Page and screen views

Page and screen view tracking is key for understanding your users' navigation within your app.

Snowplow provides implementations for web and mobile platforms:

• Page view events on web
• Screen view events on mobile

Both page and screen views are included in the Snowplow Unified Digital dbt package. The legacy Web and Mobile packages handle page and screen views respectively.

Page views

Track page views to record when a user views a web page.

Page view events are baked-in events that have no schema. They populate the page atomic event parameters.

This table shows the support for page view tracking across the main Snowplow tracker SDKs.

Tracker	Supported	Since version	Auto-tracking	Notes
Web	✅	0.1.0	✅/❌	Web page entity can be automatically added
iOS	❌
Android	❌
React Native	✅	0.1.0	❌	No web page entity
Flutter	✅	0.1.0	✅/❌	Only on web; web page entity can be automatically added
Roku	❌
Node.js	❌
Golang	❌
.NET	❌
Java	✅	0.1.0	❌	No web page entity
Python	✅	0.1.0	❌	No web page entity
Scala	❌
Ruby	✅	0.1.0	❌	No web page entity
Rust	❌
PHP	❌
C++	❌
Unity	❌
Lua	❌
Google Tag Manager	✅	v3	❌

We recommend using the Base web tracking plan template for web tracking. It includes page views.

Web page entity

Some trackers assign a unique identifier to every page load: the page view ID. Where available, you can configure this UUID to be added to every event tracked on that page, by tracking the web_page entity. This identifier can be very useful for sessionization and user journey analysis.

web_page

Entity

Schema for a web page context

Schema URIiglu:com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow/web_page/jsonschema/1-0-0

Example

json

{
  "id": "024629F0-6B9B-440C-82D4-DB3CF9D31533"
}

Properties and schema

Table

Property	Description
id string	Required.

JSON schema

json

{
  "description": "Schema for a web page context",
  "properties": {
    "id": {
      "type": "string",
      "pattern": "^[a-fA-F0-9]{8}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{12}$"
    }
  },
  "additionalProperties": false,
  "type": "object",
  "required": [
    "id"
  ],
  "self": {
    "vendor": "com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow",
    "name": "web_page",
    "format": "jsonschema",
    "version": "1-0-0"
  },
  "$schema": "http://iglucentral.com/schemas/com.snowplowanalytics.self-desc/schema/jsonschema/1-0-0#"
}

Screen views

Screen view events are the mobile equivalent of page view events.

This table shows the support for screen view tracking across the main Snowplow tracker SDKs.

Tracker	Supported	Since version	Auto-tracking	Notes
Web	✅	4.2.0	✅/❌	Requires screen tracking plugin; we recommend using page views instead
iOS	✅	0.1.0	✅/❌	Screen entity can be automatically added; screen view autotracking depends on platform
Android	✅	0.1.0	✅/❌	Screen entity can be automatically added; screen view autotracking depends on platform
React Native	✅	0.1.0	✅/❌	Screen entity can be automatically added; add navigation handler for screen view autotracking
Flutter	✅	0.1.0	❌	No screen entity
Roku	✅	0.1.0	❌	No screen entity
Node.js	✅	0.1.0	❌	No screen entity
Golang	✅	1.0.0	❌	No screen entity
.NET	✅	1.3.0		No screen entity
Java	✅	0.1.0	❌	No screen entity
Python	✅	0.2.0	❌	No screen entity
Scala	❌
Ruby	✅	0.2.0	❌	No screen entity
Rust	✅	0.1.0	❌	No screen entity
PHP	✅	0.1.0	❌	No screen entity
C++	✅	0.1.0	❌	No screen entity
Unity	✅	0.8.0	❌	No screen entity
Lua	✅	0.1.0	❌	No screen entity
Google Tag Manager	❌

We recommend using the Base mobile tracking plan template for mobile tracking. It includes screen views.

Screen view events record the name and identifier of the current screen, as well as some optional properties such as the ID of the previous screen. Information about the previous screen can be useful for understanding user navigation within your application.

screen_view

Event

Schema for a screen view event

Schema URIiglu:com.snowplowanalytics.mobile/screen_view/jsonschema/1-0-0

Example

json

{
  "name": "Screen 2",
  "type": "feed",
  "id": "024629F0-6B9B-440C-82D4-DB3CF9D31533",
  "previousName": "Screen 1",
  "previousId": "86ffd23c-b844-4ed4-aae9-7796b8b6f1e4",
  "previousType": "feed",
  "transitionType": "push"
}

Properties and schema

Table

Property	Description
name string	Required. The name of the screen viewed.
type string	Optional. The type of screen that was viewed e.g feed / carousel.
id string	Required. An ID from the associated screenview event.
previousName string	Optional. The name of the previous screen.
previousId string	Optional. A screenview ID of the previous screenview.
previousType string	Optional. The screen type of the previous screenview.
transitionType string	Optional. The type of transition that led to the screen being viewed.

