Mobile SDK: Android tracking overview and configuration

The Parse.ly Android SDK is a Java library providing Parse.ly tracking functionality to native Android apps. Like any other framework you might include in your project, the Parse.ly SDK provides a programming interface usable from your application code.

Github hosts the official repository.

Including the SDK in a project

To use Parse.ly SDK in your Android project, add the following dependency to your app’s build.gradle file:

  dependencies {
    implementation "com.parsely:parsely:<release_version>”
}

To find the newest release version, see the GitHub Releases page or MavenCentral portal.

Using the SDK

In any file that uses the Parsely SDK, be sure to add this line at the top of the file:

  import com.parsely.parselyandroid.*;

Before using the toolkit, you must initialize the Parsely object with your public siteId. This is usually best to do in the MainActivity‘s onCreate method.

  @Override
  protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    ParselyTracker.sharedInstance("example.com", this);
  }

Providing metadata

We only require pageview metadata for URLs that are not accessible over the internet (i.e. app-only content) or if you are using an “in-pixel” integration. Otherwise, Parse.ly’s crawler will gather metadata.

NOTE for the metadata integration types below, it is possible to send a canonical URL that does not need to resolve to an extant page when navigated to in a browser. If you do this, it is important that the mobile post’s canonical URL match a domain that we are tracking for the Site ID. The URL should also be unique to the post among all posts for the Site ID.

There are two methods for providing Parse.ly with metadata for content that’s only accessible via the Mobile SDK:

1. Primary recommendation: updating metadata using the metadata API endpoint.
2. Back-up option: Sending metadata “in-pixel” with every event sent with the Mobile SDK. We only recommend this for special cases. For example, this is an appropriate method for a mobile-app only company.

API Documentation

ParselyTracker.trackPageview

Register a pageview event using a URL and optional metadata. You should only be call this once per page view.

ParselyTracker.startEngagement (heartbeat tracking)

Recommended implementation: Call startEngagement when a post is navigated to, and to call stopEngagement when it’s navigated away from.

Start engaged time tracking for the given URL. Once called, the Parse.ly tracking script will automatically send heartbeat events periodically to capture engaged time for this url until engaged time tracking stops.

This call also automatically stops tracking engaged time for any urls that are not the current url.

The value of url should be a URL for which trackPageview has been called.

ParselyTracker.stopEngagement

Stops the engaged time tracker, sending any accumulated engaged time to Parse.ly.

NOTE: This must be called in your MainActivity during various Android lifecycle events like onPause or onStop. Otherwise, engaged time tracking may keep running in the background and Parse.ly values may be inaccurate.

ParselyTracker.trackPlay

This starts tracking view time for a video that someone is watching at a given url. It will send a videostart event unless the same url/videoId had previously been paused. Video metadata must be provided, specifically the video ID and video duration.

The url value is not the URL of a video, but the post which contains the video. If you have not embedded the video in a post, then this should contain a well-formatted URL on your domain (e.g. http://app-videos). This URL doesn’t need to return a 200 status when crawled, but must but well-formatted so Parse.ly systems recognize it as belonging to the customer.

ParselyTracker.trackPause

Pause video tracking for an ongoing video. If trackPlay is immediately called again for the same video, a new videostart event will not be sent. This models a user pausing a playing video.

NOTE: This or resetVideo must be called in your MainActivity during various Android lifecycle events like onPause or onStop. Otherwise, engaged time tracking may keep running in the background and Parse.ly values may be inaccurate.

ParselyTracker.resetVideo

Stops video tracking and resets internal state for the video. If trackPlay is immediately called for the same video, a new videostart event is set. This models a user stopping a video and (on trackPlay being called again) starting it over.

NOTE: This or trackPause must be called in your MainActivity during various Android lifecycle events like onPause or onStop. Otherwise, engaged time tracking may keep running in the background and Parse.ly values may be inaccurate.

ParselyTracker.flushEventQueue

Empties the event queue and sends the appropriate requests to Parsely. Called automatically after a number of seconds determined by flushInterval.

To make sure all of the queued events are flushed to Parse.ly’s servers, include a call to flushEventQueue() in your main activity’s onDestroy() method.

ParselyMetadata

NOTE: This metadata class has limitations. It does not contain all metadata values. Only use this class to provide metadata if you are choosing to not use the recommended method above.

You may use this class to attach a metadata block to a Parse.ly pageview request. We only require pageview metadata for URLs that are not accessible over the internet (i.e. app-only content) or if you are using an “in-pixel” integration. Otherwise, the Parse.ly crawler will gather your metadata.

ParselyVideoMetadata

This class is an implementation of ParselyMetadata for videos.