Advanced guide
1. Set user IDs
By default, the SDK instance uses a random UUID as each user's default distinct ID, which serves as the user's identifier when they are not logged in. Note that the distinct ID changes when the user reinstalls the app or switches devices.
1.1 Set the distinct ID
In general, you don't need to customize the distinct ID. Make sure you understand the user identification rules before you set a distinct ID.
If you need to replace the distinct ID, call the method immediately after the SDK is initialized. Do not call it multiple times, to avoid creating useless accounts.
If your game has its own distinct ID management system for each user, you can call setDistinctId to set the distinct ID:
// Set the distinct ID to Thinker
TDAnalytics::setDistinctId("Thinker");
To get the current distinct ID, call getDistinctId:
//Return the distinct ID
string distinctId = TDAnalytics::getDistinctId();
1.2 Set the account ID
When a user logs in, you can call login to set the user's account ID. The AE platform uses the account ID as the identifier, and the account ID you set is kept until logout is called. Calling login multiple times overwrites the previous account ID.
// The unique login identifier of the user, which corresponds to #account_id in the reported data. In this case, the value of #account_id is TA
TDAnalytics::login("TA");
This method does not upload a login event
1.3 Clear the account ID
After a user logs out, you can call logout to clear the account ID. Until login is called again, the distinct ID is used as the identifier.
TDAnalytics::logout();
We recommend calling logout only on explicit logout events, for example when the user deletes their account, rather than when the app is closed.
This method does not upload a logout event
2. Send events
After the SDK is initialized, you can start tracking data to collect user behavior. In most cases, regular events meet business needs. You can also use first events, updatable events, and other event types based on your actual business scenarios.
2.1 Regular events
You can call track to upload events. We recommend setting event properties and the conditions for sending events according to the document you prepared earlier. The following example tracks a user purchasing a product:
TDJSONObject eventProperties;
eventProperties.setString("product_name", "Product Name");
TDAnalytics::track("product_buy", eventProperties);
2.2 First events
A first event is an event that is recorded only once for a given device or an ID of another dimension. For example, in some scenarios you may want to record the activation event on a device; you can report this data as a first event.
TDJSONObject jsonObject;
jsonObject.setString("key","value");
TDFirstEventModel *firstEvent = new TDFirstEventModel("device_activation", jsonObject);
TDAnalytics::track(firstEvent);
If you want to determine whether an event is the first one based on a dimension other than the device, you can customize first_check_id for the first event:
// Set the user ID as the first_check_id of the first event to track first-time user activation
TDJSONObject jsonObject;
jsonObject.setString("key","value");
TDFirstEventModel *firstEvent = new TDFirstEventModel("account_activation", jsonObject);
firstEvent->setFirstCheckId("TA");
TDAnalytics::track(firstEvent);
Note: Because the first-event check is performed on the server, first events are stored with a 1-hour delay by default.
2.3 Updatable events
You can use updatable events to modify event data in specific scenarios. An updatable event requires an ID that identifies the event, which you pass in when you create the updatable event object. The AE backend determines which data to update based on the event name and event ID.
// Example: report an updatable event, assuming the event name is UPDATABLE_EVENT
// After reporting, the event property status is 3 and price is 100
TDJSONObject jsonObject;
jsonObject.setNumber("status", 3);
jsonObject.setNumber("price", 100);
TDUpdatableEventModel *updatableEvent = new TDUpdatableEventModel("UPDATABLE_EVENT",jsonObject,"test_event_id");
TDAnalytics::track(updatableEvent);
// After reporting, the event property status is updated to 5 and price is unchanged
TDJSONObject jsonObject_new;
jsonObject_new.setNumber("status", 5);
TDUpdatableEventModel *updatableEvent_new = new TDUpdatableEventModel("UPDATABLE_EVENT",jsonObject_new,"test_event_id");
TDAnalytics::track(updatableEvent_new);
2.4 Overwritable events
Overwritable events are similar to updatable events, except that an overwritable event completely overwrites historical data with the latest data. In effect, the previous record is deleted and the latest data is ingested. The AE backend determines which data to update based on the event name and event ID.
