Platform and application data tracking

Platform and application data tracking features capture information about the device and the app.

They are enabled by default. But the setting can be changed through TrackerConfiguration like in the example below:

const tracker = createTracker(
    'appTracker',
    {
      endpoint: COLLECTOR_URL,
    },
    {
        trackerConfig: {
            applicationContext: true,
            platformContext: true,
        },
    }
);

Application context

The application context entity contains two properties:

Property	Type	Description	Required in schema
version	String	Version number of the application e.g 1.1.0	Yes
build	String	Build name of the application e.g s9f2k2d or 1.1.0 beta	Yes

Platform context

The platform context entity contains the following properties:

Property	Type	Description	Required in schema
osType	String	Type of the operating system (e.g., "ios", "tvos", "watchos", "osx", "android")	Yes
osVersion	String	Version of the mobile operating system.	Yes
deviceManufacturer	String	Device vendor.	Yes
deviceModel	String	Model of the device.	Yes
carrier	String	Carrier of the SIM inserted in the device.	No
networkType	String	One of: "mobile", "wifi", "offline"	No
networkTechnology	String	Radio access technology that the device is using.	No
openIdfa	String	Deprecated property.	No
appleIdfa	String	Advertising identifier on iOS.	No
appleIdfv	String	UUID identifier for vendors on iOS.	No
androidIdfa	String	Advertising identifier on Android.	No
physicalMemory	Integer	Total physical system memory in bytes	No
systemAvailableMemory	Integer	Available memory on the system in bytes (Android only)	No
appAvailableMemory	Integer	Amount of memory in bytes available to the current app (iOS only)	No
batteryLevel	Integer	Remaining battery level as an integer percentage of total battery capacity	No
batteryState	String	Battery state for the device. One of: "unplugged", "charging", "full".	No
lowPowerMode	Boolean	A Boolean indicating whether Low Power Mode is enabled (iOS only)	No
availableStorage	Integer	Bytes of storage remaining	No
totalStorage	Integer	Total size of storage in bytes	No
isPortrait	Boolean	A Boolean indicating whether the device orientation is portrait (either upright or upside down)	No
resolution	String	Screen resolution in pixels. Arrives in the form of WIDTHxHEIGHT (e.g., 1200x900). Doesn't change when device orientation changes	No
scale	Number	Scale factor used to convert logical coordinates to device coordinates of the screen (uses UIScreen.scale on iOS and DisplayMetrics.density on Android)	No
language	String	System language currently used on the device (ISO 639)	No
appSetId	String	Android vendor ID scoped to the set of apps published under the same Google Play developer account (see https://developer.android.com/training/articles/app-set-id)	No
appSetIdScope	String (either "app" or "developer")	Scope of the appSetId. Can be scoped to the app or to a developer account on an app store (all apps from the same developer on the same device will have the same ID)	No

Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA/AAID)

The IDFA advertising identifiers are only added to the platform context if you fulfill the following requirements. Otherwise, their values will be NULL.

iOS

To track the IDFA identifier on iOS, you will need to initialize the tracker in native iOS (Swift or Objective-C) code. This is necessary because you will need to retrieve the ID from the ASIdentifierManager and pass it when creating the tracker in native code. Unfortunately, we can't provide this option in React Native since it would make the tracker library dependent on the API which would cause issues for apps that don't require it.

Please follow the documentation for the iOS tracker to call the Snowplow.createTracker() function inside the application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:) method. Make sure to pass the TrackerConfiguration.advertisingIdentifierRetriever callback that retrieves the ID as described here.

Android

The AAID (Android Advertising ID) is a unique user-resettable identifier, which uniquely identifies a particular user for advertising use cases, such as ad personalization. The tracker allows retrieval of the AAID, sending it as property androidIdfa.

For privacy purposes the user can reset the identifier at any moment. In that case the tracker will report a new AAID, despite the device and user being the same as before. Also, the user can "Opt out of Ads Personalisation" from the Android settings menu. In that case the tracker will report an empty string in place of the AAID.

If you want to track the AAID, you need to add the Google Mobile Ads library to your app. If it isn’t included, the tracker will not send the AAID with the events.

The Google Mobile Ads can be imported in the dependencies section of the build.gradle adding:

dependencies {
    ...
    implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:19.0.0'
    ...
}

The Google Mobile Ads SDK v.17.0.0 introduced some changes requiring a tag in the androidManifest.xml explained below.

Manifest tag for AdMob publishers

AdMob publishers have to add the AdMob app ID in the AndroidManifest.xml file:

<manifest>
    <application>
        <!-- TODO: Replace with your real AdMob app ID -->
        <meta-data
            android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_ID"
            android:value="ca-app-pub-################~##########"/>
    </application>
</manifest>

Failure to add this tag will result in the app crashing at app launch with a message starting with "The Google Mobile Ads SDK was initialized incorrectly".

Manifest tag for Google Ad Manager publishers

Publishers using Google Ad Manager have to declare the app an "Ad Manager app" in the AndroidManifest.xml file:

<manifest>
    <application>
        <meta-data
            android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.AD_MANAGER_APP"
            android:value="true"/>
    </application>
</manifest>

Failure to add this tag will result in the app crashing at app launch with a message starting with "The Google Mobile Ads SDK was initialized incorrectly".