Application Lifecycle Tracking in Mobile SDKs

The RudderStack Android (Kotlin) and iOS (Swift) SDKs automatically track the following lifecycle events when you use the lifecycle tracking feature in your app:

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

With the application lifecycle tracking feature, you can automatically capture user’s app usage behavior and get insights into their behaviour and app engagement patterns.

Manage lifecycle tracking

Note that the lifecycle tracking feature is enabled in the mobile SDKs by default. To turn it off, set trackApplicationLifecycleEvents to false / NO (in case of Objective-C) in the Configuration object during the SDK initialization, as shown:

analytics = Analytics(
    configuration = Configuration(
        trackApplicationLifecycleEvents = false,
        writeKey = BuildConfig.WRITE_KEY,
        application = application,
        dataPlaneUrl = BuildConfig.DATA_PLANE_URL,
    )
)

Configuration configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder(this, "WRITE_KEY", "DATA_PLANE_URL")
        .setTrackApplicationLifecycleEvents(true)
        .build();

analytics = new JavaAnalytics(configuration);

analytics = Analytics(
    configuration: Configuration(
        writeKey: "WRITE_KEY",
        dataPlaneUrl: "DATA_PLANE_URL",
        trackApplicationLifecycleEvents: false
    )
)

RSSConfigurationBuilder *builder = [[RSSConfigurationBuilder alloc] 
		initWithWriteKey:@"WRITE_KEY"
		dataPlaneUrl:@"DATA_PLANE_URL"];

[builder setTrackApplicationLifecycleEvents:NO];

analytics = [[RSSAnalytics alloc] initWithConfiguration:[builder build]];

Lifecycle events

This section covers the different application lifecycle events tracked by the SDK.

Application Installed

The Application Installed event is triggered when the user opens the app for the first time after installation.

The SDK also captures the following properties while tracking this event:

Application Updated

The Application Updated event is triggered when the user opens the app for the first time after updating it.

The SDK also captures the following properties while tracking this event:

Application Opened

The Application Opened event is triggered when the user opens the app, either as a fresh launch or from the background.

The SDK also captures the following properties while tracking this event:

Application Backgrounded

The Application Backgrounded event is triggered whenever the app is backgrounded. Note that this event does not contain any additional properties.