This is a guided overview to installing Appcues Mobile into your mobile applications. Highlighted below are the shared components of the installation across our supported frameworks: iOS, Android, ReactNative, Flutter, and Ionic. For more detailed technical information please refer to the GitHub repos linked throughout.

Installation requires about an hour of work for a developer with knowledge of how your app tracks user properties, screens, and events. You will need access to your team's Appcues account to complete the installation.

Interested in our data security measures? Please review our Trust Center for details.

Before You Get Started

•  Identify who on your team will be installing Appcues
• Complete an Installation Plan to outline your tailored installation components

What Do We Mean by “Install”?

There are a few key components that together create a successful Appcues installation. While this guide will cover these items in more detail, below in a brief overview of what makes an Appcues installation:

• Add the Appcues SDK Script to your Product - Appcues is added to your app to connect to your Appcues account and show the content you've built
• Identify Users and Groups - Tell Appcues when a user is present, and send information about who that user is. This is used for targeting experiences and segmentation
• Track Screens - Recognize where the user is within your app. This is used for screen-based targeting
• Track Events - Tracking events with Appcues allows you to measure your users' engagement with your app. These events can also be used for targeting and segmentation
• Additional Components 
  • Deep Link Support - Used for debugging, previewing, screen capture, and navigation across your app
  • Element Recognition* - Used with Anchored Tooltips to connect a tooltip to a specific element on screen
  • FrameViews* - Creates a designated container within your app to display Appcues Embeds

All components are required for full functionality and feature usage of Appcues Mobile

*Not supported on Ionic Applications

Video Overview

Ready to install? Continue through this guide for next steps!

Installing Appcues Mobile

Connecting Appcues to Your Mobile App

Required

1. Register Your App(s) in Studio
   • This creates your AppIDs, which is used for connecting your app to your Appcues account for building and publishing Appcues experiences
   • If you’d like to manage separate instances, you can register an AppID for each, then set the AppID for each initialization. This allows you to have isolated flows and metrics between a developer and production app instance.
     Don’t have multiple instances, or don’t want to manage them in Appcues? Don’t worry! Flows can be targeted to specific users when testing live.
2. Add the Appcues SDK and Initialize
   • You will need the following:
     • Your Appcues Account ID, found on your Account Settings page, and
     • Your registered AppID(s), found on your Installation Settings page
   • Select your framework below for more details:
     • iOS
     • Android
     • ReactNative
     • Flutter
     • Ionic

Identify Users and Groups

Required

• Appcues requires users to be identified to show experiences and track events. Appcues only uses the data that you explicitly send in via identify(), group(), and select integrations. 
  Please Note: All unique users identified by Appcues within a rolling 30-day period are considered a Monthly Active User (MAU) regardless of whether they see an experience or not.
• Select your framework below for more details:
  • iOS
  • Android
  • ReactNative
  • Flutter
  • Ionic
• Whether you are installing on behalf of someone or working directly within your team, we encourage you to collaborate on and follow an Installation Plan to outline which properties to include.
• For consistent user identification, it is best to call identify() on user log in, and subsequently any group() calls if utilizing Group data
   

Identifying Users

Required

• Identify individual users via identify()
• Components of identify()
  • Unique UserID (Required)
    • Appcues recommends choosing opaque and hard-to-guess User IDs, such as a UUID. See the FAQ for Developers for more details about choosing a User ID

      If installing on mobile and web, it’s best to use the same UserID value for both implementations’ identify() calls. This will ensure that the same user on mobile is consistent with their web activity, and maintain better MAU count reflection. 

      If utilizing our integrations, there may be additional requirements on what the User ID needs to be for successful integration. More details on this in the Additional Information section.

       
  • Custom User Properties (Optional)
    • While technically optional, we strongly encourage that you send additional data to Appcues to allow for greater targeting options for user experiences. Lack of custom properties greatly limits your Appcues use cases.
    • If your User IDs are not easily recognizable to know who that user is, you can set a Display Identifier in Studio based on a custom user property. This does not impact your User ID, nor does this value need to be necessarily unique to each user; we recommend using Email, Full Name, or a similar property that your team will be able to easily recognize.
      
      If installing on web and mobile, only one Display Identifier can be set for all users, so please ensure that the same property is included across all installations.

Identifying Groups

Optional

• Identify groups, or accounts, via group()
• Components of group()
  • GroupID (Required)
    • The Group ID should be the unique value between each group, or account, to recognize one group from another. This could be an Account ID, Account Name, etc.

      If utilizing our integrations for group data, there may be different requirements on what the Group ID needs to be for successful integration. More details on this in the Additional Information section.

