offline events are queued up and the time that the device comes back online, those queued events may not be saved to Iterable. We may improve this in the future.

# Increased event volume

When you have your customer success manager enable offline events processing for your account (and update to an SDK version that supports it), you may see an increase in the number of custom events saved in your project (since offline events that were previously dropped are now captured). However, this isn't necessarily the case, and depends on the usage patterns of your users. To monitor custom event usage, use the Custom Event Usage page.

# Triggering journeys

Like other events, offline events can trigger journeys when they're eventually saved back to Iterable. However, it may not be desirable for older events to trigger journeys that are no longer relevant. Because of this, offline events saved to Iterable more than 24 hours after their creation will not trigger journeys.