Tracklytics

We all use analytics tools to provide a better user experience. (Mixpanel, Firebase, Fabric etc). I call this concept as tracking. Tracking events are cross-cutting and boiler plate most of the time. Tracklytics abstracts away all tracking events into annotations.

Events have a common pattern, and almost all of them have the following structure:

1. Event name
2. Event metadata as attributes (key/value pair)

How to use it

Download

Add the following code block to in your app/build.gradle.

buildscript {
  dependencies {
    classpath 'com.orhanobut.tracklytics:tracklytics-plugin:2.2.1'
  }
}

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
...
}

apply plugin: 'com.orhanobut.tracklytics'   // Must be added at end of file

Initiate

Subscribe to all tracked events and send them to your preferred analytic tools.

Tracklytics.init(new EventSubscriber() {
  @Override public void onEventTracked(Event event) {
    // Send your events to Mixpanel, Fabric etc
  }
});

Use

@TrackEvent("event_name") 
public void foo() {
}

Guideline

@TrackEvent

Scope: Method

Track an event and notify the subscriber(EventSubscriber) on each method invocation.

@TrackEvent("event_name") 
public void foo() {
}

@Attribute

Scope: Method, Method parameters

There are multiple ways to add an attribute to the corresponding event. Assigns the values in runtime dynamically.

By using method parameters: Parameter value will be used as attribute value.

@TrackEvent("event_name") 
public void foo(@Attribute("attribute_key") String name) {
  // something
}

By using the return value of the method as attribute value.

@TrackEvent("event_name") 
@Attribute("attribute_key")
public String foo() {
  // something
  return "attribute_value";
}

Set a default value when the expected value is null.

@TrackEvent("event_name") 
public void foo(@Attribute(value="attribute_key", defaultValue="defaultValue") String name) {
  // something
}

@FixedAttribute

Scope: Method, Class

If the attribute values are constant, use FixedAttribute.

On method: Only this event will have this fixed attribute.

@TrackEvent("eventName")
@FixedAttribute(key="Login", value="Success")
public void foo(){
}

On class: These attributes will be added to each event that is triggered within this class. For example: Following foo() method will also have screen_name attribute.

@FixedAttribute(key="screen_name", value="Login")
public class LoginPresenter{

  @TrackEvent("login")
  public void onLoggedIn(){
  }
}

@FixedAttributes

Scope: Method, Class

Prior to Java 8, repeated annotations are not available. Sometimes you may need more fixed attributes. Use this annotation to add multiple attributes

@TrackEvent("event_name")
@FixedAttributes({
  @FixedAttribute(key="name", value="Something"),
  @FixedAttribute(key="last_name", value="Something")
})
public void foo(){
}

Filters

Use filters to differentiate some events. You may only want to send specific events to a specific analytics tool. ie: Send login event to Fabric.

@TrackEvent(value="event_name",filters=100)
public void foo() {
}

Tags

You can use tags to send more information about the tracked event. For example: Adjust requires token for their events.

@TrackEvent(value="event",filters=100, tags="abc123")
public void trackNoValues() {
}

Super Attributes

Some attributes might be used for every event within the app such as device id. Tracklytics call them as super attributes. These attributes will be automatically added to each event. You only need to set them once and Tracklytics will do the rest.

Access super attributes via Event class

Tracklytics.init(new EventSubscriber() {
  @Override public void onEvent(Event event) {
    // event.superAttributes
  }
});

Set any attribute as super

@Attribute(value="key", isSuper=true)

Set any fixed attribute as super

@FixedAttribute(key="key", value="value",  isSuper=true)

Add super attribute directly

tracklytics.addSuperAttribute("key","value");

Remove super attribute

tracklytics.removeSuperAttribute("key");

@TrackableAttribute / @Trackable

You can make the class trackable in order to provide preset values. Imagine your domain models, they contain a lot of information and you can re-use them as a source for tracking. For the following use case: When event is triggered, attributes from Foo.getTrackableAttributes() will be added to this event.

class Foo implements Trackable {
  String name;
  
  @Override public Map<String, String> getTrackableAttributes() {
    Map<String,String> values = new HashMap<>();
    values.put("name", name);
    return values;
  }
}

@TrackEvent("event")
void something(@TrackableAttribute FooTrackable foo){
}

@TransformAttribute / @TransformAttributeMap

Sometimes values are not in the correct form, such as position or index is in Integer type. This might not be clear if you track them as raw. You may want to send a more understandable value to the analytic tools. Use TransformAttribute to solve this issue.

For example: In the following example, index is represented by integer and you want to have a String value which represent exact value such as menu item.

class Foo {
  @TrackEvent("event")
  @TransformAttributeMap(
    keys = {0, 1},
    values = {"value0", "value1"}
  )
  public void foo(@TransformAttribute("key") int index) {
  }
}

// foo(0) : event -> [{"key","value0}]
// foo(1) : event -> [{"key","value1}]

Log

Tracklytics provides a stream for logs which sends formatted event messages.

Tracker tracklytics = Tracker.init(...);
tracklytics.setEventLogListener(new EventLogListener() {
  @Override public void log(String message) {
    // Set your logger here. ie: Logger or Timber
    Log.d("Tracker", message);
  }
});

Log output sample

eventName:{key=value}, super attrs: {key=value}, tags={100,200}

More API options

You can also track event directly without annotations.

tracklytics.trackEvent(String eventName)

tracklytics.trackEvent(String eventName, Map attributes)

Event Debugging Monitor

Use Bee to monitor your events

How it works

ProGuard

Depending on your ProGuard (DexGuard) config and usage, you may need to include the following lines in your proguard

-keep class com.orhanobut.tracklytics.** { *; }
-keepclassmembers class com.orhanobut.tracklytics.** { *; }
-keep interface com.orhanobut.tracklytics.** { *; }
-keep @interface com.orhanobut.tracklytics.** { *; }
-keep enum com.orhanobut.tracklytics.** { *; }
-keepattributes Attribute,FixedAttribute,FixedAttributes,RemoveSuperAttribute,TrackableAttribute,TrackEvent,TrackSuperAttribute,TransformAttribute,TransformAttributeMap
-keepattributes *Annotation*

-keepclasseswithmembers class * {
@com.orhanobut.tracklytics.TrackEvent *;
}

-dontwarn com.orhanobut.tracklytics.*

Licence

Copyright 2017 Orhan Obut

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.