Use the SDK to monitor logs on SAP Mobile Services

You’ve developed a native iOS application for airline ground staff service technicians using the SAP BTP SDK for iOS. Logging becomes your trusted ally in this scenario.

Let’s say a technician, John, encounters an issue where certain maintenance tasks are not being recorded properly in the application. He notices inconsistencies in the data and suspects there might be a bug or a synchronization issue.

By analyzing the logs generated by John’s interactions with the application, you can pinpoint the exact steps he took leading up to the issue. You discover that there’s indeed a synchronization issue occurring intermittently when John switches between online and offline modes.

With this insight from the logs, you’re able to diagnose the problem accurately and implement a fix that ensures seamless synchronization regardless of the network status. This not only resolves John’s issue but also improves the overall reliability of the application for all technicians, ultimately facilitating their tasks and ensuring smoother operations.

There are different logging levels that can be used:

Logging functionality is provided by the SAP BTP SDK for iOS through it’s Logger class. This class is defined in SAPCommon and will be referenced when creating an application with the help of the SAP BTP SDK Assistant for iOS.

The documentation provides more information about this class.

Following you will add a logging statement indicating that the application view was successfully loaded.

1. Open your View Controller and locate the function override func viewDidLoad()

2. Add a logging statement that will output a debug log:

   Swift Copy

   override func viewDidLoad() {
       super.viewDidLoad()
   
       self.logger.debug("Demo application successfully loaded")
   
       //...
   }

3. (Optional) In addition to plain text, you can also supply an optional error object. Refer to the documentation for more details.

   Swift Copy

   if let error = error {
       self.logger.error("An error happened: ", error: error)
   }

   If you can’t reference the logger object make sure SAPCommon is imported and got initiated in the View controller. It should look like this:

   Swift Copy

   import SAPCommon
   
   class MyViewController: UIViewController {
   
       private let logger = Logger.shared(withName: "MyViewController")
   
   }

1. Open up SAP Mobile Services Cockpit.

2. Click Mobile Applications and Native/MDK.

3. Find the Application that you created before in this tutorial and select it.

4. Open Mobile Client Log Upload under Assigned Features.

   

   It is recommended to enable logging for specific users only. Due to a possibly large amount of data that will be created it only has a value in specific circumstances.

5. In the Configuration tab press the + button to add a new logging user.

6. Enter the e-mail address used to log-in to the application in the User field, enable Log Upload and select Debug as a Log Level.

   

7. Press Save in the top right corner.

   You can find more information in the documentation.

If you logged in before the app will be already configured and it is only necessary to unlock it.

1. Click ▶ (Start the active scheme) in Xcode to run the application.

   

   Configure the scheme to run the application on either a simulator or a device of your choice.

2. Click Start to begin the onboarding process.

   Wait for Xcode to deploy, install and run your application on the device before starting this task.

3. Enter your username and password.

4. Accept user consent requests.

5. Configure a passcode.

   You may be prompted to set up Biometric authentication. These policies can be defined on the SAP Mobile Services admin cockpit.

6. Allow the app to send push notifications.

1. Open up SAP Mobile Services Cockpit.

2. Click Mobile Applications and Native/MDK.

3. Find the Application that you created before and select it.

4. Open Mobile Client Log Upload under Assigned Features.

   

5. Open the Log Files tab and find the user name you used to sign in to the created app.

   If your user name doesn’t show up, restart the mobile application on your phone or emulator as the logs are uploaded when the app starts by default.

6. Select the Log Files you want to analyze and click Download.

   

7. Use your preferred JSON viewer to open the downloaded file.

Congratulations on enabling logging and viewing the logs uploaded from your SAP BTP SDK for iOS application in SAP Mobile Services.