Analytics-Swift Implementation Guide

Once you’ve installed the Analytics-Swift library, you can start collecting data through Segment’s tracking methods:

• Identify
• Track
• Screen
• Group
• Alias

Identify

The Identify method lets you tie a user to their actions and record traits about them. This includes a unique user ID and any optional traits you know about them like their email, name, or address. The traits option can include any information you want to tie to the user. When using any of the reserved traits, be sure the information reflects the name of the trait. For example, email should always be a string of the user’s email address.

// These signatures provide for a typed version of user traits
func identify<T: Codable>(userId: String, traits: T)
func identify<T: Codable>(traits: T)
func identify(userId: String)

struct MyTraits: Codable {
        let favoriteColor: String
}

analytics.identify(userId: "a user's id", MyTraits(favoriteColor: "fuscia"))

[self.analytics identify:@"a user's id"
                                traits:@{ @"email": @"fuscia" }];

The Identify method has these fields:

Track

The Track method lets you record the actions your users perform. Every action triggers an event, which also has associated properties that the track method records.

func track(name: String)
// This signature provides a typed version of properties.
func track<P: Codable>(name: String, properties: P?)

struct TrackProperties: Codable {
        let someValue: String
}

analytics.track(name: "My Event", properties: TrackProperties(someValue: "Hello"))

[ self.analytics track:@"My Event"
                            properties:@{ @"someValue": @"Hello" }];

The Track method has these fields:

Screen

The Screen method lets you record whenever a user sees a screen in your mobile app, along with optional extra information about the page being viewed.

You’ll want to record a screen event whenever the user opens a screen in your app. This could be a view, fragment, dialog or activity depending on your app.

Not all integrations support screen, so when it’s not supported explicitly, the screen method tracks as an event with the same parameters.

func screen(title: String, category: String? = nil)
func screen<P: Codable>(title: String, category: String? = nil, properties: P?)

analytics.screen(title: "SomeScreen")

[self.analytics screen:@"SomeScreen"
                            properties:@{ @"Feed Type": @"private" }];

The Screen method has these fields:

You can enable automatic screen tracking by using this example plugin.

Once you add the plugin to your project, add it to your Analytics instance:

 analytics.add(plugin: UIKitScreenTracking())

Group

The Group method lets you associate an individual user with a group— whether it’s a company, organization, account, project, or team. This includes a unique group identifier and any additional group traits you may have, like company name, industry, number of employees. You can include any information you want to associate with the group in the traits option. When using any of the reserved group traits, be sure the information reflects the name of the trait. For example, email should always be a string of the user’s email address.

func group(groupId: String)
func group<T: Codable>(groupId: String, traits: T?)

struct MyTraits: Codable {
        let username: String
        let email: String
        let plan: String
}

// ...

analytics.group(groupId: "group123", traits: MyTraits(
        username: "MisterWhiskers",
        email: "hello@test.com",
        plan: "premium"))

[self.analytics group:@"group123"
traits:@{ @"name": @"MisterWhiskers", @"plan": @"premium" }];

The Group method has these fields:

Alias

The Alias method is used to merge two user identities, effectively connecting two sets of user data as one. When this method is called, the newId value overwrites the old userId. If no userId is currently set, the newId associates with future events as the userId. This is an advanced method and may not be supported across the entire destination catalog.

func alias(newId: String)

analytics.alias(newId: "user-123")

[self.analytics alias:@"some new id"];

The Alias call has the following fields:

Utility methods

The Analytics Swift utility methods help you work with plugins from the analytics timeline. They include:

• Add
• Find
• Remove
• Reset

There’s also the Flush method to help you manage the current queue of events.

Add

The Add method allows you to add a plugin to the analytics timeline.

@discardableResult func add(plugin: Plugin) -> String

analytics.add(plugin: UIKitScreenTracking(name: "ScreenTracking"))

Find

The Find method lets you find a registered plugin from the analytics timeline.

func find<T: Plugin>(pluginType: T.Type) -> Plugin?

let plugin = analytics.find(SomePlugin.self)

Remove

The Remove methods lets you remove a registered plugin from the analytics timeline.

func remove(plugin: Plugin)

analytics.remove(somePluginInstance)

Flush

The Flush method lets you force flush the current queue of events regardless of what the flushAt and flushInterval is set to.

public func flush()

analytics.flush()

Reset

The reset method clears the SDK’s internal stores for the current user and group. This is useful for apps where users log in and out with different identities on the same device over time.

public func reset()

analytics.reset()

OpenURL

Since there a various deep linking scenarios you may want to account for, the analytics.openURL(...) method was added so you can track deep links in any situation. Where and how you implement the method will depend on your app lifecycle setup (for example UIApplicationDelegate vs. UISceneDelegate or UIKit vs. SwiftUI). The snippets below outline what your implementation might look like in a few different scenarios.

UIApplicationDelegate

// captures if app is closed and launching
application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey : Any]?) -> Bool {
    // ...
    if let url = launchOptions?[.url] {
        analytics.openURL(url)
    }
}
// captures if an app was already open and returning to the foreground
func application(_ app: UIApplication, open url: URL, options: [UIApplication.OpenURLOptionsKey : Any]) -> Bool {
    analytics.openURL(url)
}

UISceneDelegate

// captures if app is closed and launching
func scene(_ scene: UIScene, willConnectTo session: UISceneSession, options connectionOptions: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) {
    // NOTE: There could be multiple URLs.  This example only handles the first one.
    if let url = connectionOptions.urlContexts.first?.url {
        analytics.openURL(url)
    }
}

// captures if an app was already open and returning to the foreground
func scene(_ scene: UIScene, openURLContexts URLContexts: Set<UIOpenURLContext>) {
    // NOTE: There could be multiple URLs.  This example only handles the first one.
    if let url = URLContexts.first?.url else {
        analytics.openURL(url)
    }
}

SwiftUI

// in the app's Scene code ...
var body: some Scene {
    WindowGroup {
        ContentView()
            .onOpenURL { url in
                analytics.openURL(url)
            }
        }
    }
}

If you call this method with a valid URL parameter, a Segment Deep Link Opened track event triggers.

Configuration options

anonymousIdGenerator

To generate custom anonymousIds instead of relying on the ones Segment creates, you can use the following configuration option:

class MyAnonymousIdGenerator: AnonymousIdGenerator {
  func newAnonymousId -> String {
    return UUID.uuidString
  }
}

// in the apps config:
let config = Configuration(writeKey: "WRITEKEY")
  .anonymousIdGenerator(MyAnonymousIdGenerator())

let analytics = Analytics(configuration: config)

Changelog

View the Analytics Swift changelog on GitHub. –>