Teemu Leino Collecting Usage Data with Google Analytics for Firebase Metropolia University of Applied Sciences Bachelor of Engineering Information Technology Bachelor’s Thesis 14 May 2021 Abstract Author Teemu Leino Title Collecting usage data with Google Analytics for Firebase Number of Pages 26 pages Date 14 May 2021 Degree Bachelor of Engineering Degree Programme Information Technology Professional Major Software Engineering Instructors Janne Salonen, Head of Department (ICT) The aim of this thesis was to define best practices related to collection of usage data and explore the capabilities of Google Analytics solution on Firebase mobile platform. The ob- jective of the related final year project was to provide means for a client company to gain a deeper insight into their mobile application’s user base. In this paper, prerequisites and processes needed for deploying Google Analytics onto a mobile solution already utilizing Firebase platform were investigated. To fulfill the needs of the client company, four real-world use cases utilizing these services were designed and implemented. The results showed that when implementing a Google’s analytics solution in the EU, it is vital to learn and follow data privacy laws and Google’s terms. The use cases of the client company were implemented, but their use in production has not yet been started. Therefore, all the usage data collected during this project and analyzed in this paper was generated by the employees of the client company. In conclusion, Firebase platform provides powerful tools for collecting and inspecting appli- cation usage data. Once the implemented solutions are in production use, the client com- pany can utilize the collected data to better understand the end users. However, there are many things to keep in mind in order to respect the privacy and rights of these data subjects. Keywords Google Analytics, Firebase, analytics, hybrid mobile applica- tion, usage data collection, data privacy Tiivistelmä Tekijä Teemu Leino Otsikko Collecting usage data with Google Analytics for Firebase Sivumäärä 26 sivua Aika 14.05.2021 Tutkinto insinööri (AMK) Tutkinto-ohjelma tietotekniikan koulutusohjelma Ammatillinen pääaine ohjelmistotekniikka Ohjaajat osaamisaluepäällikkö Janne Salonen Insinöörityön tarkoituksena oli selvittää Google Analytics -analytiikkaratkaisun käytettävyys Firebase-mobiilialustalla ja määritellä tähän liittyviä parhaita käytäntöjä käyttödatan kerääjän näkökulmasta. Insinöörityö tehtiin yhteistyössä yrityksen kanssa, ja työn tavoitteena oli tarjota yritykselle kyvykkyys ymmärtää tämän kehittämän mobiilituoteratkaisun käyt- täjäkuntaa paremmin. Tarkoitukset ja tavoitteet saavuttaakseen insinöörityössä selvitettiin, miten Google Analytics for Firebase otetaan käyttöön tuoteratkaisussa, joka jo ennestään hyödyntää Firebaseä. Tämän lisäksi työssä suunniteltiin ja kehitettiin neljä käyttötapausta käyttödatan keräämiselle, kun otetaan huomioon yhteistyöyrityksen tavoitteet. Tulokset osoittivat, kuinka tärkeää tietosuojalakien ja Googlen ehtojen ymmärtäminen ja hu- omioiminen on, kun hyödynnetään Googlen analytiikkaratkaisuja EU:n sisällä. Insinööri- työssä suunnitellut ratkaisut käyttötapauksille toteutettiin, mutta ratkaisujen käyttöönottoa odotetaan vielä. Tästä johtuen kaikki työssä kerätty ja hyödynnetty käyttödata on yhteistyöy- rityksen ohjelmistokehittäjien työssään generoimaa dataa. Johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että Firebase-alusta tarjoaa tehokkaita työkaluja käyt- tödatan keräämiselle ja tutkimiselle. Kun työ on otettu tuotantokäyttöön, voidaan sen avulla kerättävää käyttödataa hyödyntää käyttäjien syvempää ymmärtämistä varten. Tästä hu- olimatta on monia seikkoja, joita datan kerääjän tulee ottaa huomioon, kun dataa kerätään eettisesti ja lakia noudattaen — varsinkin Googlen analytiikkaratkaisuja hyödynnettäessä. Avainsanat Google Analytics, Firebase, analytiikka, hybridimobiilisovellus, käyttödatan keräys, tietosuoja Contents Glossary 1 Introduction 1 2 Usage Data, Google Analytics and Firebase 2 2.1 Usage Data 2 2.2 Google Analytics and Firebase 2 2.2.1 Background 2 2.2.2 History 3 2.3 Firebase Platform 4 2.3.1 Firebase Console 5 2.3.2 Google Analytics 6 2.3.3 Integrations 7 3 Collecting Usage Data 10 3.1 Prerequisites 10 3.2 Deployment Actions 11 3.3 Data Collection Best Practices 12 3.3.1 Avoiding Collecting Personal Data 13 3.3.2 Separating Production and Test Data 14 3.4 Client Company’s Use Cases 15 3.4.1 Errors and Warnings Encountered 15 3.4.2 Feature Interactions in Numbers 16 3.4.3 Feature Usage in Details 18 3.4.4 Battery Drain 19 4 Conclusion 23 References 24 Glossary CGI The client company with whom the final year project was done. CoffeeScript A programming language that compiles into JavaScript. Used extensively in the client company’s application. Cordova A development framework that allows HTML, CSS and Ja- vaScript to be used to build native mobile applications. cordova-plugin-firebase A Cordova open-source library for Firebase SDK and Google Analytics for Firebase. EEA European Economic Area. It consists of EU member coun- tries, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. GDPR General Data Protection Regulation. An EU law that consid- ers collecting and processing of personal data. SaaS Software as a Service. A business model where the client typ- ically pays for a customizable online service instead of a li- cense to use the software. SDK Software Development Kit. A set of tools for software devel- opment on a specific platform. serverless A term used to describe computing services that scale on an as-used basis for more flexibility. 