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description
Detailed technical documentation on RudderStack’s Flutter SDK to send events from your Flutter application to various destinations.

Flutter

What is the RudderStack Flutter SDK?

The RudderStack Flutter SDK allows you to track event data from your Flutter app. After integrating this SDK with your app, you will also be able to send the event data to your preferred destination platforms supported by RudderStack.

You can check the SDK's GitHub codebase to get a more hands-on understanding of the SDK's architecture and working.

SDK Setup Requirements

To set up the RudderStack Flutter SDK, there are a few prerequisites as mentioned below:

  • You will need to set up a RudderStack Account.
  • Once signed up, your Flutter source writeKey will appear in the Dashboard, as shown:

Adding Flutter SDK

  • You will also need your Data-Plane URL. The following screenshot shows the data plane URL for the managed hosting mode:

Data Plane URL

{% hint style="info" %} We have migrated RudderStack Flutter SDK to Null Safety starting from version 1.0.2 {% endhint %}

Installing the RudderStack Flutter SDK

The recommended way to install the Flutter SDK is through pub.

To add the SDK as a dependency, perform the following steps:

  • Open pubspec.yaml and add rudder_sdk_flutter under dependencies section:
dependencies:
  rudder_sdk_flutter: ^1.0.2
  • Navigate to your Application's root folder and install all the required dependencies with:
flutter pub get

Initializing the RudderStack Client

After adding the SDK as a dependency, you need to set up the SDK.

  • Make sure to import the SDK wherever you use it with:
import 'package:rudder_sdk_flutter/RudderClient.dart';
import 'package:rudder_sdk_flutter/RudderConfig.dart';
import 'package:rudder_sdk_flutter/RudderLogger.dart';
  • Add the following code somewhere in your application.
RudderLogger.init(RudderLogger.VERBOSE);
RudderConfigBuilder builder = RudderConfigBuilder();
builder.withDataPlaneUrl(DATA_PLANE_URL);
builder.withTrackLifecycleEvents(true);
RudderClient.getInstance(WRITE_KEY,config: builder.build());

The setup method has the following signature:

Name Data Type Required Description
writeKey String Yes Your Flutter writeKey
config RudderConfig No Contains the RudderStack Client configuration

Check the Configuring your RudderStack Client section below for a full list of configurable parameters.

Track

You can record the users' activity through the track method. Every action performed by the user is called an event.

An example of the track event is as shown:

RudderProperty property = RudderProperty();
property.put("test_key_1", "test_key_1");
RudderProperty childProperty = RudderProperty();
childProperty.put("test_child_key_1", "test_child_value_1");
property.put("test_key_2",childProperty);
RudderClient.track("test_track_event", properties: property);

The track method has the following signature:

Name Data Type Required Description
name String Yes Contains the name of the event you want to track
properties RudderProperty No Contains the extra data properties you want to send along with the event
options RudderOption No Contains the extra event options

{% hint style="info" %} We automatically track the following optional events:

  1. Application Installed
  2. Application Updated
  3. Application Opened
  4. Application Backgrounded

You can disable these events by calling withTrackLifeCycleEvents(false) on RudderConfigBuilder object while initializing the RudderClient. However, it is highly recommended to keep them enabled. {% endhint %}

Identify

We capture deviceId and use that as the anonymousId for identifying the user. It helps to track the users across the application installation. To attach more information to the user, you can use the identify method.

Once you set the identify information to the user, it will also be passed to the successive track or screen calls. To reset the user identification, you can use the reset method.