JSON schema

json

{
  "description": "Schema for a screen view event",
  "properties": {
    "name": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The name of the screen viewed."
    },
    "type": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The type of screen that was viewed e.g feed / carousel."
    },
    "id": {
      "type": "string",
      "format": "uuid",
      "maxLength": 36,
      "description": "An ID from the associated screenview event."
    },
    "previousName": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The name of the previous screen."
    },
    "previousId": {
      "type": "string",
      "format": "uuid",
      "description": "A screenview ID of the previous screenview."
    },
    "previousType": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The screen type of the previous screenview."
    },
    "transitionType": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The type of transition that led to the screen being viewed."
    }
  },
  "additionalProperties": false,
  "type": "object",
  "required": [
    "name",
    "id"
  ],
  "minProperties": 2,
  "self": {
    "vendor": "com.snowplowanalytics.mobile",
    "name": "screen_view",
    "format": "jsonschema",
    "version": "1-0-0"
  },
  "$schema": "http://iglucentral.com/schemas/com.snowplowanalytics.self-desc/schema/jsonschema/1-0-0#"
}

Warehouse query

Snowflake

sql

select
unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_screen_view_1 screen_view_1
from
atomic.events
where
events.collector_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
and events.event = 'unstruct'
and events.event_name = 'screen_view'
and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.mobile'

BigQuery

sql

select
unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_screen_view_1_0_0
from
PIPELINE_NAME.events events
where
events.collector_tstamp > timestamp_sub(current_timestamp(), interval 1 hour)
and events.event = 'unstruct'
and events.event_name = 'screen_view'
and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.mobile'

Databricks

sql

select
unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_screen_view_1
from
atomic.events events
where
events.collector_tstamp > timestampadd(HOUR, -1, current_timestamp())
and events.event = 'unstruct'
and events.event_name = 'screen_view'
and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.mobile'
and unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_screen_view_1 is not null

Redshift & Postgres

sql

select
"screen_view_1".*
from
atomic.events events
join atomic.com_snowplowanalytics_mobile_screen_view_1 "screen_view_1"
  on "screen_view_1".root_id = events.event_id and "screen_view_1".root_tstamp = events.collector_tstamp
where
events.collector_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
and "screen_view_1".root_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
and events.event = 'unstruct'
and events.event_name = 'screen_view'
and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.mobile'

Screen entity

Some trackers can automatically attach a screen entity to all events after a screen view is tracked. This entity contains information about the current, or last seen, screen.

screen

Entity

Schema for a context that represents information pertaining to the current screen being viewed when an event occurs.

Schema URIiglu:com.snowplowanalytics.mobile/screen/jsonschema/1-0-0

Example

json

{
  "name": "Screen 2",
  "type": "feed",
  "id": "024629F0-6B9B-440C-82D4-DB3CF9D31533"
}

Properties and schema

Table

Property	Description
name string	Required. The name of the screen viewed.
type string	Optional. The type of screen that was viewed e.g feed / carousel.
id string	Required. An ID from the associated screenview event.
viewController string	Optional. iOS specific: class name of the view controller.
topViewController string	Optional. iOS specific: class name of the top level view controller.
activity string	Optional. Android specific: name of activity.
fragment string	Optional. Android specific: name of fragment.

JSON schema

json

{
  "description": "Schema for a context that represents information pertaining to the current screen being viewed when an event occurs.",
  "properties": {
    "name": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The name of the screen viewed."
    },
    "type": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The type of screen that was viewed e.g feed / carousel."
    },
    "id": {
      "type": "string",
      "format": "uuid",
      "maxLength": 36,
      "description": "An ID from the associated screenview event."
    },
    "viewController": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "iOS specific: class name of the view controller."
    },
    "topViewController": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "iOS specific: class name of the top level view controller."
    },
    "activity": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Android specific: name of activity."
    },
    "fragment": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Android specific: name of fragment."
    }
  },
  "additionalProperties": false,
  "type": "object",
  "required": [
    "name",
    "id"
  ],
  "minProperties": 2,
  "self": {
    "vendor": "com.snowplowanalytics.mobile",
    "name": "screen",
    "format": "jsonschema",
    "version": "1-0-0"
  },
  "$schema": "http://iglucentral.com/schemas/com.snowplowanalytics.self-desc/schema/jsonschema/1-0-0#"
}