Tuesday's Tech Bytes - Tips & tricks in Adobe Web/Mobile SDK Migration (Part 02)

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Hello everyone! Welcome to our second thread on ‘Tuesday's Tech Bytes’. This thread focuses on 'Tips & Tricks in Adobe Web/Mobile SDK Migration' and is the second part associated with the topic. Please head over here to read the first.

Without further ado, let's pick up where we left off last week.

Once Datastream is configured what would be the immediate next step?

The immediate next step is to configure the 'Data Collection Tags' for data collection; however, the configuration steps are somewhat different from the legacy one.

What are the extensions required to implement/migrate Platform Web/Mobile SDK?

It is important to note that the extensions for Web and Mobile are not the same, and hence the tag configuration for this implementation/migration differs. The below extensions are exclusive from the default extensions like Core for Web and Mobile Core & Profile for Mobile.

Extensions for Web:

• Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK (Mandatory)
• Common Web SDK Plugins (Recommended)

Extension for Mobile:

• Adobe Experience Platform Edge Network (Mandatory)
• Identity for Edge Network (Mandatory)
• Consent for Edge Network (Recommended)
• Adobe Experience Platform Assurance (Recommended)
• Adobe Experience Platform Location Service (If required)

While installing the extensions, ensure that legacy extensions such as Experience Cloud ID Service (Web), Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target/V2, and so on are removed.

Is the Platform Mobile SDK not using the Experience Cloud ID Service? If so, how does the visitor migration happen?

If your mobile application previously installed the ‘Identity for Experience Cloud ID Service’ extension and upgrades to the ‘Identity for Edge Network’ extension, the existing ECID value is migrated to the ‘Identity for Edge Network’ extension on the first launch of the application.

However, if the Mobile SDK's privacy status was set to optedOut at the time the application was upgraded, the ‘Identity for Experience Cloud ID Service’ extension will not have an ECID, as it was cleared. In this case, the ‘Identity for Edge Network extension’ will generate a new ECID.

Note that ‘Identity for Experience Cloud ID Service’ is not a separate extension in the ‘Data Collection Tags’ UI but the extension added/registered during the mobile installation (Refer to the below screengrab - com.adobe.marketing.mobile.Identity.EXTENSION).

Is it recommended to use the ‘Identity for Experience Cloud ID Service’ Service extension in addition to the ‘Identity for Edge Network’ extension while migrating to Platform Mobile SDK?

Yes, it is a must to have both ‘Identity for Edge Network’ and ‘Identity for Experience Cloud ID Service’ extensions if you have any Adobe Solutions extensions for your mobile application.

Also, while using both the extensions (Identity for Edge Network and Identity for Experience Cloud ID Service), each manages its own ECID. However, the two ECIDs are synced as part of the XDM IdentityMap.

How do I configure Lifecycle events in Platform Mobile SDK?

Configuring Lifecycle events is part of the Mobile Core extension. Unlike legacy tracking, this extension dispatches application foreground and background events only to the Mobile SDK. To forward these events to the Adobe Experience Platform Edge Network, we need to send the events during the application foreground and background actions.

Steps to configure the same is available here.

My data collection relies on legacy library plugins; is it possible to install plugins for Platform Web SDK?

Yes. ‘Common Web SDK Plugins’ extension can be used with the ‘Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK’ extension for enhanced data collection. For more information, go through the link here.

If I am using Adobe Target, how would the personalized content render on the page while using Platform Web SDK?

Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK supports retrieving personalized content from Adobe personalization solutions, including Adobe Target, Offer Decisioning, and Adobe Journey Optimizer. Additionally, the Web SDK powers same-page and next-page personalization capabilities through Adobe Experience Platform personalization destinations, such as Adobe Target and the custom personalization connection. To learn how to configure Experience Platform for same-page and next-page personalization, see the dedicated guide.

Will Platform Web SDK manage flicker while rendering personalization?

 Yes. Platform Web SDK manages flicker with its below phases:

• Prehiding
• Preprocessing
• Rendering

How do I enable the Platform Web/Mobile SDK beacon for data collection after adding the extensions based on recommended practices?

Legacy extensions would have their own method of triggering beacons; Analytics uses send Beacon (s.t() or s.tl() for Web versus trackState or trackAction for Mobile) method and Target uses the ‘Fire Global Mbox’ method. However, Platform Web/Mobile SDK uses just one method, which is ‘Send event’.

If there is only one method, how do I differentiate between a Page View and a Non-Page View beacon in Adobe Analytics?

Step 1 is to select the proper ‘event type’ while configuring the ‘Send event’ method in ‘Data Collection Tags’.

• For a Page View beacon, set the event type to ‘web.webpagedetails.pageViews’
• For a Non-Page View beacon, set the event type to ‘web.webinteraction.linkClicks’.

Step 2 is to set proper values in the Web Details schema field group while configuring the XDM in ‘Data Collection Tags’.

• For a Page View beacon, ‘web.webPageDetails.pageViews.value’ should be set to 1.
• For a Non-Page View beacon, ‘web.webInteraction.type’ should be set to one of three values: other, download & exit, and ‘web.webInteraction.linkClicks.value’ to 1.

Do I need to create Datasets in Adobe Experience Platform and configure it in 'Data Collection Tags' while triggering the ‘Send event’?

No, Datasets are not mandatory. If you have a license to Adobe Experience Platform, creating Datasets and storing the data in Adobe Experience Platform makes sense, otherwise, it is not necessary. You can ignore those configurations in the ‘Data Collection Tags’ UI.

Other than the ‘Data Collection Tags’ configuration, do I need to configure anything for Platform Web/Mobile SDK data collection?

Yes. For Adobe Analytics, we need to configure Processing Rules to map the XDM Schema to Adobe Analytics Variables. As said in the previous post, some variables are automatically mapped while the rest are to be mapped using Processing Rules. Creating Processing Rules in Adobe Analytics is an important step in data collection, and it is common for both the Web and Mobile.

Once everything is done, how do I validate the Platform Web/Mobile SDK beacon for the variables?

For the Web, the best way to validate the variables is to validate them using Adobe Experience Platform Debugger. We can validate both the variables dispatched from our browser (Network Requests) as well as the variables mapped at the edge (Edge Transactions - Requires Adobe Experience Cloud login).

For the Mobile, the best way to validate the variables is to validate them using Assurance. Same as the web, we can validate both the variables dispatched from our application as well as the variables mapped at the edge using Assurance. 

Once the variables are fine at the client level, what would be my next step?

The next and final step is to validate the numbers at Adobe Solutions such as Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, and so on to make sure that the numbers are in line with the trend.

With this, we are closing our thread on 'Tips & Tricks in Adobe Web/Mobile SDK Migration'. See you all next week with a different theme.