Airship

21 min

Summary

Official websites

Site	URL
Website	https://www.airship.com
Documentation	https://docs.airship.com

Developer integrations

Platform	URL
Android	https://github.com/urbanairship/android-library
iOS	https://github.com/urbanairship/ios-library
Web	not supported by Purple

Tracking service

Event support matrix

Overview of the supported events and their configuration.

	Templates	Parameter
Actions*	action	supported
Views*	name	not supported
Purchases	action	supported
Attributes	name	not supported

(*) Actions and Views contains special handling regarding view tracking. More detailed information can be found below in the description of the event configuration for actions and views.

General structure in tracking_config.json

Tracking service key name in "tracking_config.json" is: "airship"

{
  
  "airship": {
    "eventsEnabledByDefault": true,
    "viewsEnabledByDefault": true,
    "purchasesEnabledByDefault": true,
    "attributesEnabledByDefault": true,
    
    "events": {
      // your configured list of events
    },
    
    "views": {
      // your configured list of events
    },
    
    "purchases": {
      // your configured list of events
    },
    
    "attributes": {
      // your configured list of attributes
    } 
    
  }
  
}

Event configuration

Actions

Airship supports action events.

"action_event_key": {
  "templates": {
    "action": "value of template"
  },
  "parameters": {
    "parameter_key_1": "value of parameter",

    // your configured list of parameters
  }
}

Airships special behavior for view tracking

On each action event the last memorized view name is put as an additional property as follows:

Property key	Property value
view	The last memorized view name. If no view event was tracked yet, this additional property is omitted.

Views

Airship supports view events.

"view_event_key": {
  "templates": {
    "name": "value of template"
  }
}

Airships special behavior for view tracking

View tracking needs to be supported in a special way compared to other tracking systems. This special behavior consists of three points:

(1) Each view event needs to be tracked as regular view event.

(2) Together with the view event an aditional custom event must be sent. This custom event has the following structure:

Custom event
"View entered"	The value can not be changed by any configuration.

The view itself is tracked as a property:

Property key	Property value
view	Name of the current view, the same name as the regular view event.

(3) Memorize the last tracked view.

Purchases

Airship supports purchase events.

"purchase_event_key": {
  "templates": {
    "name": "value of template"
  },
  "parameters": {
    "parameter_key_1": "value of parameter",
        
    // your configured list of parameters
  }
}

Attributes

Airship supports attributes.

"attribute_key": {
  "templates": {
    "name": "value of template"
  },
 
  // for boolean attributes a "tag_group" is needed   
  "parameters": {
    "tag_group": "name of tag group"
  }
}

Boolean value attributes

Attributes with boolean values are mapped to tags on the contact in Airship. The tracking config needs to have a parameter "tag_group". Setting the value to false causes the tag to be removed.

Other value attributes

Other value types (string, number, etc.) are mapped to attributes on the contact.

Additional supported functionality

Audience management (contact)

https://docs.airship.com/platform/mobile/audience/#contacts

A contact is initialized during app start. Purple's generated device id is used for that.

In-app automation

https://docs.airship.com/platform/mobile/in-app/getting-started

This feature is enabled as provided by Airship.

Message center

https://docs.airship.com/platform/mobile/message-center/message-center

Airship can display in-app messages. Purple implements this feature by using the default Message-Center-UI provided by Airship. To enhance this feature two action URLs are provided by Purple:

Action URL	Description
purple://app/airship/messages/all	Open the message center.
purple://app/airship/messages/<ID>	Open a specific message. ID The message id value.

These action URLs are filtered from the app menu when Airship is not enabled.

Push

https://docs.airship.com/platform/mobile/push/getting-started

This feature is enabled as provided by Airship.

How to configure

Native Purple App

Any native Tracking Service is configured in the Purple Manager.

Enable SDK

Settings location

"Your app" => "Consent/Push/Analytics" => "Analytics (General/iOS/Android/Web)"

Setting	Description
Enable Airship	To enable the Airship SDK in your app, activate this checkbox.
App key	The app key provided by Airship.
App secret	The app secret provided by Airship.
Site	The site location. Selectable values are: US EU

Apple privacy / ATT