Appcenter: Report custom properties in Analytics

[futuretap]

Custom properties can be set using the AppCenter.setCustomProperties() API. Unfortunately, these properties are not reported in App Center (they were used for push notifications to segment audiences).

It would be useful to report bits of information independent from events. Examples include:

• Is the device set to dark mode?
• The standard font size specified in device settings
• Certain accessibility settings such as VoiceOver enabled

Those settings are user-specific but are not tied to an event that occurs in the app. That's why they should be treated like the OS version, the hardware model or the user language which are currently reported in App Center.

Since the API is already there, nothing would have to change in the SDK. Only the App Center should be modified to display the custom properties. Preferably, that should be added under Analytics > Overview in a similar manner as custom event properties are displayed.

Bonus points if the custom properties could be displayed in a graph that shows changes over time.

Alternatively, we could track a pseudo event with custom properties. However, since user configuration data is not really an event, this approach seems wrong.

[sylvanaar]

How are they different from event properties in the analytics module? Those events carry all that extra information in each event. There isn't another scope - each event carries all the information OS, hardware, etc.. So perhaps you are asking to include that information in the top-level event? Or include it in all events automatically? You could write a wrapper to do that.

I think the top-level properties are part of a schema somewhere - so I doubt you could change them, but count me in if you can! Dealing with custom properties is a pain

[futuretap]

@sylvanaar indeed, I'm interested in exposing these properties on the top level Analytics Overview. Adding them to every event would certainly be possible using a wrapper. However, it would give us the percentage of a certain property for occurrences of that event, which is different from the percentage of all users.

[futuretap]

Why was this closed? Has this been implemented?

[akamenev]

Thank you for the feature request! Currently, we are focusing on improving the reliability and performance of the service and new feature work is significantly reduced. To keep the team focused we are closing feature requests with no activity in the past 30-60 days. If you believe this is still relevant, feel free to create a new issue and tag this item so that we can review it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[futuretap]

More than an inconvenience. Please simply reopen this as it is still relevant.

Having to open a new ticket every 60 days doesn't make any sense and is certainly not what I'll be doing. It's your product after all and you decide whether to ignore or accept feature suggestions of your user base.

[Tommigun1980]

Thank you for the feature request! Currently, we are focusing on improving the reliability and performance of the service and new feature work is significantly reduced. To keep the team focused we are closing feature requests with no activity in the past 30-60 days. If you believe this is still relevant, feel free to create a new issue and tag this item so that we can review it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

@akamenev But this is absolutely mandatory functionality. How are we supposed to use these products professionally if basic functionality is missing? Also please stop closing these tickets. We, the developers spend a lot of time creating them so just closing them at will to “keep your team focused”, while throwing away the work we put into these tickets, is not a good practice and borderline insulting.

Thank you.

[Tommigun1980]

@akamenev Is it really Microsoft policy to just close tickets at will, as it really disincentivizes from creating tickets? Care to elaborate on the policy?

Thank you.