Mobile Quickstart

This quickstart guide walks through code examples using the iOS SDK. It will help you get started with using RudderStack mobile SDKs to stream events from your mobile app to other tools in your stack.

For simple use cases, you can get data flowing in less than 15 minutes by following these three steps:

1. Install a RudderStack SDK in your mobile app.
2. Instrument API calls to identify users and capture user actions (like page views and button clicks).
3. Connect destination integrations to stream events to business tools and your warehouse automatically.

Sign up for a free RudderStack Cloud account before you get started.

Step 1: Install the iOS SDK

In most cases, installing one of RudderStack’s mobile SDKs takes a developer less than 10 minutes.

How data engineers can get the iOS SDK code

1. Sign in to your RudderStack account and click + Add source in the default Connections view.

2. Select iOS.

3. Copy the installation snippet under the Setup tab (this snippet contains the write keyThe write key (or source write key) is a unique identifier for your source. RudderStack uses this key to send events from a source to the specified destination. and data plane URLThe data plane URL is the location where events are routed and sent to the RudderStack backend for processing. You can find this URL in the home page of your RudderStack dashboard. , which ensure events are sent to the correct source).

4. Send the snippet to your mobile development team.

How mobile developers can install the iOS SDK

Before installing the iOS SDK, make sure to first initialize the Podfile within your app by running pod init.

If you are using Swift Package Manager (SPM) to install the iOS SDK, see these instructions.

1. Install the iOS SDK using Cocoapods by adding the iOS SDK to your application’s Podfile:

pod 'Rudder'

2. Run the following command to install the SDK and the required dependencies:

pod install

Include the following code in all .m and .h files where you want to reference or use the RudderStack SDK classes.

#import <Rudder/Rudder.h>

Initialize the SDK

Your data engineer should have provided you the iOS SDK snippet. Follow these steps to initialize the SDK:

1. Open your app’s AppDelegate.m file - the entry point of the app.
2. Place the initialization snippet under the didFinishLaunchingWithOptions method.

You can choose to place the snippet under any method in any other file based on your requirement.

A sample initialization snippet is shown below:

RSConfigBuilder *builder = [[RSConfigBuilder alloc] init];
[builder withDataPlaneUrl:DATA_PLANE_URL];
[RSClient getInstance:WRITE_KEY config:[builder build]];

let builder: RSConfigBuilder = RSConfigBuilder()
    .withDataPlaneUrl(DATA_PLANE_URL)
RSClient.getInstance(WRITE_KEY, config: builder.build())

For more information, see the full iOS SDK documentation.

See this sample iOS app for more information on initializing the SDK.

Step 2: Instrument API calls

All RudderStack mobile SDKs follow a standard event spec. It helps you plan your event data and supports various API calls for tracking your mobile app events - these include identify, track, screen, group, alias, and reset calls.

In addition, the mobile SDKs track the following application lifecycle events automatically:

• Application Installed
• Application Updated
• Application Opened
• Application Backgrounded

Most users start by implementing track and identify calls.

You can use track calls to record user activities like adding a product to a cart or wishlist, tapping a button on the app, selecting an option, etc. You can describe the track events with propertiesProperties are additional contextual information you can add to a track call to further describe the action a user takes. .

Here is an example of a track call named Product Added. The properties are price and quantity:

[[RSClient sharedInstance] track:@"Product Added" properties:@{
    @"price" : @"23.99",
    @"quantity" : @"2"
}];

identify calls are typically fired when a user performs an identifying action like creating an account or making a purchase. identify calls also associate a known user with their actions (even if previously anonymous). You can describe users with attributes by adding traitsTraits are attributes that describe a user. They can be added to an identify call in the traits object. Some examples of traits include age, gender, or some specific details - for example, a user’s product plan (free, basic, premium). to the payload.

Here is an example of an identify call. The traits are firstName, lastName, email, and country:

[[RSClient sharedInstance] identify:@"user_id"
traits:@{@"firstName": @"Alex",
        @"lastName": @"Keener",
        @"email": @"alex@example.com",
        @"country" : @"US",
}
];

See the RudderStack iOS SDK documentation for more information on the other supported API calls.

Step 3: Verify data flow and connect destination integrations

Once software engineers have installed the SDK and instrumented events, the data team can verify the event flow into RudderStack. Then, they can connect destination integrations to forward events to the tools in their stack automatically.

1. Verify data flow for your iOS source

Before connecting destinations, verify that events are flowing into RudderStack by checking the Live Events viewer in your iOS source.

To see live events, go to your iOS source from the Connections view and click the Live Events button in the top right of your screen.

There will be a delay before you see events in the Live Events view. RudderStack doesn’t store any data; it temporarily opens a gateway between the control plane and data plane to show you the live events. The delays usually last only a few seconds but on the RudderStack Cloud Free plan, they can last up to one minute.

After a few seconds, you will see events populating the feed.

If you do not see events in the Live Events view, then there is likely a problem with your instrumentation.

2. Connect destination integrations

RudderStack supports 200+ integrations including data warehouses and data lakes, marketing platforms, CRMs, analytics tools, streaming platforms, and more. You can see the full list of supported destination integrations here.

To add a destination in RudderStack:

1. Click + Add destination in the default Connections view.

2. From the list, select your preferred destination where you want to route the event data. Here are some popular destinations to help you get started:

3. Set up the destination by configuring the connection settings. For details, see the destination-specific documentation.

Next steps

This section contains some optional, but helpful steps that leverage RudderStack’s most popular features for transforming events and debugging problems.

Add event transformations

One of RudderStack’s most-loved features is Event Transformations, which you can use to operate on the payloads flowing through RudderStack. You can use it for:

• Sampling or filtering events.
• Removing sensitive user PII from your events.
• Enriching events using static logic, an external API, and more.

To use a transformation:

1. In the left sidebar, go to Collect > Transformations. Then, click Create Transformation.

2. Select a transformation template from the list depending on your use case. To create a transformation from scratch, click Custom transformation.

Transformation templates contain prepopulated, ready-to-use transformation logic, which you can apply to your events before sending them to the destination. You can also modify the code as per your needs.

3. Verify if your transformation works as expected by clicking the Run Test button.

4. Click Save to save your transformation.
5. Go to the Connections tab of your transformation and connect it to the destination you set up above. See Connect transformation to destination for more information.

When you add a transformation and connect it to a destination, RudderStack does the following:

1. Tracks events at the source.
2. Applies the transformation logic to your events.
3. Converts the events in a format the destination expects - RudderStack does this internally and requires no user intervention.
4. Sends the transformed events to your destination.

Debugging

RudderStack gives you complete observability into your events and the ability to debug errors that might occur in case of event failures. It provides the Live Events feature, where you can:

• Verify your instrumentation.
• Get a real-time view of the events flowing from your sources to the connected destinations.
• Identify and debug any errors at the source, destination, or transformation level and narrow down the root cause of the issue.

Source Live Events viewer

This is helpful to verify if RudderStack is receiving the source events at all. The payload you see in this viewer is the raw event payload collected from your website.

Transformation Live Events viewer

This viewer will give you a before and after snapshot of the event going into your user transformation and what it looks like afterward. It also notifies you about any dropped events or errors during the transformation, along with the details.

Destination Live Events viewer

This viewer shows you what the payload looks like when RudderStack sends it to the destination. You can also see the detailed error message if the destination returns an error.

See the Live Events documentation for more details.

Support

For any questions on using RudderStack, you can:

• Start a conversation in our Community Slack.
• Drop an email to RudderStack support.

Questions? Contact us by email or on Slack