Android RUM Agent

Track user experience metrics and performance data in Android applications with the Harness FME Android RUM Agent.

This guide provides detailed information about FME's Real User Monitoring (RUM) Agent for Android.

FME's Android RUM Agent collects events about your users' experience when they use your application and sends this information to FME services. This allows you to measure and analyze the impact of feature flag changes on performance metrics.

Before you begin

FME's Android RUM Agent is designed for Android applications written in Java or Kotlin and is compatible with Android SDK versions 15 and later (4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich).

Initialization

Set up FME's RUM Agent in your code with the following three steps:

1. Import the Agent into your project

Import the Agent into your project with the following line:

Gradle Groovy

implementation 'io.split.client:android-rum-agent:0.4.1'

Gradle Kotlin DSL

implementation("io.split.client:android-rum-agent:0.4.1")

2. Setup the Agent

To allow the Agent to send information to FME services, specify the SDK through your app's AndroidManifest.xml file, as a meta-data tag inside the application tag.

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

  <application ...>
    <activity ...>...</activity>

    <meta-data
      android:name="io.split.android.rum.SPLIT_SDK_KEY"
      android:value="YOUR_SDK_KEY" />

  </application>
</manifest>

Alternatively, you can call the setup method on the SplitRumAgent object. This value will override the one specified through the AndroidManifest.xml.

Java

SplitRumAgent.setup("YOUR_SDK_KEY");

Kotlin

SplitRumAgent.setup("YOUR_SDK_KEY")

3. Add an Identity

While the Agent will work without having an Identity, events won't be sent to FME services until at least one is set.

Identity objects consist of a key and a traffic type. The traffic type value must match the name of a traffic type that you have defined in Harness FME.

The RUM Agent provides methods to manage Identities, as shown below:

Java

// add one Identity
SplitRumAgent.addIdentity(new Identity("my_user", "user"));

// add multiple Identities
SplitRumAgent.addIdentities(
  new Identity("my_user", "user"),
  new Identity("my_account", "account")
);

// remove one Identity
SplitRumAgent.removeIdentity(new Identity("my_user", "user"));

// remove all Identities
SplitRumAgent.removeIdentities();

Kotlin

// add one Identity
SplitRumAgent.addIdentity(Identity("my_user", "user"))

// add multiple Identities
SplitRumAgent.addIdentities(
  Identity("my_user", "user"),
  Identity("my_account", "account")
)

// remove one Identity
SplitRumAgent.removeIdentity(Identity("my_user", "user"))

// remove all Identities
SplitRumAgent.removeIdentities()

Configuration

FME's Android RUM Agent can be configured to change its default behavior. The following options are available:

• Log Level: Level of logging. Valid values are DEBUG, INFO, WARNING and ERROR.

• Prefix: Optional prefix to append to the eventTypeId of the events sent to Harness. For example, if you set the prefix to "my-app", the event type "error" will be sent as "my-app.error". The prefix "split.rum" is used by default if no prefix is configured.

• User Consent: User consent status used to control the tracking of events. Possible values are GRANTED, DECLINED, and UNKNOWN. The default value is 'GRANTED'. See the User consent section for details.

These options can be configured using the AndroidManifest.xml or programmatically. Values specified programmatically will override values set through the AndroidManifest.xml. Both methods are demonstrated below.

Configuration using the manifest file:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

  <application ...>
    <activity ...>...</activity>

    <meta-data
      android:name="io.split.android.rum.SPLIT_SDK_KEY"
      android:value="YOUR_SDK_KEY" />

    
    <meta-data
      android:name="io.split.android.rum.LOG_LEVEL"
      android:value="DEBUG" />

    <meta-data
      android:name="io.split.android.rum.PREFIX"
      android:value="pre" />

  </application>
</manifest>

Configuration specified programmatically:

Java

SplitRumConfiguration config = new SplitRumConfiguration.Builder()
  .setPrefix("pre")
  .setLogLevel(LogLevel.DEBUG)
  .build();

SplitRumAgent.setup("YOUR_SDK_KEY", config);

Kotlin

val config = SplitRumConfiguration.Builder()
  .setPrefix("pre")
  .setLogLevel(LogLevel.DEBUG)
  .build()

  SplitRumAgent.setup("YOUR_SDK_KEY", config)

Events

FME's Android RUM Agent collects a number of events by default.

Default events

Event type ID	Description	Has value?	Has properties?
crash	Any unhandled exception that causes the application to crash.	No	{ message: string, trace: string }
error	Exceptions tracked via the trackError method.	No	{ message: string, trace: string }
app_start	Time in milliseconds elapsed until app is launched	Yes	No
anr	Sent if an ANR (Application Not Responding) is detected.	No	No
device_info	Information provided by the OS about a device. This is sent the first time the Agent runs on the device.	No	{ id: string, display: string, product: string, device: string, board: string, manufacturer: string, brand: string, model: string, hardware: string, base: string, incremental: string, sdkVersion: string, host: string, fingerprint: string, release: string, baseOs: string, socManufacturer: string, securityPatch: string, abis: string }

Automatic metric creation

FME will automatically create metrics for a subset of the event types received from the Android RUM Agent. These out-of-the-box metrics are auto-created for you:

Event type	Metric name
split.rum.error	Count of Application Errors - Split Agents
split.rum.crash	Count of Crashes - Split Agents
split.rum.app_start	Average App Start Time - Split Agents
split.rum.anr	Count of ANRs - Split Agents

For a metric that was auto-created, you can manage the definition and alert policies like you would for any other metric. If you delete a metric that was auto-created, FME will not re-create the metric, even if the event type is still flowing.

