What is the Mars Android SDK?

The Mars Android SDK allows you to

1. Track event data from your app. It can be easily integrated into your Android application.

2. Run Incentive programs

You can check the GitHub codebase if you want to get more hands on or keen to know the SDK architecture

SDK setup requirements

To set up the Mars Android SDK, there are a few prerequisites as mentioned below:

• You will need to set up a Mars Account

• Once signed up, your Android source MARS_SDK_API_KEY will appear in the Dashboard, as shown:

• You will also need to install Android Studio on your system.

Installing the SDK

We distribute our Android SDK through Bintray. This is the recommended way to use our SDK is through Android Gradle build system. It's the easiest way to add the SDK to your project.

To add the dependencies, perform the following steps:

1. Open your app/build.gradle (Module: app) file, and add the following lines of code:

   repositories {
       maven {
           url  "https://dl.bintray.com/marax-ai/mars-sdk-android-core"
       }
   }

2. Add the dependency under dependencies as shown:

   implementation 'ai.mars.android.sdk:mars-sdk-core:0.1.4'
   // add the follwing line if you don't have Gson included already
   implementation 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.6'

​

Initializing the Mars client

Add the following code to the onCreate method in your Application class:

MarsClient marsClient = MarsClient.getInstance(
        this,
        "MARS_SDK_API_KEY",
        new MarsConfig.Builder()
                .withLogLevel(MarsLogger.MarsLogLevel.DEBUG)
                .withTrackLifecycleEvents(true)
                .withRecordScreenViews(true)
                .build()
);

​

Setting the Android permission

Add this line to your AndroidManifest.xml file of your application for internet permission:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

Push Notification Support via Firebase

If you are using push notification as outbound channel, you need to configure your firebase service to allow Mars SDK to use refreshed tokens

In your FirebaseMessagingService Override onNewToken

@Override
public void onNewToken(String token) {
    marsClient.registerDevice(token, FirebaseInstanceId.getInstance().getId());
    // Add the above line
    ...
}

In-App Notification Support

If you are running campaigns with In App nudges, you need to configure your firebase service to allow Mars SDK to capture messages

@Override
    public void onMessageReceived(RemoteMessage remoteMessage) {
        marsClient.captureMessage(remoteMessage);
        // Add the above line
    }

Mars Offers and Incentive Programs

Mars SDK provides inbuilt functionality to display incentive programs and all the offers from mars campaigns with a webview.

An example of this implementation is as shown:

Button showAllMaraxOffersButton = findViewById(R.id.maraxAllOffersButton);
showAllMaraxOffersButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
    @Override
    public void onClick(View v) {
        WebView myWebView = marsClient.drawOfferView(YourActivity.this);
        setContentView(myWebView);
    }
});

An sample view is as shown

Building/ Integrating with your own offers view

If you have native offers view and wants to add mars offers and rewards on your native view, the data can be retrieved as shown:

MarsReward[] marsRewards = marsClient.getMarsRewards();

​

Applying offers and order validation

In order to apply or validate any offers, send details of your order as MarsOrder

// Create a reward Object
MarsReward reward =  new MarsReward("a123", null, null, "monetory", "scratch-card", null, "FLAT20", "marax");
​
// Create a order object
MarsOrder order =  new MarsOrder(new ArrayList<MarsOrder.Product>(), new ArrayList<MarsOrder.Fulfillment>(), new MarsOrder.CartValue(123,"rupees"),  new MarsOrder.OrderValue(100,"rupees"), "card", new MarsOrder.TotalDiscount(10, "monetory" ), new MarsOrder.FinalPrice(300, "rupees" ), reward);
​
// Process the order updation
MarsProcessedOrder processedOrder = getMarsClient().processOrderUpdate(order);
​
// Access the information required from the processedOrder like so
MarsOrder  updatedOrder = processedOrder.getOrder()
String orderToken = processedOrder.getToken()
String orderProcessingError = processedOrder.getError()
​
​
// Access required data from updatedOrder
​
MarsOrder.CartValue cv = updatedOrder.getCartValue();

See here, to get more info on the Mars Order structure

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:

Map<String,Object> properties = new HashMap<>();
properties.put("test_key_1", "test_value_1");
​
Map<String, String> childProperties = new HashMap<>();
childProperties.put("test_child_key_1", "test_child_value_1");
properties.put("test_key_2", childProperties);
​
marsClient.track(
    new MarsMessageBuilder()
        .setEventName("test_track_event")
        .setUserId("test_user_id")
        .setProperty(properties)
        .build()
);

The track method can be used in two ways:

1. Firstly, you can use TrackPropertyBuilder to create the property object and pass the MarsMessage object with property to track method.

2. Alternatively, you can follow the method signature as below:

We have defined a set of standard events which have special meaning in our system. Check out the specifications for your application and industry.

Identify

Capture deviceId and use that as 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, those will be passed to the successive track or screen calls. To reset the user identification, you can use the reset method.

An example identify event is as shown:

MarsTraits traits = new MarsTraits();
traits.putBirthday(new Date());
traits.putEmail("abc@123.com");
traits.putFirstName("First");
traits.putLastName("Last");
traits.putGender("m");
traits.putPhone("5555555555");
​
MarsTraits.Address address = new MarsTraits.Address();
address.putCity("City");
address.putCountry("USA");
traits.putAddress(address);
​
traits.put("boolean", Boolean.TRUE);
traits.put("integer", 50);
traits.put("float", 120.4f);
traits.put("long", 1234L);
traits.put("string", "hello");
traits.put("date", new Date(System.currentTimeMillis()));
​
marsClient.identify("test_user_id", traits, null);

The identify method can be used in two ways. You can use MarsTraitsBuilder to create the traits object and pass the MarsMessage object with property to the identify method.

Alternatively, you can follow the method signatures below:

OR

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:

marsClient.screen(
        "MainActivity",
        "HomeScreen",
        new MarsProperty().putValue("foo", "bar"),
        null
);

The screen method can be used in two ways. Firstly, you can use MarsPropertyBuilder and pass property in MarsMessage, and use the screen method to track a screen view action.

Alternatively, you can use the following method signature:

Reset

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

marsClient.reset();

Configuring your Mars client

You can configure your client based on the following parameters using MarsConfig.Builder:

Debugging

If you run into any issues regarding the Mars Android SDK, you can turn on the VERBOSE or DEBUG logging to find out what the issue is. To turn on the logging, change your MarsClient initialization to the following:

MarsClient marsClient = MarsClient.getInstance(
    this,
    MARS_SDK_API_KEY,
    new MarsConfig.Builder()
        .withEndPointUri(YOUR_DATA_PLANE_URL)
        .withLogLevel(MarsLogger.MarsLogLevel.DEBUG)
        .build()
);

FAQs

What is the Android version required to set up the Mars Android SDK?

We currently support API 14: Android 4.0 (IceCreamSandwich) or higher.

I don't have an Application class to initialize my Mars client. What do I do?

Please follow our Adding an Application class to your Android Application guide to add an Application class.

How do I set the Android permissions?

Please refer to the Setting the Android Permission section above to do this.

Can I use the library with Maven?

Yes, you can use the library with maven.

<dependency>
  <groupId>ai.mars.android.sdk</groupId>
  <artifactId>mars-sdk-core</artifactId>
  <version>0.1.4</version>
  <type>pom</type>
</dependency>

Contact us

In case of any queries, you can reach out to us at engineering@marax.ai, or feel free to open an issue on our GitHub Issues page in case of any discrepancy.