Screen Tracking in Firebase Analytics

[Dirk Jo. Bosman]

I have posted this question on Stack Overflow, but one is not allowed lots of text to elaborate there, so in hope for a longer response. Maybe the community is also bigger here, to allow for a more lively discussion :)

I have been reading a bit about Firebase Analytics now, and because it is mostly an event-based data model, I assume one can not do screen tracking directly? I was wandering whether one should then just pass the screen type/name as part of the event's parameter, or possibly as a user property (which I believe is a simpler way of calling custom dimensions) ? Thus all events that are fired on the 'Home' screen would have: content_type_Home=1 ? Does someone have an answer for me, as well as a code example please.

Does this mean if I wanted to log two separate events on the HomeScreen and Listing Screen for instance, the following 2 examples would not work? 1) Event=view_item & content_type Parameter(kParameterContentType, "shop_hp") and 2) Event=view_item: content_type Parameter(kParameterContentType, "shop_listing"). That way I have a more granular view if I wanted to filter on the event's parameter and can re-use the same code, by editing the content_type only. The drill-down will have to be on content_type in BigQuery right ? Would the latter example work? Also, if I wanted to add one level deeper insights to some events in our funnel, could my above 'content_type'-code work when applied to the following use case where the 'Add-item' and 'ProceedtoCheckout'-event is on the same "screen"? The funnel would then be: HP ("shop_hp" screen) >> Listing ("shop_listing" screen) >> Shop ("shop_detail" screen) >> Add Item to Cart - event ("shop_detail" screen) >> Proceed to Checkout ("shop_detail" screen) >> Order Success ("shop_order" screen). The idea is to fire events with parameters that captures the screen name, as well as for instance a particular different action that occurred on that screen (i.e. Add-item mentioned above), and thereafter form the funnel for  screens & actions on that screen independently.  Thanks in advance :)

[Steve Ganem]

Hi Dirk,

Currently, Firebase Analytics does not offer a screen tracking feature.  The closest approximation in Firebase is the Funnels feature, and you would log an event for each screen.  However, since you cannot specify parameters in your funnel definition, you would have to have an event for each screen.  So, "screen_home", "screen_shop", "screen_shop_detail", etc.  

That said, we are carefully considering a screen tracking feature.