In this blog,
I have shown, How to track your android Application by a great and free analytics tool.
There are many analytics tools which can be used the like Segment.io, MixPanel, Localytics, Amazon Mobile Analytics etc. But They are not totally free and easily understandable.
 
So, here I am showing how to implement Google Analytics v4 in your application with a lot of key features like create multiple views according to different countries times, real-time users, bug report, active users and many more.
This is absolutely free of cost and easy to implement.
 
The Screen-shot of the real time users of Mobikul-OC-Demo App.

How to get the analytics credentials

There are some easy steps to setup the google analytics to your app

1. Sign In to your Google Analytics account.
2. Select Mobile App in the new property form.
3. Enter Account Name.
4. Enter the App Name.
5. Select Industry Category & Report Time Zone and click on Get Tracking ID.
6. In the next screen you will be shown your property Tracking ID.

How to add Analytics to Your Android App

Step 1: Add permission to your manifest.xml

Step 2: Add a plugin to your project in your top-level build.gradle and your app-level build.gradle files as follows:

• Add the dependency to your project-level build.gradle:
  
  classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:1.5.0-beta2'

  1	classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:1.5.0-beta2'

• Add the plugin to your app-level build.gradle:
  
  apply plugin: 'com.google.gms.google-services'

  1	apply plugin: 'com.google.gms.google-services'

• And you have to add a dependency for Google Play Services. Inside your app’s build.gradle add:
  
  compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics:8.3.0'

  1	compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics:8.3.0'

Step 3: Get a configuration file by this link.

• You have to provide the app name and package name.
  

• After click to continue blue button if your have already registered to analytics then enable the analytics api for your App.
• If not, then first register and enable the analytics.

• Download the configuration file by clicking the Bold Blue button. Which is shown below snapshot.

Step 4: Copy the google-services.json file into your app/ or mobile/ directory of your Android Studio project.

How to track your Activity

There is some block of code to track your application’s current activity

• Provide the shared tracker via an Application subclass.
  
  public class MobikulApplication extends Application { private Tracker mTracker; synchronized public Tracker getDefaultTracker() { if (mTracker == null) { GoogleAnalytics analytics = GoogleAnalytics.getInstance(this); // To enable debug logging use: adb shell setprop log.tag.GAv4 DEBUG mTracker = analytics.newTracker(R.xml.global_tracker); } return mTracker; } public void trackException(Exception e) { if (e != null) { mTracker.send(new HitBuilders.ExceptionBuilder() .setDescription( new StandardExceptionParser(this, null) .getDescription(Thread.currentThread().getName(), e)) .setFatal(false) .build() ); } } }

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

  public class MobikulApplication extends Application {       private Tracker mTracker;         synchronized public Tracker getDefaultTracker() {         if (mTracker == null) {             GoogleAnalytics analytics = GoogleAnalytics.getInstance(this);             // To enable debug logging use: adb shell setprop log.tag.GAv4 DEBUG             mTracker = analytics.newTracker(R.xml.global_tracker);         }         return mTracker;     } public void trackException(Exception e) {         if (e != null) {               mTracker.send(new HitBuilders.ExceptionBuilder()                             .setDescription(                                     new StandardExceptionParser(this, null)                                             .getDescription(Thread.currentThread().getName(), e))                             .setFatal(false)                             .build()             );         }     } }

• Override the callback method for the foreground activity.
  
  MobikulApplication mMobikulApplication = (MobikulApplication) getApplication(); mTracker = mMobikulApplication.getDefaultTracker();

  1 2	MobikulApplication mMobikulApplication = (MobikulApplication) getApplication(); mTracker = mMobikulApplication.getDefaultTracker();

• Provide a name for the screen(your activity)  and execute tracking.
  
  String name = this.getClass().getName(); mTracker.setScreenName("" + name); mTracker.send(new HitBuilders.ScreenViewBuilder().build());

  1 2 3

  String name = this.getClass().getName(); mTracker.setScreenName("" + name); mTracker.send(new HitBuilders.ScreenViewBuilder().build());

  
  

  

Sources:

developers.google.com/analytics/
androidhive.info

Next Chapter