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Install Gainsight PX Xamarin

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This article explains how developers can use the Gainsight PX Xamarin plugin in their Xamarin application.

Overview

Gainsight PX can effectively monitor your application,  track usage data, and provide real-time analytics. You can use Gainsight PX Xamarin in your mobile application development. This codebase is platform-independent and works with Android, iOS, and Windows Operating systems. Gainsight PX plugin can be ingested into any Xamarin application that is developed using C#. After the Xamarin plugin is ingested in your application code, Gainsight PX starts to track all the data on your application.

Supported platforms:

  • Xamarin.Android
  • Xamarin.iOS

Xamarin.UWP (universal windows platform) - is not supported.

In case Xamarin is used for Windows desktop application, see: Install Gainsight PX .NET SDK

Install Gainsight PX 

This section explains the procedure to install Gainsight PX in your mobile application.

The installation requires the following steps:

  1. Download and install Gainsight PX Xamarin Plugin
  2. Initialize Gainsight PX 
  3. Create Events

Download and Install Gainsight PX Xamarin Plugin

This subsection outlines the procedure to use Gainsight PX on a Xamarin application. 

Following steps are required:

  1. Download gainsight-px-x.x.x.zip from Gainsight PX dashboard. This file is a prerequisite to use Gainsight PX. 
  2. Un-zip the file and extract the contents of Android Plugin/iOS Plugin folders to your Xamarin Droid/iOS root folder.
  3. Add the respective folder DLL’s as references to your Droid/iOS project.
    • iOS - PXKit.dll & GPXXamarinPlugin.dll
    • Android - GPXAndroid.dll & GPXXamarinPlugin.dll

ExceptionCallback

All exceptions that occur when creating events are passed into the catch as errors using error callback Action<string, Dictionary<string, object>, string>.

For example, you can make the calls using:

Gainsight.CustomEvent(eventName: <#string#>, properties:<#Dictionary<string,
object>#>, (functionName, properties, error) => {

         if (error != null) {
                     //Success
         } else {
                     //Failure
         }
});

Initialize Gainsight PX 

This section explains the procedure to initialize Gainsight PX in your application to track data. Gainsight recommends using shared project to write the common code of all Gainsight PX events. The code used in this section is platform-independent and can be used in Android, iOS, or Windows-based mobile applications. 

To track data with Gainsight PX:

  1. Insert the following statement in the header section:
using GPXXamarinPlugin;
  1.  Use the following code to initialize Gainsight PX. You must use the initialization code only once in your entire application. Gainsight recommends using this `Initialize` code from the shared project in Android MainActivity.cs and iOS AppDelegate.cs, so that tracking can be initialized from the first page of your application.
public static void Initialize()
{       
         AnalyticsConfiguration configuration = new
AnalyticsConfiguration("<#PRODUCT_KEY#>");
            configuration.Enable = true;
            configuration.CollectDeviceId = true;
            configuration.ShouldTrackTapEvents = true;
            Gainsight.Initialize(configuration, (functionName, properties, error) =>
            {
                 System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(error);
            });       
}

Note:  All the Gainsight PX methods return an error callback Action<string, Dictionary<string, object>, string>.

Create Events

Events are actions associated with your application and allow you to track various actions performed by users in your app. This section explains how to create events that can track data from your mobile application.

Gainsight PX SDK supports the following four types of events:

  •  Screen Events
  • Identify Events
  • Custom Events
  • Set Global Context

Screen Events

By using the default configuration, when you move from one controller/activity to another, screen events are automatically created with the screen title. In addition to the automatic screen event captures, you can create screen events manually using the following two public method calls:


Gainsight.Screen(eventName: <#string#>, eventClass: <#string#> = “”, <#Dictionary<string, object>#> properties = null, Action<string, Dictionary<string, object>, string> errorBlock = null);
Gainsight.Screen(ScreenEvent <#screenEvent#>, <#Dictionary<string, object>#> properties = null, Action<string, Dictionary<string, object>, string> errorBlock = null);

The minimum requirement for this call is ScreenName. You can also create a screen event with additional properties (For example, parameters created to start the page, information displayed) in the form of Dictionary<string, object>. Another option is to create a ScreenEvent in a more detailed manner that includes screenClass and screenName.

Identify Events

You can generate more accurate information about the use of the application by identifying the user.

With UserId

Gainsight PX provides you the following syntax:

Gainsight.Identify(userID: <#string#>, Action<string, Dictionary<string, object>, string> errorBlock = null);
With User and Account

Below is an example of creating identify event using User and Account:

User User = new User(UserID: <#string#>);
Account User = new Account(AccountID: <#string#>);
Gainsight.Identify(user: <#User#>, Account <#Account#> = null, Action<string, Dictionary<string, object>, string> errorBlock = null);

The minimum requirement for this call is user id. Each user must be uniquely identified in the system, so they can be identified throughout all devices. You can also identify the user from User and Account objects. While creating one of those objects, you must use user ID (Account ID is not the same as User ID), but you can add more attributes as information on the user. 

