Tag Pages in your mobile app

Last updated: July 11, 2024 08:43

Tagging pages allows you to view Page traffic and understand the flow and behavior of your mobile users.

Pendo’s Mobile SDKs start collecting analytics after a successful install. At the time of tagging, analytics is retroactive to the time the SDK was installed. This means that Pendo automatically tracks user action in your app without any prior tagging.

Visit the Pendo Academy for a video on tagging Pages in your mobile app.

Tag a Page

Navigate to Product > Pages and select Tag Pages.
Select Mobile app and then select your app from the list.
Select Launch Designer.
Connect a mobile device by using the Connect a new device button and follow the instructions, or relaunch the app for an already connected device. Once your device is connected, a camera icon appears on your device.
Navigate in your app to the Page you’d like to tag, select the camera icon on your device, and tag the Page elements.
When the Page’s screenshot shows in the Pendo UI, name the Page and, if required, assign it to a group.
Select Save and Exit to save the newly tagged Page. Alternatively, you can select Tag Features or continue tagging more Page.

You can always go back and tag more Pages and Features. Analytics are constantly collected.

Update a Page

If you update a Page with tagged Features, a new capture replaces the old one. This means there may be tagged Features that do not exist on the new screenshot. You will need to update the Page with the new Features. See Edit an Existing Tagged Mobile Feature.

How Pages are identified

When tagging a mobile Page, Pendo automatically sets a Page rule based on the page's structure.

Since applications vary, our automatic Page rule is not always correct, and further configuration might be required to ensure the Page rule yields the correct analytics.

This article helps you understand your automatically-assigned Page rule, and how to customize it.

Page tagging rules

Page Rules and initial Page views are visible while tagging Pages in the Pendo UI. The Page views reflect the number of views from the last 24 hours as well as the percentage of views from overall traffic in the last 24 hours. This gives an indication of whether the automatically assigned Page rule is accurate or needs refining.

Rule Components. How Pendo identifies your Page.

Component	What should you do
Page Title	Exclude title when the Page Title changes between users or visits. Common use cases: When the title is too specific (i.e. includes a specific ID). App is localized to several languages. If you need to use the page title as an identifier, contact our technical support to set up the correct rule.
Selected Tab Index	If the position of your tabs changes between users, use the tab's title and not the index in the Page rule.
Selected Tab Title	If the title of your tab changes between users (for example, your app is localized to several languages), use the tab's index and not the title in the Page rule.
Bundle name	Specific to iOS, a bundle name uniquely identifies an app in Apple's eco-system. No two apps can have the same bundle identifier. For example, you might have a different bundle name for production, staging or dev environment.

In this example:

Pendo uses the Page title "Just Arrived" to identify the Page. Only pages with the "Just Arrived" title will be identified as this page.
Pendo uses the index of the selected tab in order to identify the Page. Pendo attributes a view to this Page only when the selected tab is the first tab. If another tab is selected, Pendo will consider this a different page.
Pendo does not use the selected tab's title ("Arrived") to identify the Page. This makes sense especially if this app is translated to several languages and this text is not consistent across users.

Manage page rules

After the initial tagging, you can access the Page Rules configuration and make further edits to manage your Page rules, and add a Custom identifier, if needed. In Pendo, go to:

Pages and select the Page.
Select Manage Page.
Go to the Page Rules tab.

Note: With any change you make, look at the number of Page views in the last 24 hours to understand the effect of your changes.

Custom identifiers

Custom identifiers are unique labels that are specific to a particular Page. Pages in your application might have a similar Page structure and can’t be uniquely identified, which can result in duplicate data.

Custom identifiers can be created when an element on a Page uses specific attributes. For iOS apps, a custom identifier uses the following attributes; text, accessibility label, accessibility hint or accessibly identifier. The element must have at least one of these attributes and the custom identifier is created using all the attributes that exist on the element.

Note: The accessibility identifier attribute is localization-safe, but the text attribute isn't. For iOS apps that use localization, if there's an element that uses both a text attribute and an accessibility identifier attribute, we recommend not using it for a custom identifier because the text attribute will change for each language supported in your app. Use an element that has the accessibility identifier attribute only, with no text, accessibility label or accessibility hint attributes.

For Android apps, a custom identifier can be used on an element that uses text and accessibility label attributes only. The element must have at least one attribute and the custom identifier is created using one or both of the attributes.

To add a custom identifier:

Select one of the pages with the duplicated data and click Manage Page.
Go to the Page Rules tab.
Add a custom identifier to the Page - mark a text label that can identify this Page.
Verify that the number of Page views seems right.
Select + Add Custom Identifier, and then select a text label from the app's screen.
In the Selection Mode bar that displays, select the checkmark to add it to the Page rule to specify the exact Page the feature is on.

Note: When capturing Pages below the fold, if you delete a capture with a custom identifier, the identifier is not deleted from the page rule. A warning displays notifying you that you have deleted the page so you can decide whether to recapture the page or not.

A Custom Identifier can only be added to Page that exist across all app versions.

Tag unique Pages

Unique Page are defined by the Page structure and its unique components. When a new Page is tagged, Pendo might identify it as a possible duplicate due to Page rules that already match existing Pages. If this is the case, it will result in duplicate data. To avoid this, updates can be made in Pendo.

Exit. Page has already been tagged and mistakenly tagged again. Select Exit to delete the newly tagged page.
Save Anyway. The Page already exists. However, there are features below the fold. To collect data from features below the fold select Save Anyway.
Refine Rule. Your Page is different. However, the Page has the same structure and Page rules as other existing Pages. Select Refine Rule to make this Page unique.

Important: Make sure to also refine the rules for similar Pages to ensure accurate analytics.

Pendo suggests Page identifiers that you can select from to uniquely identify your Pages.

Select Refine Rule.
Select a unique identifier that separates the page from similar Pages.
Select Done.

If the suggested identifiers are not relevant and you are unable to define the Page, you can contact Pendo Support.