// Example: report an overwritable event, assuming the event name is OVERWRITABLE_EVENT
// After reporting, the event property status is 3 and price is 100
TDJSONObject jsonObject;
jsonObject.setNumber("status", 3);
jsonObject.setNumber("price", 100);
TDOverwritableEventModel *overWritableEvent = new TDOverwritableEventModel("OVERWRITABLE_EVENT",jsonObject,"test_event_id");
TDAnalytics::track(overWritableEvent);
// After reporting, the event property status is updated to 5 and the price property is deleted
TDJSONObject jsonObject_new;
jsonObject_new.setNumber("status", 5);
TDOverwritableEventModel *overWritableEvent_new = new TDOverwritableEventModel("OVERWRITABLE_EVENT", jsonObject_new,"test_event_id");
TDAnalytics::track(overWritableEvent_new);
2.5 Super properties
Super properties are properties that are uploaded with every event. Based on how often they are updated, super properties are divided into static super properties and dynamic super properties. You can choose different ways to set super properties based on your business scenarios; we recommend setting super properties before sending events. For the same event, when a super property, a custom event property, and a preset property have the same key, values are assigned in the following order of priority: custom properties > dynamic super properties > static super properties > preset properties.
2.5.1 Static super properties
Static super properties are properties that change infrequently and are carried by every event, such as a user's membership level. After you set static super properties through setSuperProperties, the SDK adds them to each event as event properties when the event is collected.
TDJSONObject superProperties;
userProperties.setNumber("level",2);
TDAnalytics::setSuperProperties(superProperties);
Static super properties are saved in the cache, so you don't need to call this every time the app starts. If a property already exists, the new value overwrites the existing value; if the property did not exist before, it is created. Besides setting properties, we also provide other APIs for working with static super properties to meet day-to-day business needs.
// Clear the super property named CHANNEL
TDAnalytics::unsetSuperProperty("CHANNEL");
// Clear all super properties
TDAnalytics::clearSuperProperties();
// Get all super properties
TDAnalytics::getSuperProperties();
2.5.2 Dynamic super properties
Dynamic super properties are properties that change frequently and are carried by every event, such as the number of coins a user has. After you set the dynamic super property class through setDynamicSuperProperties, the SDK automatically gets the dynamic super properties when an event is collected and adds them to the triggered event.
// Set dynamic super properties, which are retrieved dynamically at the moment the event occurs when the event is reported
int coin = 0;
TDJSONObject dynamicProperties()
{
coin++;
TDJSONObject obj;
obj.setNumber("coin",coin);
return obj;
}
TDAnalytics::setDynamicSuperProperties(dynamicProperties);
2.6 Track event duration
To record how long an event lasts, call timeEvent to start timing. Specify the name of the event you want to time; when you upload that event, the #duration property is automatically added to its event properties to indicate the recorded duration in seconds. Note that only one timing task can run for the same event name at a time.
//The following example measures how long a user stays on a product page
//The user enters the product page and timing starts
TDAnalytics::timeEvent("stay_shop");
// do some thing...
//The user leaves the product page and timing ends. The "stay_shop" event will carry the #duration property that indicates the event duration
TDAnalytics::track("stay_shop");
3. User properties
The user property APIs supported by the AE platform are: userSet, userSetOnce, userAdd, userUnset, userDelete, userAppend, and userUniqAppend.
3.1 userSet
For general user properties, you can call userSet to set them. Properties uploaded through this API overwrite the original values. If the user property doesn't exist yet, it is created with the same type as the value passed in. The following example sets the username:
//username is now TA
TDJSONObject properties;
properties.setString("username", "TA");
TDAnalytics::userSet(properties);
//username is now AE
TDJSONObject newProperties;
newProperties.setString("username", "AE");
TDAnalytics::userSet(newProperties);
3.2 userSetOnce
If a user property only needs to be set once, you can call userSetOnce to set it. If the property already has a value, this call is ignored. The following example sets the first payment time:
//first_payment_time is 2018-01-01 01:23:45.678
TDJSONObject userProperties;
userProperties.setString("first_payment_time","2018-01-01 01:23:45.678");
TDAnalytics::userSetOnce(userProperties);
//first_payment_time is still 2018-01-01 01:23:45.678
TDJSONObject newUserProperties;
newUserProperties.setString("first_payment_time","2018-12-31 01:23:45.678");
TDAnalytics::userSetOnce(newUserProperties);
3.3 userAdd
When you upload a numeric property, you can call userAdd to accumulate its value. If the property has not been set yet, it is assigned 0 before the calculation. You can pass a negative value, which is equivalent to subtraction. The following example accumulates the total payment amount:
//total_revenue is now 30
TDJSONObject userProperties;
userProperties.setNumber("total_revenue",30);
TDAnalytics::userAdd(userProperties);
//total_revenue is now 678
TDJSONObject newUserProperties;
newUserProperties.setNumber("total_revenue",648);
TDAnalytics::userAdd(newUserProperties);
The property key is a string, and the Value can only be a number.
