How Can We Help?

Tagging Mobile Pages

Last Updated:

Overview

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 will be retroactive to the time the SDK was installed. This means that Pendo automatically tracks any user action in your app, providing insights without any prior app tagging.
  

How to Tag a Page

  1. Go to Pages.
  2. Click on Manage Pages In-App to tag pages through our In-App Designer.
  3. Select your mobile application from the list and Launch Designer.
  4. Connect Your Device by using the Connect a new device button and follow the instructions. Or relaunch the App for an already connected device.
  5. Once your device is connected, a camera icon should appear on your device.
  6. Navigate in your app to the page you’d like to tag and click on the camera icon on your device. In a few seconds, you will see the page’s screenshot in the Pendo UI. Name the page. You may also assign it to a group.
  7. You can now select 'Save and Exit' to save the newly tagged page.
  8. Alternatively, you can select to Tag Features or continue tagging more pages. Don’t worry, you can always go back and tag more pages and features, analytics are constantly collected.

How is my page identified?

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

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

This article will help you understand how you understand your automatically-assigned page rule, and how to customize it.

Page Rules when tagging 

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 can give an indication of whether the automatically assigned page rule is accurate or needs refining.

image__2_.png

 

Rule Components - How Pendo identifies your pages

Component What should you do

Page Title

Exclude title when the Page Title changes between users or visits.

Common use cases:

  1. When the title is too specific (i.e. includes a specific ID).
  2. 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

In this example:

Image-2.png

  • 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. 

Managing 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' >  click on the relevant 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 may have a similar page structure, which can result in duplicate data. 

A Custom Identifier can be added when a page cannot be uniquely identified based on its structure due to the page rules. To add a Customer Identifier, select a text label from the app's screen. A Custom Identifier can only be added to pages that exist across all app versions. 

edit_after_processing.png

Tagging unique pages

Unique pages are defined by the page structure and its unique components. At times when a new page is tagged Pendo may identify it as a possible duplicate due to page rules that match already existing pages. if this is the case, it will result in duplicate data. In order to avoid the following - updates can be made in Pendo.
 
image__6_.png
 
Save Anyway-  The page already exists, however, there are features below the fold. In order to collect data from features below the fold you should 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 refine the rules for similar pages as well, in order to get accurate analytics.
Exit - Page has already been tagged and mistakenly tagged again. Select 'Exit' in order to delete the newly tagged page. 
 

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I have several pages that show the same amount of data?

When several pages have the same structure, they might receive the same page rule and yield the same views. If this happens, try editing the rules of those pages and add a Custom Identifier unique to each page to increase the page identification accuracy. 

What should I do if my iOS page shows no views?

When a page shows no views, it might mean the page rule is too specific. You can try removing any custom identifiers or excluding the page title from the rule and check the results. The page title should be included in the rule only if it uniquely identifies the page across all your users. 

What happens when I have a new app version?

When releasing new app versions, pages will usually be identified with the existing rules. However, if changes were made to the page structure, page title, or the custom identifier, we recommend updating the page, to make sure the page rule is updated and reflects any changes made.

Why I’m not getting new analytics for some of the tagged pages?

Have you released a new app version to the store recently? If some of your pages/features changed in the newly released app version, you can update them by Updating the Mobile Page.

Since the Pendo's mobile page rule relies on the page's structure, major changes to your app require re-tagging the page, to continue getting analytics on the page. If button texts were changed in your app you might need to re-tag the page to update its features.

I can’t tag some of the features in my application. What do I do?

We’re constantly working on identifying as many mobile element types as possible. In iOS SDK 2.6 we've added support for gestures, if you have elements you couldn't tag we suggest updating the relevant page with SDK out latest SDK. If you’re unable to tag and get analytics for any of your mobile features, please contact our support. A possible workaround is either adding an accessibility label or adding Track Events for those features to collect that data.

How are advanced tagging rules relevant for my React Native applications?

In React Native, the title of the page is usually known at the Javascript level, so pages should generally be identified correctly by the automatic rule assigned by Pendo.

  • Usually, a custom identifier will not be needed.
  • Also, the page title is not identified for React Native iOS pages, so the option to include the page title will not be available.

Related articles