Upgrade from 3x to 4x
UpdatedThis page details breaking changes from the previous major version of the SDK, so you understand the development effort required to update your app and take advantage of the latest features.
What changed?
This update provides native support for Data PipelinesCustomer.io’s customer data platform, helping you capture data from your sources, transform it, and send it to destinations where you can act on it. Data Pipelines is also the preferred integration path for your Customer.io workspace, as it supports all of our Journeys features and other destinations that rely on your data. as a part of the Customer.io SDK. While this represents a significant change “under the hood,” we’ve tried to make it as seamless as possible for you; much of your implementation remains the same.
This move also adds two additional features:
- Support for anonymous tracking: you can send events and other activity for anonymous users, and we’ll reconcile that activity with a person when you identify them.
- Built-in lifecycle events: the SDK now automatically captures events like “Application Installed” and “Application Updated” for you.
- New device-level data: the SDK captures the device
name
and other device-level context for you.
If you’re new to Data Pipelines, don’t worry! It’s free and it’s very similar to our other APIs. We’ll walk you through the process to set up your Android app as a data sourceA source is a website or server that you want to capture data from—it’s a source of data! and everything.
When you’re done, you’ll be able to use your app data’s in both Customer.io and other downstream destinations—like your analytics platform, data warehouse, or CRM. All that and you’ll be prepared to accept new features and improvements that we roll out in the future!
Upgrade process
You’ll update initialization calls for the SDK itself and the push and/or in-app messaging modules.
As a part of this process, your credentials change. You’ll need to set up a new data sourceA source is a website or server that you want to capture data from—it’s a source of data! in Customer.io and get a new CDP API Key. But you’ll also need to keep your previous siteId
as a migrationSiteId
when you initialize the SDK. The migrationSiteId
is a key helps the SDK send remaining traffic when people update your app.
When you’re done, you’ll also need to change a few base properties to fit the new APIs. In general, identifier
becomes userId
, body
becomes traits
, and data
becomes properties
.
1. Get your new CDP API Key
The new version of the SDK requires you to set up a new data sourceA source is a website or server that you want to capture data from—it’s a source of data! in Customer.io. As a part of this process, you’ll get your CDP API Key.
- Go to the Data Pipelines tab. On the Connections page under Sources, click Add Source.
- Select the Mobile: Android source and then click Next: Connect Android.
- Enter a Name for the source, like “My Android App”.
- We’ll present you with a code sample containing a
cdpApiKey
that you’ll use to initialize the SDK. Copy this key and keep it handy. - Click Complete Setup to finish setting up your source.
Now the Connections page shows that your Android source is connected to your Journeys workspace. Hover over a source or destination to see its active connections. You can also connect your Android source to additional destinations if you want to send your mobile data to additional services—like your analytics provider, data warehouse, or CRM.
2. Import datapipelines instead of tracking
We’ve replaced the tracking
package with datapipelines
. You’ll need to update your import statements to reflect this change.
// replace `tracking` with:
implementation 'io.customer.android:datapipelines:4.3.0'
3. Update your initialization
You’ll initialize the new version of the SDK and its packages with SDKConfigBuilder
objects instead of a CustomerIOConfig
. A few of the configuration options changed. In particular,
CustomerIOBuilder
replacesCustomerIO.Builder
.cdpApiKey
replacesapiKey
: this is a new key that you got from Step 1migrationSiteId
replacessiteId
: this is the same key you used in the previous version of the SDK. You need to include this property to send remaining traffic when people update your app.AutoTrackActivityScreens
replacesautoTrackScreenViews
: functionality is unchanged.- The
messagingInApp
module now includes a site ID and region—these tell the SDK which workspace your in-app messages come from.
CustomerIOBuilder(
applicationContext = this,
// new credentials
cdpApiKey = "your_cdp_api_key"
migrationSiteId = "your_site_id"
// region = Region.EU if your account is in the EU
).apply {
addCustomerIOModule(
ModuleMessagingInApp(
// the in-app module now has its own configuration
config = MessagingInAppModuleConfig.Builder(
siteId = "your_site_id",
region = Region.US
).setEventListener(InAppMessageEventListener()).build()
)
)
addCustomerIOModule(ModuleMessagingPushFCM())
build()
}
5. Update your identify
, track
, and screen
calls
Our APIs changed slightly in this release. We’ve done our best to make the new APIs as similar as possible to the old ones. The names of a few properties that you’ll pass in your calls have changed, but their functionality has not.
identify
:identifier
becomesuserId
andbody
becomestraits
track
:data
becomesproperties
screen
:name
becomestitle
, anddata
becomesproperties
We’ve highlighted changes in the sample below.
//identify: identifier becomes userId, body becomes traits
CustomerIO.instance()
.identify(
userId = "USER_ID",
traits = mapOf("first_name" to "firstName")
)
// track: data becomes properties
CustomerIO.instance().track(
name = "purchase",
properties = mapOf("product" to "socks", "price" to "4.99")
)
// screen: name becomes title, data becomes properties
CustomerIO.instance().screen(
title = "purchase",
properties = mapOf("product" to "socks", "price" to "4.99"),
category: String = "" // optional
)
Configuration Changes
As a part of this release, we’ve changed a few configuration options. The MessagingInApp
and MessagingPush
modules also now take their own configuration options.
datapipelines
configuration options
For the base SDK, you’ll use SDKConfigBuilder
to set your configuration options. The following table shows the changes to the configuration options.
Field | Type | Default | Description |
---|---|---|---|
cdpApiKey | string | Replaces apiKey ; required to initialize the SDK. This is the key representing your Data Pipelines sourceA source is a website or server that you want to capture data from—it’s a source of data! | |
migrationSiteId | string | Replaces siteId ; required if you’re updating from 2.x. This is the key representing your previous version of the SDK. | |
AutoTrackActivityScreens | boolean | false | Replaces autoTrackScreenViews ; functionality is unchanged. We simply renamed the option to reflect support for UIKit and not SwiftUI. |
trackApplicationLifeCycleEvents | boolean | true | When true, the SDK automatically tracks application lifecycle events (like Application Installed). |
MessagingInApp
configuration options
When you initialize the MessagingInApp
package, you must pass both of these configuration options.
Option | Type | Default | Description |
---|---|---|---|
siteId | string | The Site IDEquivalent to the user name you’ll use to interface with the Journeys Track API; also used with our JavaScript snippets. You can find your Site ID under Settings > Workspace Settings > API Credentials from a set of track API credentials; this determines the workspace that your app listens for in-app messages from. | |
Region | .US or .EU | .US | The region your Customer.io account resides in—US or EU. |