       
  • Custom Group Properties
    • The best custom Group Properties are properties that are shared between users within that group/account, and that don’t change user to user within the account (user data should be sent via identify())
    • If your Group IDs are not easily recognizable to know which account that is, you can set a Display Identifier in Studio based on a custom group property. This does not impact your Group ID, nor does this value need to be necessarily unique to each account; we recommend using Company Name, Account Name, or a similar property that your team will be able to easily recognize.
      
      If installing on web and mobile, only one Display Identifier can be set for all accounts, so please ensure that the same property is included across all installations.

Track Screens

Required

• Identifies which screen the user is on via screen() which is crucial for proper experience targeting
• Select your framework below for more details:
  • iOS
  • Android
  • ReactNative
  • Flutter
  • Ionic

Track Events

Required

• Track your users’ interactions with your application via track()
• These events can be used for targeting, triggering (add-on), segmentation, and analytics
• Select your framework below for more details:
  • iOS
  • Android
  • ReactNative
  • Flutter
  • Ionic

Configure URL/Deep Linking

Required

• Deep linking is required for debugging, previewing, and screen capture. Your app must also be set up to support URL schemes and deep linking.
• Select your framework below for more details:
  • iOS
  • Android
  • ReactNative
  • Flutter
  • Ionic

Recognize Screen Elements

Required for Anchored Tooltips (excludes Ionic)

• When using Anchored Tooltips, the screen elements must be recognizable in the captured screen. This allows for secured placement that maintains through different screen sizes or element location on the screen. 
  
  Unable to use Anchored Tooltips? Check out Floating Tooltips!
  
   
• Select your framework below for more details:
  • iOS
  • Android
  • ReactNative
  • Flutter

Build FrameViews

Required for Embeds (excludes Ionic)

• To publish an Appcues Mobile Embed, FrameViews must be configured to store the Embed. These are pre-set containers that are added throughout your app where you would like to host an Embed. 
• Select your framework below for more details:
  • iOS
  • Android
  • ReactNative
  • Flutter

Additional Information

Tech Specs

iOS

Android

• Kotlin SDK, using Jetpack Compose to render flows
• Supports apps targeting API 21 (Android 5.0 Lollipop)
• Supported in targetSDK 34+
• Compatible with applications written in Kotlin or Java, using Android Views or Jetpack Compose for the user interface
• Distributed through Maven Central and can be integrated through Gradle build scripts
• Uses common Android dependencies: Jetpack androidx libraries, Retrofit, Moshi, Coil - full dependency list available on Maven Central package: com.appcues:appcues
• < 5 MB additional size for app download - likely much less if common dependencies above are already in the app
  For more on native Android development, visit https://developer.android.com

Sending Appcues Events to Analytics Tools

Add the Event Listener to your app to pass Appcues events into mobile-connected tools (Segment, Heap, Amplitude, Google Analytics, etc.)

• Sends the following events:

• Select your framework below for more details:
  • iOS
  • Android
  • ReactNative
  • Flutter
  • Ionic

User and Group IDs with Inbound Data Integrations

Some Appcues integrations have specific requirements to successfully connect to each other. In many cases, the Appcues User ID must exist as a value on the integration’s record/profile, keep this in mind when selecting which User ID/Group ID to send to Appcues. A breakdown of some of Appcues common integrations’ requirements are below:

• Salesforce
  • Salesforce <> Appcues: The Appcues User ID must exist as a value on the Salesforce object (Contacts, Leads, etc.)
• HubSpot
  • HubSpot >> Appcues: The Appcues User ID must exist as a value on the HubSpot record.
  • Appcues >> HubSpot: The HubSpot VID or corresponding email must exist as an Appcues user property (the email can be sent via identify, from the HubSpot>>Appcues sync, or from a data source connection)
• Marketo
  • Marketo >> Appcues: The Appcues User ID must exist as a value on the Marketo record.
  • Appcues >> Marketo: The Marketo Lead ID or corresponding email must exist as an Appcues user property (the email can be sent via identify, from the Marketo>>Appcues sync, or from a data source connection).
• Heap
  • Heap >> Appcues: The Appcues User ID must exist as a value on the the Heap User Profile.
• Amplitude
  • Amplitude >> Appcues: The Appcues User ID must exist as a user property in Amplitude.
• Mixpanel
  • Mixpanel >> Appcues: The Appcues User ID must match the Distinct ID of the user in Mixpanel.
• Hightouch
  • Hightouch >> Appcues: The user Id on your Hightouch model must match the Appcues User ID sent in identify().
• Census
  • Census >> Appcues: The Sync Key on your Census model must match the Appcues User ID sent in identify().

Having Issues Getting Installed?

If you have any questions or issues regarding your mobile installation, please contact us at support@appcues.com!