How to track android fragments using firebase analytics

Question

In my android application, I have an Activity that has 3 or 4 fragments that can be attached in sequence based on some user or server events.

I would like to track all these fragments as screens in firebase.

So ideally, if possible, is there an API i can invoke in the onCreate of the fragments, and tell firebase that user is currently in fragment1, fragment2 or fragment3?

Answer 1

UPDATE

Since the setCurrentScreen is deprecated, you can use logEvent method

Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
bundle.putString(FirebaseAnalytics.Param.SCREEN_NAME, fragment.getClass().getSimpleName());
bundle.putString(FirebaseAnalytics.Param.SCREEN_CLASS, fragment.getClass().getSimpleName());
mFirebaseAnalytics.logEvent(FirebaseAnalytics.Event.SCREEN_VIEW, bundle);

I've used the following adb commands to check if all is working fine.

adb shell setprop log.tag.FA VERBOSE
adb shell setprop log.tag.FA-SVC VERBOSE
adb logcat -v time -s FA FA-SVC

Once you do that you'll see screen_view events in the logcat. Like this one:

10-15 13:14:13.744 V/FA-SVC (20323): Logging event: origin=app,name=screen_view(_vs),params=Bundle[{ga_event_origin(_o)=app, engagement_time_msec(_et)=31600, ga_previous_class(_pc)=ContentsFragment, ga_previous_id(_pi)=8077407744361472421, ga_previous_screen(_pn)=ContentsFragment, ga_screen_class(_sc)=TestFragment, ga_screen_id(_si)=8077407744361472423, ga_screen(_sn)=TestFragment}]

Previous answer

There is a special method to set a current screen - setCurrentScreen

I used it as follows

mFirebaseAnalytics.setCurrentScreen(this, fragment.getClass().getSimpleName(), fragment.getClass().getSimpleName());

Once the method is called, the following message appears in the LogCat

Logging event (FE): screen_view(_vs), Bundle[{firebase_event_origin(_o)=auto, firebase_previous_class(_pc)=HomeFragment, firebase_previous_id(_pi)=4121566113087629222, firebase_previous_screen(_pn)=HomeFragment, firebase_screen_class(_sc)=StatisticsFragment, firebase_screen_id(_si)=4121566113087629223, firebase_screen(_sn)=StatisticsFragment}]

The following event appears on auto activity tracking:

Logging event (FE): screen_view(_vs), Bundle[{firebase_event_origin(_o)=auto, firebase_previous_class(_pc)=StatisticsFragment, firebase_previous_id(_pi)=4121566113087629223, firebase_previous_screen(_pn)=StatisticsFragment, firebase_screen_class(_sc)=LoginActivity, firebase_screen_id(_si)=4121566113087629224}]

As you see, they are almost the same, so setCurrentScreen is working.

I'm able to see those classes in Firebase Console only on the next day. It is normal for Firebase - it takes time to process such amounts of data.

Answer 2

Adding a some more insight here to Artem Mostyaev answer. GA/Firebase panel was reflecting the class name in DEV version but not on PROD version.The main culprit here is

fragment.getClass().getSimpleName()

which obfuscate the fragment name in prod. So GA/Firebase was showing classname to be like (a,b,ah, etc)

getSimpleName() is also dangerous to use in other situation.

More literature : https://medium.com/@elye.project/the-danger-of-using-class-getsimplename-as-tag-for-fragment-5cdf3a35bfe2

Progaurd rules

-keepnames class com.somepackage.yourclass 

Answer 3

Since setCurrentScreen is deprecated you can use firebaseAnalytics.logEvent(FirebaseAnalytics.Event.SCREEN_VIEW, bundle) instead.

there is a blog post here that explains more about tracking screens manually.

here is an example:

private fun setCurrentScreen(screenName: String) = firebaseAnalytics?.run {
    val bundle = Bundle()
    bundle.putString(FirebaseAnalytics.Param.SCREEN_NAME, screenName)
    bundle.putString(FirebaseAnalytics.Param.SCREEN_CLASS, this@BaseFragment.javaClass.simpleName)
    logEvent(FirebaseAnalytics.Event.SCREEN_VIEW, bundle)
}

In addition, if you want to track screens automatically, you can call this function in one of your BaseFragment lifecycle methods like onResume. just keep in mind that some of the fragments may not have to change the current screen, like the ones which are being created in a ViewPager, so I have declared an open val which you can override in order to change the default behavior.

here is the code in BaseFragment:

protected open val trackScreenView: Boolean = true

override fun onResume() {
    super.onResume()

    if (trackScreenView) setCurrentScreen(this.javaClass.simpleName)
}

and you can disable it by overriding it in your target Fragment:

override val trackScreenView: Boolean = false

By the way, if you are using NavigationUI Component, currently there is no automatic solution for tracking screens, and it only track the single activity you have, so you can prevent firebase automatic screen reporting by putting this meta-data in your app manifest:

<application
    android:name=".App"
    android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
    
    <!-- .... -->
    
    <meta-data
        android:name="google_analytics_automatic_screen_reporting_enabled"
        android:value="false" />
</application>

Answer 4

For projects using NavigationUI, you can use a listener NavController.OnDestinationChangedListener

Inside onCreate()

override fun onCreate() {
      super.onCreate()
      .
      .
      .
      .
      navController = Navigation.findNavController(context!!, R.id.nav_host_fragment)
      navController?.addOnDestinationChangedListener(listener)
}

Of the 3 listener function parameters,

• controller is useful to obtain classname
• destination is useful to obtain layout xml name string of destination as found inside nav_host_fragment by the attribute android:label

private val listener = NavController.OnDestinationChangedListener { controller, destination, arguments ->
      
      val bundle = Bundle()
      val currentFragmentClassName = (controller.currentDestination as FragmentNavigator.Destination).className
      bundle.putString(FirebaseAnalytics.Param.SCREEN_NAME, destination.label.toString())
      bundle.putString(FirebaseAnalytics.Param.SCREEN_CLASS, currentFragmentClassName)
      FirebaseAnalytics.getInstance(requireContext()).logEvent(FirebaseAnalytics.Event.SCREEN_VIEW, bundle)
      
}

Don't forget cleanup

override fun onDestroy() {
      super.onDestroy()
      navController?.removeOnDestinationChangedListener(listener)
}