IN_APP_MESSAGES.md

In-app messages

Exponea SDK allows you to display native in-app messages based on definitions set up on the Exponea web application. You can find information on how to create your messages in Exponea documentation.

In-app messages do not require any development work. They work automatically after proper SDK initialization.

Logging

The SDK logs a lot of useful information about presenting in-app messages on the default Info level. To see why each message was/wasn't displayed, make sure your logger level is Info at most. You can set the logger level before initializing the SDK using _exponea.LogLevel = LogLevel.Verbose; on iOS and _exponea.LogLevel = LogLevel.Debug; on Android

Displaying in-app messages

In-app messages are triggered when an event is tracked based on conditions setup on the Exponea backend. Once a message passes those filters, the SDK will try to present the message.

Message is able to be shown only if it is loaded and also its image is loaded too. In case that message is not yet fully loaded (including its image) then the request-to-show is registered in SDK for that message so SDK will show it after full load. Due to prevention of unpredicted behaviour (i.e. image loading takes too long) that request-to-show has timeout of 3 seconds.

If message loading hits timeout of 3 seconds then message will be shown on 'next request'. For example the 'session_start' event triggers a showing of message that needs to be fully loaded but it timeouts, then message will not be shown. But it will be ready for next session_start event so it will be shown on next 'application run'.

On Android

The SDK hooks into the application lifecycle, and every time an activity is resumed, it will remember it and use it for presenting an in-app message. Messages are displayed in a new Activity that is started for them (except for the slide-in message that is directly injected into the currently running Activity).

On iOS

Once a message passes the filters, the SDK will try to present the message in the top-most presentedViewController (except for the slide-in message that uses UIWindow directly).

In-app messages loading

In-app messages reloading is triggered by any case of:

• when Exponea.identifyCustomer is called
• when Exponea.anonymize is called
• when any event is tracked (except Push clicked, opened or session ends) and In-app messages cache is older then 30 minutes from last load Any In-app message images are preloaded too so message is able to be shown after whole process is finished. Please considers it while testing of In-app feature. It is common behaviour that if you change an In-app message data on platform then this change is reflected in SDK after 30 minutes due to usage of messages cache. Do call Exponea.identifyCustomer or Exponea.anonymize if you want to reflect changes immediately.

Custom in-app message actions

If you want to override default SDK behavior, when in-app message action is performed (button is clicked, a message is closed), or you want to add your code to be performed along with code executed by the SDK, you can set up InAppMessageDelegate by calling SetInAppMessageDelegate on Exponea instance.

 _exponea.SetInAppMessageDelegate(
 	overrideDefaultBehavior: false, //If overrideDefaultBehavior is set to true, default in-app action will not be performed ( e.g. deep link )
 	trackActions: true, // If trackActions is set to false, click and close in-app events will not be tracked automatically
 	action: delegate (InAppMessage message, string buttonText, string buttonUrl, bool interaction) {
    // Here goes the code you want to be executed on in-app message action
    // On in-app click, the buttonText and buttonUrl contain button info, and the interaction is true
    // On in-app close, the buttonText and buttonUrl are null, and the interaction is false.
 });

If you set trackActions to false but you still want to track click/close event under some circumstances, you can call Exponea methods TrackInAppMessageClick or TrackInAppMessageClose.

 _exponea.SetInAppMessageDelegate(
 	overrideDefaultBehavior: true, 
 	trackActions: false, 
 	action: delegate (InAppMessage message, string buttonText, string buttonUrl, bool interaction) {
 	if (<your-special-condition>) {
	    if (interaction) {
	        _exponea.TrackInAppMessageClick(message, buttonText, buttonUrl);
	    } else {
	        _exponea.TrackInAppMessageClose(message);
	    }
    }
 });

Method TrackInAppMessageClose will track a 'close' event with 'interaction' field of TRUE value by default. You are able to use a optional parameter 'interaction' of this method to override this value.

The behaviour of TrackInAppMessageClick and TrackInAppMessageClose may be affected by the tracking consent feature, which in enabled mode considers the requirement of explicit consent for tracking. Read more in tracking consent documentation.