Request for Event Schema Guidance: Adobe Mobile SDK with Processing Rules & Migration to AEP

[jaishal]

Hi Adobe Community,

My organization currently uses Adobe Experience Cloud services and the Adobe Mobile SDK to send data via Processing Rules. I’m looking for documentation or examples of the event schema used in this setup—specifically how events are structured and sent to Adobe Analytics or other services.

Additionally, we’re planning a future migration to Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) using Adobe Experience Platform Edge Network (AEP). I’d like to understand the equivalent XDM event schema structure for this implementation—how events are defined, what standard/custom field groups are typically used, and how to construct and send these events using the Mobile SDK.

Any guidance, schema samples, or best practices would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

I wish I could offer some advice... honestly, we don't have any plans to move to CJA any time soon, so we cheated and used the Adobe Data model instead of full XDM schemas... leaving most of our old context variable code in place, and continue to use Processing Rules... 

[jaishal]

Do you have documentation or any adobe documentation for current context data variable event schema for all events and eVars with you?

[Jennifer_Dungan]

The best part about using the Adobe Data model, I didn't actually have to configure a true schema... I just created a basic empty schema, lol

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/implementation/aep-edge/data-var-mapping

This is literally my schema... it only has the stuff that is automatically there when its created:

There are two ways to go about using the Data Model... if you want to keep your trackState and trackAction calls, I believe you can use the Edge Bridge extension.

We actually changed our implementation to SendEvent, since we did want to make use of a few features that could only work using the newer sendEvent (such as collecting referrer data for our Universal Links).

But basically, we pass a few things into the XDM (like the ECID, pageName, etc) and the rest through the Adobe Data model (using our existing context variable formatting and existing rules - with a few minor adjustments).

Note, somehow we ended up with 2 XDMs (one with some of our custom data, like app name) which shows here, but the standard one with the ECID doesn't show up... but we can see the results in the raw data and in the post-processing.

[jaishal]

This is great and thanks for this information @Jennifer_Dungan 

Do you have custom events as well as Out of the box variables and events that are available in Adobe Analytics from Adobe Mobile SDK and Also AEP from AEP mobile SDK. I am trying to create a comprehensive list of all variables available in Adobe analytics and their equivalent variable and metric in AEP as the names might be changed. Is there a documentation or list somewhere we can leverage?

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Yes, we have custom events... our implementation is a mix of events tied to s.product usage:

And the rest are mapped using Processing Rules.

The thing is, my solution really only works with AA... since it uses the specific Adobe Analytics data model... if you need the data to actually be in the platform for use with other Adobe products like CJA, this won't work....

[jaishal]

Okay do we have an official Adobe documentation which showcases all standard events, out of the box events in Adobe analytics as well as AEP CJA ?

[Jennifer_Dungan]

I don't know if there is a full list...

Standard Events would be things like:

• Purchase
• Add to Cart
• Remove from Cart
• Cart Views 
• Checkout
• Launch Event (app only)
• Crash Event (app only)

But when it comes to custom events, AA has 1000 (depending on your contract) events available to set to you own purpose... 

And with CJA derived fields, you can create metrics from dimensions... 

[Vinay_Chauhan]

Hi @jaishal 

Great question, you’re essentially comparing two different models -

1. Current (Mobile SDK + Processing Rules --> Adobe Analytics)

• With the Mobile SDK today, data is sent as context data / variables and transformed using Processing Rules before it lands in Adobe Analytics.

• There isn’t a fixed “event schema” in this model - events are just hits with key/value pairs that get mapped to Analytics variables (eVars, props, events, etc.).

2. Future (AEP Edge + XDM schemas)

• When you move to AEP and the Edge Network, events must conform to an XDM schema.

• The base is the XDM ExperienceEvent class (includes fields like _id, timestamp, and an identityMap).

• You extend this with field groups:

  • Standard ones like Mobile Lifecycle Details, Commerce Details, Device / App Information, etc.

  • Custom field groups for business-specific in-app actions or attributes.

• The Adobe Mobile SDK for Edge lets you send structured xdm payloads.