3.4 userUnset
If you need to reset a property of a user, you can call userUnset to clear the value of the specified user property. This API accepts a string or a list as the parameter:
TDAnalytics::userUnset("coin");
The value passed in is the Key of the property to clear.
3.5 userDelete
To delete a user, you can call userDelete. After that, you can no longer query this user's user properties, but the events generated by the user can still be queried.
TDAnalytics::userDelete();
3.6 userAppend
You can call userAppend to append elements to user properties of the List type:
TDJSONObject userProperties;
vector<string> listValue;
listValue.push_back("apple");
listValue.push_back("ball");
userProperties.setList("user_list",listValue);
TDAnalytics::userAppend(userProperties);
3.7 userUniqAppend
You can call userUniqAppend to append elements to an array-type user property. Calling userUniqAppend deduplicates the appended user property values, whereas the userAppend API doesn't deduplicate, so the user property may contain duplicates.
//The value of user_list is now ["apple","ball"]
TDJSONObject properties;
vector<string> dataArray;
dataArray.push_back("apple");
dataArray.push_back("ball");
properties.setList("user_list",dataArray);
TDAnalytics::userAppend(properties);
//The value of user_list is now ["apple","apple","ball","cube"]
TDJSONObject properties1;
vector<string> dataArray1;
dataArray1.push_back("apple");
dataArray1.push_back("cube");
properties1.setList("user_list",dataArray1);
TDAnalytics::userAppend(properties1);
//The value of user_list is now ["apple","ball","cube"]
TDAnalytics::userUniqAppend(properties1);
4. Other features
4.1 Get the device ID
After the SDK is initialized, it automatically generates a device ID and stores it in the local cache. For the same app or game, the device ID of a device doesn't change. You can call getDeviceId() to get the device ID:
TDAnalytics::getDeviceId();
// Use the device ID as the distinct ID
// TDAnalytics::setDistinctId(TDAnalytics::getDeviceId());
4.2 Calibrate time
By default, the SDK uses the local device time as the event time. If users manually change the device time, your business analysis may be affected. In this case, you can calibrate the time to keep the event time accurate. We provide two time calibration methods: timestamp and NTP.
- You can calibrate the SDK time with the current timestamp obtained from the server. After that, all calls that don't specify a time, including event data and user property operations, use the calibrated time as the time of occurrence.
// 1585633785954 is the current Unix timestamp in milliseconds, corresponding to Beijing time 2020-03-31 13:49:45
TDAnalytics::calibrateTime(1585633785954);
- You can also set an NTP server address. The SDK then tries to get the current time from that NTP server and calibrates the SDK time. If no correct response is received within the default timeout (3 seconds), data is reported with the local time afterward.
// Calibrate the time with Apple's NTP service
TDAnalytics::calibrateTimeWithNtp("time.apple.com");
1. Time calibration with an NTP service involves some uncertainty. We recommend calibrating with a timestamp whenever possible.
2. Choose your NTP server address carefully so that user devices can quickly get the server time when the network is in good condition.
4.3 Flush data immediately
In some business scenarios, if you want data to be reported to the AE server immediately, you can call the flush API
TDAnalytics::flush();
4.4 Data encryption
Starting from v1.3.2, the SDK supports encryption. The client encrypts data with AES+RSA, and the server then decrypts it. Encryption and decryption require cooperation between the client and the server. For details, contact your customer success representative.
Call setEnableEncrypt to enable encryption, and set the RSA public key information through setSecretKey
TDConfig config1(APPID,SERVER_URL);
config1.setEnableEncrypt(true);// Encryption
config1.setSecretKey(TDSecretKey(_version, _secretKey));
TDAnalytics::init(config1);