{% hint style="info" %} On the Android devices, the deviceId is assigned during the first boot. It remains consistent across the applications and installs. It changes only after factory reset. {% endhint %}

{% hint style="info" %} On the iOS devices, According to the Apple documentation, if the device has multiple apps from the same vendors, all those apps will be assigned the same deviceId. If all the applications from a vendor are uninstalled, then on next install the app will be assigned a new deviceId. {% endhint %}

An example identify event is as shown:

RudderTraits traits = RudderTraits();
traits.putBirthdayDate(new DateTime.now());
traits.putEmail("[email protected]");
traits.putFirstName("First");
traits.putLastName("Last");
traits.putGender("m");
traits.putPhone("5555555555");

Address address = Address();
address.putCity("City");
address.putCountry("USA");
traits.putAddress(address);

traits.put("boolean", true);
traits.put("integer", 50);
traits.put("float", 120.4);
traits.put("long", 1234);
traits.put("string", "hello");
traits.put("date", new DateTime.now().millisecondsSinceEpoch);

RudderClient.identify("test_user_id", traits: traits, options: null);

The identify method has the following signature:

Name Data Type Required Description
userId String Yes Includes the developer identity for the user
traits RudderTraits No Contains information related to the user traits
options RudderOption No Extra options for the identify event

Screen

You can use the screen call to record whenever the user sees a screen on the mobile device. You can also send some extra properties along with this event.

An example of the screen event is as shown:

RudderProperty screenProperty = new RudderProperty();
screenProperty.put("foo", "bar");
RudderClient.screen("Main Activity",
    properties: screenProperty, options: null);

The screen method has the following signature:

Name Data Type Required Description
screenName String Yes Name of the screen viewed.
properties RudderProperty No Extra property object that you want to pass along with the screen call.
options RudderOption No Extra options to be passed along with screen event.

Group

The group call associates a user to a specific organization.

An example of group event is as shown:

RudderTraits groupTraits = RudderTraits();
groupTraits.put("foo", "bar");
groupTraits.put("foo1", "bar1");
RudderClient.group("sample_group_id",
    groupTraits: groupTraits, options: null);

The group method has the following signature:

Name Data Type Required Description
groupId String Yes An ID of the organization with which you want to associate your user
groupTraits RudderTraits No Any other traits of the organization you want to pass along with the group call.
options RudderOption No Extra options to be passed along with group event.

{% hint style="info" %} RudderStack doesn't persist the traits for the group across the sessions. {% endhint %}

Alias

The alias call associates the user with a new identification.

An example of alias event is as shown:

RudderClient.alias("new_user_id", options: null);

The alias method has the following signature:

Name Data Type Required Description
newId String Yes The new userId you want to assign to the user
options RudderOption No Extra options to be passed along with alias event.

We replace the old userId with the newUserId and we persist that identification across the sessions.

Reset

You can use the reset method to clear the persisted traits for the identify call. This is required for Logout operations.

RudderClient.reset();

Enabling / Disabling Events for Specific Destinations

The Flutter SDK lets you enable or disable sending events to a specific destination or all the destinations to which the source is connected. You can specify these destinations by creating an object as shown:

RudderOption options = new RudderOption();
// default value for `All` is true
options.putIntegration("All", false);
// specifying destination by its display name
options.putIntegration("Mixpanel", false);
// specifying destination by its Factory object
options.putIntegrationWithFactory(Appcenter(), true);

{% hint style="info" %} The keyword All in the above snippet represents all the destinations to which the source is connected. Its value is set to true by default. {% endhint %}

{% hint style="info" %} Make sure the destination names that you pass while specifying the destinations should exactly match the names as listed here. {% endhint %}

You can pass the destination(s) specified in the above snippet to the SDK in two ways:

1. Passing the destinations while initializing the SDK:

This is helpful when you want to enable/disable sending the events across all the event calls made using the SDK to the specified destination(s).

RudderClient.getInstance(WRITE_KEY,
                    config: builder.build(),options: options);

2. Passing the destinations while making any event call:

This approach is helpful when you want to enable/disable sending only a particular event to the specified destination(s) or if you want to override the specified destinations passed with the SDK initialization for a particular event.

RudderProperty property = RudderProperty();
property.put("test_key_1", "test_key_1");
RudderClient.track("test_track_event", properties: property, options: options);

{% hint style="info" %} If you specify the destinations both while initializing the SDK as well as while making an event call, then the destinations specified at the event level only will be considered. {% endhint %}

External ID

You can pass your custom userId along with standard userId in your identify calls. We add those values under context.externalId. The following code snippet shows a way to add externalId to your identify request.

