Use Usage Reporting in Your Android Application

As shown in the tutorial, Try Out SAP Cloud Platform SDK for Android Wizard, ensure that Enable Usage Reporting is checked when creating the app.

The app must first receive permission to collect usage information from the user.

The text displayed to the user can be customized by accessing res/values/strings_localized/strings_localized(en).xml (or by pressing Shift twice then searching for strings_localized.xml) and editing the text between the string tags below. For more details on translation, see Add New Languages to your Android Application.

<string name="get_usage_permission_explanation">
  Detailed text about how data privacy pertains to this app and why it is important for the user to enable this functionality
</string>

When the app is first installed, a consent screen will automatically be shown to users.

Tap OK to allow the app to record how the app is being used.

If Not Now was selected, the user’s choice can later be changed in the app’s settings screen.

From the settings menu, tap Upload Usage.

The upload will fail with a HTTP 403 error if usage was not enabled in the Mobile Services cockpit.

To review this policy setting, in the Mobile Services cockpit, access Client Policies through Mobile Applications > Native/Hybrid > Wiz App > Client Policies.

The Usage Report Policy specifies if uploads of usage data are allowed and the time interval for automatic usage report uploads.

A value of 0 will initially be in the Upload Report After which we will use in our later implementation of automatically uploading usage reports to the server and it will mean that usage reports will not be uploaded automatically.

If an empty usage report notification is shown when Upload Usage is selected, navigate away from the app by going to your phone’s home screen and re-entering the app. Then try uploading the usage report again. Placing the app in the background will complete or end the current usage session. Partial sessions can not be uploaded.

If Upload Usage was successful, then a Toast message should pop up informing you that the usage information has been uploaded to the server.

To view the application usage report, go to your management cockpit under Analytics > Client Data Report and click the download icon.

Various charts are available by changing the drop down that includes User Sessions per Application and Time Period. The data can be filtered by changing the value of the drop down with Last 7 Days and clicking Go. Then click the download icon to get the filtered data in a csv file.

Open the downloaded client_uploads.csv. The file contains usage entries from the app that record different actions such as button taps and timers.

In the example below, there are 3 different Android devices with varying software versions.

In the next example, the timer recorded how long the user kept the application active for on their device before exiting for 5 different sessions. Recording how long users spend in the application is a typical measurement. You can also specify other processes to time such as application startup, data requests, or the time taken to open an offline store.

A session is typically defined as how long the app has been open for in the foreground, but different records within the application can also be modified to act as sessions.

There can be multiple USERSESSIONIDs associated with a single REGISTRATIONID. REGISTRATIONID is independent of your username and you can see a complete list of all user registrations for the app in the Mobile Services cockpit through Mobile Applications > Native/Hybrid > Wiz App > User Registrations.

In the example below the same user registered through 2 different devices and ran 3 user sessions.

When the application is initially launched, the report comes to contain entries that describe the device screen, memory and networking capabilities in a condensed form within 4 columns, marking the end of a session.

The app also records a few of the screens that users enter, and more usage reporting statements can be added in the code to track other specific screens.

In the example below, the user navigated from the Logon screen to the EntitySetListActivity screen and accessed the categories at positions 3 and 0, then entered the Settings screen.

The code segment that records LogonActivity can be found in the onCreate method in LogonActivity.java.

((SAPWizardApplication)getApplication()).getUsageUtil().eventBehaviorViewDisplayed("LogonActivity","elementID","onCreate","called");

The code segment that records EntitySetListActivity can be found in the onCreate method in EntitySetListActivity.java.

usageUtil = ((SAPWizardApplication) getApplication()).getUsageUtil();
usageUtil.eventBehaviorViewDisplayed(EntitySetListActivity.class.getSimpleName(),
				"elementId", "onCreate", "called");

The Usage feature can be used to instrument an app to track things that might provide an insight into user’s behaviors.

The following steps will record how often users start adding or updating products but cancel their changes. This is somewhat similar to a metric in a shopping cart type app where it might be interesting to know how often items are added to a shopping cart, but a sale is not made.