Advanced use cases

Custom properties

Each event for the metrics described above automatically includes a session_id property that can be use to filter certain events when defining Split metrics for experimentation purposes. Learn more about metric definitions and how to define property filters

name	Description
session_id	ID of the session in which the event took place.

Custom properties can be also added to a tracked event, as shown below:

Java

// add a single property
SplitRumAgent.setProperty("property_name", "property_value");

// add multiple properties
Map<String, Object> newProperties = new HashMap<>();
newProperties.put("property_name", "property_value");
newProperties.put("property_name_2", "property_value_2");
SplitRumAgent.setProperties(newProperties);

// get all properties
Map<String, Object> properties = SplitRumAgent.getProperties();

// remove a single property
SplitRumAgent.removeProperty("property_name_2");

// remove all properties
SplitRumAgent.removeProperties();

Kotlin

// add a single property
SplitRumAgent.setProperty("property_name", "property_value")

// add multiple properties
SplitRumAgent.setProperties(
  mapOf(
    "property_name" to "property_value",
    "property_name_2" to "property_value_2",
  )
)

// get all properties
val properties: Map<String, Object> = SplitRumAgent.getProperties()

// remove a single property
SplitRumAgent.removeProperty("property_name_2")

// remove all properties
SplitRumAgent.removeProperties()

Custom events

Custom events can be tracked using the following options:

• the track method

• the specialized trackError method

• the specialized trackTimeFromStart These methods are demonstrated below.

Using the track methods:

Java

Map<String, Object> properties = new HashMap<>();
properties.put("property_name", "property_value");

// Track event
SplitRumAgent.track("event_type_id");

// Track event with value
SplitRumAgent.track("event_type_id", 100L);

// Track event with properties
SplitRumAgent.track("event_type_id", properties);

// Track event with value and properties
SplitRumAgent.track("event_type_id", 100L, properties);

Kotlin

// Track event
SplitRumAgent.track("event_type_id")

// Track event with value
SplitRumAgent.track("event_type_id", 100)

// Track event with properties
SplitRumAgent.track("event_type_id", mapOf("property_name" to "property_value"))

// Track event with value and properties
SplitRumAgent.track("event_type_id", 100, mapOf("property_name" to "property_value"))

Using the trackError method:

Java

SplitRumAgent.trackError(new Throwable("my_error"));

Kotlin

SplitRumAgent.trackError(Throwable("my_error"))

Using the trackTimeFromStart method. This method generates an event which value is the number of milliseconds between app launch and the moment the method is called.

Java

SplitRumAgent.trackTimeFromStart("content_loaded");

Kotlin

SplitRumAgent.trackTimeFromStart("content_loaded")

User consent

By default the Agent will send events to Harness servers, but you can disable this behavior until user consent is explicitly granted.

The userConsent configuration parameter lets you set the initial consent status of the Agent, and the SplitRumAgent.setUserConsent(boolean) method lets you grant (enable) or decline (disable) dynamic event tracking.

There are three possible initial states:

• 'GRANTED': The user grants consent for tracking events. The Agent sends them to Harness servers. This is the default value if userConsent param is not defined.

• 'DECLINED': The user declines consent for tracking events. The Agent does not send them to Harness servers.

• 'UNKNOWN': The user neither grants nor declines consent for tracking events. The Agent tracks them in its internal storage, and eventually either sends them or not if the consent status is updated to 'GRANTED' or 'DECLINED' respectively.

The status can be updated at any time with the setUserConsent method.

Working with user consent is demonstrated below.

SplitRumAgent.setup('YOUR_SDK_KEY', {
  // Overwrites the initial consent status of the Agent, which is 'GRANTED' by default.
  // 'UNKNOWN' status represents that the user has neither granted nor declined consent for tracking data,
  // so the Agent will locally track data but not send it to Harness FME servers until consent is changed to 'GRANTED'.
  userConsent: 'UNKNOWN'
});

// `getUserConsent` method returns the current consent status.
SplitRumAgent.getUserConsent() == UserConsent.GRANTED;

// `setUserConsent` method lets you update the consent status at any time.
// Pass `true` for 'GRANTED' and `false` for 'DECLINED'.
SplitRumAgent.setUserConsent(true); // Consent status changed from 'UNKNOWN' to 'GRANTED'. Data will be sent to Harness FME servers.
SplitRumAgent.getUserConsent() == UserConsent.GRANTED;

SplitRumAgent.setUserConsent(false); // Consent status changed from 'GRANTED' to 'DECLINED'. Data will not be sent to Harness FME servers.
SplitRumAgent.getUserConsent() == UserConsent.DECLINED;