Introduction

android active user log is a simple tool to track the active users of your android app.

How does it work?

android active user log generates a unique device ID from an android smartphone by collecting some parameters and applying a hash function on them. It then sends the hash together with a unique store id and the application id to a web server.

This tracker requires the app to have internet access.

How to install?

1. Import com.appbackr.Tracker.java into your project. This is the core required to generate the unique ID and post the data to your server.

2. Call the post data function with your parameters in the onResume() method in your android code to track each time when a user starts the app or brings it back up from an idle state. Sample implementation in Appbackr.java

Tracker.postData(this.getApplicationContext(),
    				""												// Enter your store ID
    				this.getApplicationContext().getPackageName(),	// You Android Package name
					"",												// end point URL
					"");											// API authentication token

3. Add missing permissions to your Android manifest file to allow the code to collect the nessecary data and to send it back to the server. Sample implimentaton in AndroidManifest.xml

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE"/>

Code Overview

All the code is located in com/appbackr/android/tracker

Android Manifest file

There are only 3 files that require to editing for the tracking to work, namely Appbackr.java, Tracker,java and AndroidManifest.xml.

If the app does not request for INTERNET permission, the following line must be added. An example of where the line of code has to be inserted can be found in the manifest file.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE"/>

Appbackr.java file

Example of how to call the Tracker class:

Tracker.postData(this.getApplicationContext(),
    				""												// Enter your store ID
    				this.getApplicationContext().getPackageName(),	// You Android Package name
					"",												// end point URL
					"");											// API authentication token

this.getApplicationContext() : will only work if the class that is calling the Track is an Activity class.

Tracker.java file

This file holds all the code for sending the data. The main information of how the code works can be separated into 3 functions. To make it work, copy the code for the following 3 functions and run the code for function "postData" in the "onCreate" function of the main Activity.

• String md5(String s) This function performs an md5 hashing. We need this function because the android package does not have a default md5 hashing function.

• String getUDID(Context c) The Android ID may be changed every time the user performs a Factory Reset. IMEI values might not be unique because OEMs might reuse IMEI values to cut costs. While the ID may be different from the same device, phone resets do not happen very often. Therefore, the values should be close enough. Note that the returned String is hashed.

• void postData(Context context, String storeId, String androidPackage, String endPoint, String apiAuthenticationToken)) Currently it sends 4 parameters namely "AndroidUniqueId", "AndroidPackage", "StoreId" and "Manufacturer". "AndroidUniqueId" is generated from the phone. "AndroidPackage" and "StoreId" are passed in to the function. "Manufacturer" is retrieved from the phone Please change the "AndroidPackage" and "StoreId" respectively according to the app.

Change History

Version 0.9:

• Initial version that generates a unique ID and sends it back on POST request in a separate thread.

Contributors

• Chris Beauchamp (Keep Safe)
• Louis Zhang (appbackr inc.)
• Ethan Herdrick (appbackr inc.)
• Philipp Berner (appbackr inc.)

Code License

MIT License