Platform

Track App-opens and Push messages using the event report

Introduction

After building your app using Back4App you can track important behaviors from your created App with Events reports. They allow you to track your application being launched, what will help you measure your app open and associate that with your push notifications campaings or with any other metric that you want.

This documentation will help you understand how to use the following Events reports: App Opens report, Push Notifications report, API Requests report and Analytics Requests report.

This Analytic Report will work only if the Parse Server version of your app is equal to or greater than 2.8.4.
If you want to manage your Parse Server Version for 2.8.4, follow these instructions.

Tracking App Opens set up

The first Event report we will discuss is the App Opens report that allows you to track your application being launched.

In order to use it, follow these steps:

  1. To track your App opens you will have to make some frontend code set up. The tabs below contain some instructions and the specific frontend code you will have to use.

    By adding the following line to the onCreate method of your mainActivity, you’ll begin to collect data on when and how often your application is opened.

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    ParseAnalytics.trackAppOpenedInBackground(getIntent());

    By adding the following line to applicationDidFinishLaunching:, you’ll begin to collect data on when and how often your application is opened.

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    // in iOS
[PFAnalytics trackAppOpenedWithLaunchOptions:launchOptions];

// in OS X
[PFAnalytics trackAppOpenedWithLaunchOptions:nil];

    By adding the following line to applicationDidFinishLaunching:, you’ll begin to collect data on when and how often your application is opened.

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    // in iOS
PFAnalytics.trackAppOpenedWithLaunchOptions(launchOptions)

// in OS X
PFAnalytics.trackAppOpenedWithLaunchOptions(nil)

    By adding the following line to your Launching event handler, you’ll be able to collect data on when and how often your application is opened.

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    ParseAnalytics.TrackAppOpenedAsync();
  2. Go to Back4App Website and click on My Apps. Find your app and then click on DASHBOARD.
  3. Select the More > Analytics section and lick on Explorer > Chart.
  4. Click on the Add query button that is placed below the Explorer title and also click on the Events section of the Choose a query to visualize chart.

    If you don’t see the Add query button, scrool up a little bit.

  5. You should see a chart like the one shown in the image below. Now, select the App Opens option.

    Now you are ready to explore the App Opens report, in order to do so, go to the Exploring the reports section of this documentation.

Tracking Push Notifications set up

The second Event report we will discuss is the Push Notifications report that allows you to track over time the total number of users targeted with the push notifications you sended.

In order to use it, do what is described below:

  1. Follow the Steps 2 to 5 from the Tracking App Opens set up of this documentation.
  2. You should see a chart like the one shown in the image below. Now, select the Push Notifications option.

    Now you are ready to explore the Push Notifications report, in order to do so, go to the Exploring the reports section of this documentation.

Tracking API Requests set up

The third Event report we will discuss is the API Requests report that allows you to track, in a range of time that you select, the total number of requests per minut of your API.

To generate this report is really easy and no frontend set up is required. In order to use it, do what is described below:

  1. Follow the Steps 2 to 5 from the Tracking App Opens set up section of this documentation.
  2. You should see a chart like the one shown in the image below. Now, select the API Requests option.

    Now you are ready to explore the API Requests report, in order to do so, go to the Exploring the reports section of this documentation.

    An improved version of this report can be seen in the Performance report, which can tell you, in addition to the total number of requests of your API, the number of requests served and dropped, as well as your request limit.

Tracking Analytics Requests

The last Event report we will discuss is the Analytics Requests report that allows you to track, in a range of time that you select, the total number of requests per minut of all the Events that you set up with track methods from Parse, as App Opens and Custom Events.

To generate this report is really easy and no frontend set up is required. In order to use it, do what is described below:

  1. Follow the Steps 2 to 5 from the Tracking App Opens set up section of this documentation.
  2. You should see a chart like the one shown in the image below. Now, select the Analytics Requests option.

    Now you are ready to explore the Analytics Requests report, in order to do so, go to the Exploring the reports section of this documentation.

Exploring the reports

  1. Click on the Calendar icon at the right bottom.

    If you don’t see this icon, scrool down a little bit.

  2. At the bottom left of the page, select a period of time to execute your audience query: in the left calendar select the starting date of your query and in the right calendar the end date.

    You can toggle the search months by using the top arrows in the calendar box.

  3. Now, click on Run query.

    You should see a graph containing your app’s audience information in the time range selected by you on the previous step, as shown in the image below.

  4. You can also add more queries in the same graph you are seeing. In order to do that simply click on the Add query button that is placed next to your query and follow the same instructions you did before to add a query.

    If you don’t see the Add query button, scrool up a little bit.

  5. If you don’t want to see a query in the graph anymore, simply click on its checkbox or click on its down arrow and after that click on Dismiss query.

    If you don’t see your query checkbox, scrool up a little bit.

It’s done!

At this stage, you can explore the Events reports of your app through Back4App!