RudderOption option = RudderOption();
option.putExternalId("externalId", "some_external_id_1");
RudderClient.identify("testUserId", options: option);

Anonymous ID

We use the deviceId as anonymousId by default. You can use the following method to override and use your own anonymousId with the SDK.

{% hint style="warning" %} You need to call setAnonymousId method before calling getInstance {% endhint %}

An example of setting the anonymousId is as below

RudderClient.setAnonymousId(<ANONYMOUS_ID>);

Advertising ID

You can use the setAdvertisingId method to pass your Android and iOS AAID and IDFA respectively. The setAdvertisingId method accepts a string argument :

  • id : Your Android advertisingId (AAID) (or) Your iOS advertisingId (IDFA)

{% hint style="warning" %} On Android device you need to call setAdvertisingId method before calling getInstance {% endhint %}

An example of how to use setAdvertisingId is as shown:

RudderClient.setAdvertisingId(<ADVERTISING_ID>);

{% hint style="info" %} The id parameter you pass to the above method is assigned as AAID if you are on android device and as IDFA if you are on a iOS device. {% endhint %}

Setting Device Token

You can pass your device-token for push notifications to be passed to the destinations which support the Push Notification feature. We set the token under context.device.token.

An example of setting the device-token is as below:

RudderClient.putDeviceToken(<DEVICE_TOKEN>);

Configuring your RudderStack Client

You can configure your client based on the following parameters by passing them in the RudderConfigBuilder object of your RudderClient.getInstance() call.

Parameter Type Description Default Value
logLevel int Controls how much of the log you want to see from the Flutter SDK. RudderLogger.RudderLogLevel.NONE
endPointUri string URL of your data-plane. Please refer above to see how to fetch the data plane URL. https://api.rudderlabs.com
flushQueueSize int Number of events in a batch request to the server. 30
dbThresholdCount int Number of events to be saved in the SQLite database. Once the limit is reached, older events are deleted from the DB. 10000
sleepTimeout int Minimum waiting time to flush the events to the server. 10 seconds
configRefreshInterval int It will fetch the config from dashboard after this many hours. 2
trackLifecycleEvents boolean Whether SDK will capture application life cycle events automatically. true
controlPlaneUrl string This parameter should be changed only if you are self-hosting the Control Plane. Check the section Self-Hosted Control Plane below for more information. The SDK will add /sourceConfig along with this URL to fetch the configuration. https://api.rudderlabs.com

Self-Hosted Control Plane

If you are using a device mode destination like Adjust, Firebase, etc., the Flutter SDK needs to fetch the required configuration from the Control Plane. If you are using the Control Plane Lite utility to self-host your Control Plane, then follow this guide and specify controlPlaneUrl in yourRudderConfig.Builder that points to your hosted source configuration file.

{% hint style="warning" %} You shouldn't pass the controlPlaneUrl parameter during SDK initialization if you are using the RudderStack dashboard from https://app.rudderstack.com. This parameter is supported only if you are using the open-source Control Plane Lite utility to set up your own Control Plane. {% endhint %}

Debugging

If you run into any issues regarding the RudderStack Flutter SDK, you can turn on the VERBOSE or DEBUG logging to find out what the issue is.

First, make sure you import RudderLogger with the below command:

import 'package:rudder_sdk_flutter/RudderLogger.dart';

Then to turn on the logging, change your RudderClient initialization to the following:

RudderConfigBuilder builder = RudderConfigBuilder();
builder.withDataPlaneUrl(DATA_PLANE_URL);
builder.withLogLevel(RudderLogger.VERBOSE);
RudderClient.getInstance(WRITE_KEY,
                          config: builder.build());

You can set the log level to one of the following values:

  1. NONE
  2. ERROR
  3. WARN
  4. INFO
  5. DEBUG
  6. VERBOSE

FAQs

How do I get the user traits after making an identify call?

You can get the user traits after making an identify call in the following way:

Map context = await RudderClient.getRudderContext();
print(context["traits"]);

Contact Us

In case of any queries, you can always contact us, or feel free to open an issue on our GitHub Issues page in case of any discrepancy. You can also start a conversation on our Slack channel; we will be happy to talk to you!