Firebase

Step-by-step guide to send your event data from RudderStack to Firebase

Firebase is a popular mobile platform powered by Google. It helps you to quickly develop high-quality, enterprise-grade applications and grow your business.

RudderStack supports Firebase as a mobile device mode destination to which you can seamlessly send your customer data for analytics.

Firebase device mode support is not available for the Cordova and Flutter SDKs.

Getting started

Before configuring Firebase as a destination in RudderStack, verify if the source platform is supported by Firebase by referring to the table below:

Connection Mode	Web	Mobile	Server
Device mode	-	Supported	-
Cloud mode	-	-	-

Firebase is a device mode-only integration. To know more about the difference between cloud mode and device mode in RudderStack, refer to the RudderStack Connection Modes guide.

Once you have confirmed that the source platform supports sending events to Firebase, follow these steps:

1. From your RudderStack dashboard, add a source. Then, from the list of destinations, select Firebase.

2. Assign a name to the destination and click on Next.

Connection settings

Connect this destination to your Android/iOS/Unity/React Native source. You should then see the following screen:

• Client-side Events Filtering: Refer to the Client-side Events Filtering guide for more information on this setting.

As this is a device mode-only integration, click on Next to complete the destination setup.

Adding device mode integration

Depending on your platform of integration, follow the steps below to add Firebase to your project:

Android iOS Unity React NativeUse the latest version of the Firebase Android device mode to get the latest updates, bug fixes, and performance enhancements.Follow these steps to add Firebase to your Android project:

1. Register your mobile app in the Firebase console.
2. Once you have successfully created the app in the Firebase console, you will be prompted to download the google-services.json file.

3. Copy this file in the app folder of your project. It contains all the necessary information about the project and the integration.

4. Add the classpath under dependencies to your project level build.gradle, as shown:

   buildscript {
     repositories {
       google()
     }
     dependencies {
       // add this line
       classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:4.3.3'
     }
   }
5. Now, you can add the plugins and dependencies to your app/build.gradle file, as shown:

   apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
   apply plugin: 'com.google.gms.google-services'
6. Then, add the mavenCentral repository, as shown:

   repositories {
     mavenCentral()
   }
7. Add the RudderStack-Firebase SDK extension along with the core SDK under dependencies, as shown:

   implementation 'com.rudderstack.android.sdk:core:1.+'
   implementation 'com.rudderstack.android.integration:firebase:2.+'
   
   //Firebase
   implementation platform('com.google.firebase:firebase-bom:28.4.2')
   implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-analytics'
8. Next, add the necessary permissions under AndroidManifest.xml, as shown:

   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
9. Finally, change the SDK initialization in your Application class, as shown:

   val rudderClient = RudderClient.getInstance(
       this,
       <SOURCE_WRITE_KEY>,
       RudderConfig.Builder()
           .withDataPlaneUrl(<DATA_PLANE_URL>)
           .withFactory(FirebaseIntegrationFactory.FACTORY)
           .build()
   )

If you're using the Firebase iOS device mode v1.0.2, update to the latest version to get the latest updates, bug fixes, and performance enhancements.Follow these steps to add Firebase to your iOS project:

1. Register your app in the Firebase console. It will then prompt you to download the GoogleServices-Info.plist file.
2. Add the file to the root of your XCode project.

3. Go to your Podfile and add the Rudder-Firebase extension along with the core SDK using the following code:

   pod 'Rudder-Firebase', '~> 2.0.5'
4. Rudder-Firebase version 2.0.5 is tested and fully compatible with Firebase/Analytics version 8.15.0.

5. After adding the dependency followed by the pod install command, you can add the imports to your AppDelegate.m file, as shown:

   #import "RudderFirebaseFactory.h"
6. Finally, change the SDK initialization, as shown in the following snippet:

   RSConfigBuilder *builder = [[RSConfigBuilder alloc] init];
   [builder withDataPlaneUrl:<DATA_PLANE_URL>];
   [builder withFactory:[RudderFirebaseFactory instance]];
   [builder withLoglevel:RSLogLevelDebug];
   [RSClient getInstance:<WRITE_KEY> config:[builder build]];

Follow these steps to add Firebase to your Unity project:

1. Register your project in the Firebase Console. Currently, RudderStack supports only Android and iOS platforms for Unity.
2. After adding the project, Firebase will prompt you to download the google-services.json for Android and GoogleServices-Info.plist for iOS.

3. Add those two files to your project's Assets folder.

4. Integrate the RudderStack core SDK with your project. For more information, refer to the RudderStack Unity SDK documentation.
5. Download and import the Firebase Unity SDK and follow the instructions to add the Firebase SDK (specifically, FirebaseAnalytics.unitypackage) to your project.
6. Download the RudderStack Firebase Extension from the GitHub page and import it in your project.
7. Attach the RudderPreferbs.prefab file from Rudder to your main GameObject

8. Finally, change the SDK initialization using the following code snippet:

   // Build your config
   RudderConfigBuilder configBuilder = new RudderConfigBuilder()
       .WithEndPointUrl(<DATA_PLANE_URL>)
       .WithFactory(RudderFirebaseIntegrationFactory.GetFactory());
   
   // get instance for RudderClient
   RudderClient rudderClient = RudderClient.GetInstance(
       <SOURCE_WRITE_KEY>,
       configBuilder.Build()
   );

Use the latest version of the Firebase React Native device mode to get the latest updates and performance enhancements.

Follow these steps to add Firebase to your React Native project:

1. Register your Android and iOS applications in the Firebase console.
2. Once you have successfully created the applications in the Firebase console, you will be prompted to download the google-services.json and GoogleServices-Info.plist files.