There are settings for the common attributes, but you can add custom attributes as shown below:

User.CustomAttributes = <#string, object#>
Account.CustomAttributes = <#string, object#>

The list of properties supported for User tracking is given in the table below:

Property

Data type

UserID

String

Email

String

UserHash

String

Gender

String

LastName

String

FirstName

String

SignUpDate

DateTime?

Title

String

Role

String

SubscriptionId

String

Phone

String

CountryCode

String

CountryName

String

StateCode

String

StateName

String

City

String

Street

String

Continent

String

PostalCode

String

RegionName

String

Timezone

String

Longitude

Double?

Latitude

Double?

Organization

String

OrganizationEmployees

String

OrganizationRevenue

String

OrganizationIndustry

String

OrganizationSicCode

String

OrganizationDuns

Int?

AccountID

String

FirstVisitDate

DateTime?

Score

Int?

SfdcContactId

String

<AnyKey>

<Value>(All other keys other than default keys will map to `CustomAttributes`)

The list of Attributes for Account Object is given in the table below:

Property

Data Type

Name

String

TrackedSubscriptionId

String

Industry

String

NumberOfEmployees

Int?

SicCode

String

Website

String

NaicsCode

String

Plan

String

CountryCode

String

CountryName

String

StateCode

String

StateName

String

City

String

Street

String

Continent

String

PostalCode

String

RegionName

String

Timezone

String

Latitude

Double?

Longitude

Double?

SfdcId

String

<AnyKey>

<Value>(All other keys other than default keys will map to `CustomAttributes`)

Custom Events

Custom events allow you to track specific events that you want to see on your dashboard. 

Gainsight PX provides you the following syntax:

Gainsight.CustomEvent(eventName: <#string#>, <#Dictionary<string, object>#> properties = null, Action<string, Dictionary<string, object>, string> errorBlock = null);

Adding an eventName is mandatory, also you can add event properties to elaborate on the event that occurred.                                                   

Set Global Context 

You can set events with a global context after you create all the required events. Set a global context with key-value pairs and send them with the payload. Global context can be set on Date, String, Double, and Boolean data types. Global Context data is stored at the memory level and not disk-level. If an application is terminated, all the key-value pairs are erased. 

Use the following code snippet to set the global context:

Gainsight.SetGlobalContext(keyValues: <#Dictionary<string, object>#>);

Use the following code snippet to check if the key is available:

Gainsight.HasGlobalContextKey(key: <#string#>);

Use the following code snippet to remove the key:

Gainsight.RemoveGlobalContextKeys(key: <#string[]#>);

General Methods

This section describes the general methods (functions) of Gainsight PX SDK. There are three general methods as described in the table below:

Method Name

Method

Description

Flush

Gainsight.Flush(Action<string, Dictionary<string, object>, string> errorBlock)

This method sends all events in the queue to the server, by ignoring the scheduled auto flush. Generally, you need not use this method but there could be situations in which you may need to flush out events.

Enable/Disable

Gainsight.Enable()

 

Gainsight.Disable()

These methods help you to enable or disable event tracking on your app. When you use the disable method, no event is sent to the server. You can use the disable method on data sensitive areas of your app.

DebugLogsWithEnable

Gainsight.DebugLogsWithEnable(<#bool#>)

If enabled, all the debug logs are channeled to Application Output.

Gainsight PX Configurations

 This section describes methods, for which you can modify the configurations during the initialization stage.

Method Call

Default

Description

Override by Server?

FlushQueueSize

20

The number of events that are considered to form a batch to be sent to server. Once this limit is reached, PX sends the events to the server even if it's still not the time for that (by the timer)

Yes

FlushInterval

20 sec

The time interval during which the client checks if there are any new events to send to the server

Yes

CollectDeviceId (this method is applicable only to Android project)

1

Whether or not to collect the device id from the device

No

LogLevel(applicable to only Android project)

XlogLevel.None

Which log level should be logged to CatLog. By default, None is logged

No

TrackApplicationLifecycleEvents

1

Should the client auto-track app related events (APP_OPENED, APP_INSTALLED and APP_UPDATED)

No

(Server can drop the event based on remote configuration)

ShouldTrackTapEvents

0

Should the client auto-track tap events

Note: Enabling this helps you track only the single tap gestures.

Yes

RecordScreenViews

1

Whether or not the client should auto track, this is not fully supported in React-Native, need to manually collect the  screen event.

No (Server can drop the event based on remote configuration)

 

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    1. C# based application code,
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