1 1 Introduction Over the past few years, it has become hard to browse the Internet or use mobile appli- cations without encountering banners and dialogs asking for our consent to use cookies and other tracking technologies. The reason is simple: our consent allows the service provider to collect and store information about us, usage data, as we interact with the service. The thesis explores what kind of usage data these services may collect and analyzes what are some of the ways this data can be utilized in product development. The thesis is part of a final year project, whose goal was to implement and deploy usage data collection on top of an existing hybrid mobile application. The project was done in collaboration with a client company called CGI Suomi Oy, which is a part of a multinational IT services and consulting company, CGI Inc., with around 3,700 employees in Finland [1]. An in-production hybrid mobile application built using Apache’s Cordova mobile application development framework served as the base for the project. The application is a part of a workforce management SaaS solution and, at the time of writing, has between 15,000 to 20,000 monthly Android users in production. Ma- jority of the application’s users work on either facility care or home care and use the application in their day-to-day work. CGI hoped that Google’s Google Analytics for Fire- base solution would help them gain a deeper insight into their user base and learn more about how the users interact with their mobile application. Google’s solution was chosen by CGI because the application was already using Firebase platform for its push tech- nology — among other features. Four use cases with the aim of learning more about the user base were identified to- gether with the client company. Potential solutions for these use cases were designed and implemented independently of the client company as a part of the final year project. The thesis evaluates the capabilities of Firebase platform’s analytics features for fulfilling the use cases. 2 2 Usage Data, Google Analytics and Firebase 2.1 Usage Data Usage data is information that is generated by a service’s, for example, a website’s or a mobile application’s, end users as they interact with the service. The service’s provider then stores the data for later use. Some applications for this data are further explored in Section 3.4. This collected data can include personal information, such as an IP address of a user, or information that is more general in nature, for example: • How long a user spent using the service during a session. • Through what medium, as in a web browser or a mobile device, a user accessed the service. • Which interactive elements, as in buttons or links, a user clicked or tapped in the service. In case a service is collecting personal data, its users should be able to find more infor- mation about what personal data is being collected and for what reasons from the privacy notice or data usage policy of that service. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation law — or GDPR for short — requires this from organizations that collect personal data from citizens and residents in the European Economic Area, such as in Finland [2]. For services that use Google Analytics for Firebase, Google’s policies have similar require- ments for its users and require them to disclose how end users’ data is being collected and processed [3]. 2.2 Google Analytics and Firebase 2.2.1 Background Google Analytics is Google’s free web analytics tool that helps application or site owners get a deeper understanding of their end users and customers. This is done by, for ex- ample, viewing dashboards and generated reports that tell how people are engaging with the application or site. The reports are automatically generated from usage data that can be collected from the end users as they interact with the application or site. This deeper 3 understanding provided by Google Analytics can be useful when figuring out means for improving one’s service or sales. [4] Firebase, on the other hand, is Google’s mobile platform that is targeted for developers, marketers and product managers. Firebase offers various features and integrations that can be used to help improve application performance and gain insight into the applica- tion’s end users. At its core, Firebase has Google Analytics that integrates across Fire- base’s features. These features, such as Google Analytics for Firebase, can be used individually, but there is a strong incentive to use them together as they are all on the same platform and have the possibility to share data together.