3. Add the RudderStack React Native SDK to your app by referring to the RudderStack ReactNative SDK documentation.
4. Add the RudderStack-Firebase React Native module to your app using the following command:

   npm install @rudderstack/rudder-integration-firebase-react-native
   // OR //
   yarn add @rudderstack/rudder-integration-firebase-react-native
5. Next, import the module you added above and add it to your SDK initialization code as shown:

   import rudderClient from '@rudderstack/rudder-sdk-react-native';
   import firebase from "@rudderstack/rudder-integration-firebase-react-native";
   
   const config = {
       dataPlaneUrl: <DATA_PLANE_URL>,
       trackAppLifecycleEvents: true,
       withFactories: [firebase]
   };
   
   rudderClient.setup(<SOURCE_WRITE_KEY>, config);
6. Navigate to your app's android folder and follow the steps below:

   1. Copy the google-services.json file in the app folder of your Android project. This file contains all the necessary information about the project and the integration.

   2. Add the classpath under dependencies to your project level build.gradle file, as shown:

      buildscript {
        repositories {
          google()
        }
        dependencies {
          // add this line
          classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:4.3.3'
        }
      }
   3. Once you have completed the steps above, you can add the plugins and dependencies to your app/build.gradle file, as shown:

      apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
      apply plugin: 'com.google.gms.google-services'
   4. Then, add the necessary permissions under AndroidManifest.xml, as shown:

      <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
      <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
7. Finally, navigate to your app's iOS folder and follow these steps:

   1. Install all the required pods using the pod install command.

   2. Add the GoogleServices-Info.plist file to the root of your XCode project.

Identify

The identify call sets the userId through the setUserId method from FirebaseAnalytics. RudderStack sets the other user properties from RudderTraits to Firebase using the setUserProperty method.

RudderStack ignores age, gender, and interest, as these properties are reserved by Google.

[[RSClient sharedInstance] identify:@"test_user_id"
                             traits:@{@"foo": @"bar",
                                      @"foo1": @"bar1",
                                      @"email": @"[e-mail]",
                                      @"key_1" : @"value_1",
                                      @"key_2" : @"value_2"
                             }
];

Track

RudderStack's track events are mapped to the standard Firebase events wherever possible.

Event mapping

RudderStack maps the following events to the standard Firebase events:

RudderStack Event	Firebase Event
Payment Info Entered	add_payment_info
Product Added	add_to_cart
Product Added to Wishlist	add_to_wishlist
Application Opened	app_open
Checkout Started	begin_checkout
Order Completed	purchase
Order Refunded	refund
Products Searched	search
Cart Shared	share
Product Shared	share
Product Viewed	view_item
Product List Viewed	view_item_list
Product Removed	remove_from_cart
Product Clicked	select_content
Promotion Viewed	view_promotion
Promotion Clicked	select_promotion
Cart Viewed	view_cart

The following Firebase events are not mapped to any RudderStack event:

• number_of_nights

• number_of_rooms

• number_of_passengers

• origin

• destination

• start_date

• end_date

• travel_class

• item_list_name

• creative_slot

• location_id

• transaction_id

• screen_class

RudderStack passes all the event-related properties to Firebase. The nested values in the properties are converted to JSON using GSON.

Property mapping

RudderStack maps the following event properties to the standard Firebase properties:

RudderStack property	Firebase property
category	item_category
cart_id,product_id	item_id
share_via	method
query	search_term
revenue, value, total	value
currency	currency
tax	tax
shipping	shipping
coupon	coupon
name	name, promotion_name
quantity	quantity
price	price
payment_method	payment_type
list_id	item_list_id
promotion_id	promotion_id
creative	creative_name
affiliation	affiliation

Along with mapping the above list of the standard property names, RudderStack exhibits the following behavior:

• Converts the event names to the lower case.

• Trims the whitespaces at the start and the end.

• Replaces a space with an underscore.

Firebase enforces a strict event name length limit of 40 characters. RudderStack takes a substring of 40 characters (from the beginning) if the event names exceed this permitted value.

A sample track call sent from the iOS SDK is shown below:

[[RSClient sharedInstance] track:@"simple_track_with_props" properties:@{
    @"key_1" : @"value_1",
    @"key_2" : @"value_2"
}];

Screen

The screen method lets you record whenever a user sees their mobile screen along with any optional properties about the viewed screen.

A sample screen call is as shown:

[[RSClient sharedInstance] screen:@"Home Screen"
                              properties:@{
                                  @"Width" : @"13"
                              }];

Reset

The reset method resets the user identification.

A sample reset call is shown below:

iOS Android

[[RSClient getInstance] reset];

RudderClient.getInstance()?.reset()

Debugging

You can check the events and their properties in the Firebase DebugView. To enable it for Android, run the following command from your terminal:

$ adb shell setprop debug.firebase.analytics.app <your_package_name>

For iOS, specify the following in your command line argument in XCode:

-FIRAnalyticsDebugEnabled

FAQ

How do I disable automatic screen tracking while using the RudderStack SDKs?

• For Android, nest the following setting within the <application> tag of your AndroidManifest.xml file:

<meta-data android:name="google_analytics_automatic_screen_reporting_enabled" android:value="false" />

• For iOS, set FirebaseAutomaticScreenReportingEnabled to NO (Boolean) in your Info.plist.

For more information, refer to the Firebase documentation.

Contact us

For queries on any of the sections covered in this guide, you can contact us or start a conversation in our Slack community.