In Android Studio, on Windows press Ctrl+N or on a Mac press command+O and type ProductsCreateFragment to open ProductsCreateFragment.java.

Add the following variable into the ProductsCreateFragment class near the other private variables.

private UsageUtil usageUtil;

On Windows press Ctrl+F12 or on a Mac press command+F12 and type onCreate to move to the onCreate method in the same file.

Find the following line

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

Then add the following code segment immediately after

usageUtil = ((SAPWizardApplication)getActivity().getApplication()).getUsageUtil();
usageUtil.eventBehaviorUserInteraction(ProductsCreateFragment.class.getSimpleName(),
  "elementId", "createOrEditProductClicked", "Begin Create or Edit Product");

This generates a usage event record for when a user taps the Add or Edit icon within Products.

On Windows press Ctrl+F12 or on a Mac press command+F12 and type onOptionsItemSelected to move to the onOptionsItemSelected method. Add the following code segment before the default: case in the same file.

case android.R.id.home:
  usageUtil = ((SAPWizardApplication)getActivity().getApplication()).getUsageUtil();
  usageUtil.eventBehaviorUserInteraction(ProductsCreateFragment.class.getSimpleName(),
    "elementId", "onBackPressed", "Create or Edit Product Cancelled");
  return true;

This generates the usage event record whenever the user navigates away from an editing screen without saving.

In Android Studio, on Windows press Ctrl+N or on a Mac press command+O and type ProductsDetailActivity to open ProductsDetailActivity.java.

On Windows press Ctrl+F12 or on a Mac press command+F12 and type onOptionsItemSelected to move to the onOptionsItemSelected method.

Modify the return statements so the case and default case end with the below code.

return false;

By changing the return statements to false, it ensures that the code added to ProductsCreateFragment.java gets executed when the navigate back button is pressed.

Build and run the app.

Generate usage information by accessing Products.

Tap the floating Add button to create a product.

Press the back button to exit the page without saving.

Repeat those steps 2 more times to generate multiple entries for the usage report.

Finally, select an existing Product and tap on its Edit button.

Then immediately tap the check mark button to save the information.

End the usage session by placing the app in the background. Navigate back into the app.

Upload the usage by going to Settings and tap on Upload Usage.

After downloading the client_uploads.csv file from the Mobile Services cockpit, you should be able to see new entries with I_VIEW values of ProductsCreateFragment and I_ACTION values of onBackPressed and createProductClicked.

In 4 empty cells that do not fall under the R column on the Excel spreadsheet, label two of them with Product Create or Edit Clicked and Cancelled Product Create or Edit. Next to Product Create or Edit Clicked, use the below formula to find the number of times the user intended to add/update a product.

=COUNTIF(R:R, "*createOrEditProductClicked*")

Then next to Cancelled Product Create or Edit, use the below formula to find the number of times the user cancelled an add/update product action.

=COUNTIF(R:R, "*onBackPressed*")

In the example, the user tried to create a Product 4 times, but cancelled 3 times.

Mobile Services provides a Usage Report Policy under Client Policies specifying if uploads to Mobile Services are allowed and how often they should occur. The following instructions will demonstrate how to modify the app to read and store the policy and upload the usage data to Mobile Services using the specified interval.

Input the number of days a report should be automatically uploaded and click Save. For the purposes of this tutorial, use the value 1 to simplify testing later on.

In Android Studio, on Windows press Ctrl+N or on a Mac press command+O and type ClientPolicy to open ClientPolicy.java.

Add the following variables to the ClientPolicy class below the private variables.

private boolean isUsageEnabled;
private int uploadInterval;

public void setUsageEnabled(boolean usageEnabled) { isUsageEnabled = usageEnabled; }

public boolean isUsageEnabled() { return isUsageEnabled; }

public void setUploadInterval(int interval) { uploadInterval = interval; }

public int getUploadInterval() { return uploadInterval; }

This code creates variables to handle usage data and provides them with getters and setters.

In Android Studio, on Windows press Ctrl+N or on a Mac press command+O and type ClientPolicyManager to open ClientPolicyManager.java.

Add the following variables to the ClientPolicyManager class with the rest of the private static final variables.

private static final String USAGE_POLICY_ENABLED = "dataCollectionEnabled";
private static final String USAGE_POLICY_UPLOAD_AFTER_DAYS = "uploadDataAfterDays";
private static final String SETTINGS_USAGE = "usagePolicy";

On Windows press Ctrl+F12 or on a Mac press command+F12 and type onSuccess to move to the onSuccess method.

Place the following code near the end of the method, before the line downloadLatch.countDown();.

JSONObject usagePolicyJson = result.optJSONObject(SETTINGS_USAGE);
if (usagePolicyJson != null) {
  boolean isUsageEnabled = usagePolicyJson.optBoolean(USAGE_POLICY_ENABLED, false);
  int uploadInterval = usagePolicyJson.optInt(USAGE_POLICY_UPLOAD_AFTER_DAYS, 0);
  policyFromServer.setUsageEnabled(isUsageEnabled);
  policyFromServer.setUploadInterval(uploadInterval);
}

This code gets the usage policy information from the server client policy and stores it inside a ClientPolicy object.

In Android Studio, on Windows press Ctrl+N or on a Mac press command+O and type LogonActivity to open LogonActivity.java.

Add the following method.

private void uploadUsage() {
    //the ExecutorService runs the code on a separate thread because getting the ClientPolicyManager data makes a significant impact on performance
    ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
    executorService.submit(() -> {
      int newDays = clientPolicyManager.getClientPolicy(true).getUploadInterval();
      UsageBroker.setDaysToWaitBetweenUpload(newDays);

      //if newDays is greater than 0 then auto-upload is considered to be enabled on Mobile Services
      if (newDays > 0) {
        // The upload will only occur if the last upload was more than newDays ago
        UsageBroker.upload(false, this, new AppUsageUploader.UploadListener() {
          @Override
          public void onSuccess() {
            Toast.makeText(getApplication(), getResources().getString(R.string.usage_upload_ok), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
          }

          @Override
          public void onError(Throwable error) {
            // make sure to import com.sap.cloud.mobile.foundation.networking.HttpException;
            if (error instanceof HttpException) {
              LOGGER.debug("Usage Upload server error: {}, code = {}", ((HttpException) error).message(), ((HttpException) error).code());
            } else {
              LOGGER.debug("Usage Upload error: {}", error.getMessage());
            }
            String errorCause = error.getLocalizedMessage();
            ErrorMessage errorMessage = new ErrorMessage(getResources().getString(R.string.usage_upload_failed), errorCause, new Exception(error), false);
            errorHandler.sendErrorMessage(errorMessage);
          }

          @Override
          public void onProgress(int i) {
            LOGGER.debug("Usage upload progress: " + i);
          }
        });
      }
    });
}

This code sets the upload interval for the application’s UsageBroker object and then requests an upload of usage. If the amount of days between uploading is sufficient it will upload the data and if not it will delay the upload. If the upload report after interval is 0 it will not upload any usage.

On Windows press Ctrl+F12 or on a Mac press command+F12 and type finishLogonActivity to move to the finishLogonActivity method.

In the else block, before the call to startEntitySetListActivity, add the below method call.

uploadUsage();

In Android Studio, on Windows press Ctrl+N or on a Mac press command+O and type SettingsFragment to open SettingsFragment.java.

Press Ctrl+F to find:

UsageBroker.upload(false, getContext(), new AppUsageUploader.UploadListener() {

Change the false to true on that line.

This will allow the user to upload the usage report via the app’s settings screen regardless of the number of days specified in the policy.

When the app is run and the number of days in the policy has passed, there should be Toast notification showing that the usage report has been uploaded successfully.

To test this feature, in System > Date & time toggle Automatic date & time to off.

Change the date to a day in the future and re-run the app. The usage report should be uploaded automatically.

Further information on usage can be found at Client Usage and Step by Step with the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for Android — Part 8 — Client Usage

Congratulations! You have learned how the usage feature can provide insights into how a deployed application is being used!