Android Application Observability | Germain Documentation

📊 Android Application Observability

🌐 Overview

GermainUX provides real-time monitoring and analytics for native Android applications through the GermainUX Mobile App library.

It helps teams understand:

Area
How users interact with the application
Which screens and features are used
Where business processes become slow or ineffective
Which crashes and exceptions affect users
How application launches and transactions perform
Which devices, operating-system versions, and application releases are affected
Whether device or system conditions contribute to an issue

The precise telemetry available depends on the Android version, application architecture, permissions, and GermainUX configuration.

👥 Real User Monitoring

GermainUX can capture Android user sessions and associate application activity with the corresponding user experience.

Available session information can include:

Session Info
Session start and end
Session duration
Application version
Device and operating-system context
Application foreground and background activity
Screens and fragments visited
User and application events
Transactions
Crashes and exceptions

Use an anonymous or pseudonymous identifier unless a user identity is required and approved for collection.

🚀 Application Lifecycle Monitoring

GermainUX can monitor application lifecycle events such as:

Event
First launch
Application startup
Launch duration
Application entering the foreground
Application entering the background
Application restart
Application termination
Application removal from recent applications, when detectable
Low-memory events

These events help teams analyze startup performance, application stability, and the circumstances preceding a crash or interrupted session.

💥 Crash and Exception Monitoring

Unhandled exceptions

GermainUX can capture unhandled exceptions that cause the Android application to crash.

Crash information can include:

Crash Field
Exception type
Error message
Stack trace
Timestamp
Application version
Device and Android version
Active screen or fragment
Related user session
Events and transactions preceding the crash

This information helps identify which failures affect the most users and whether a crash was introduced by a specific application release.

🔧 Handled exceptions

Applications can report handled exceptions to GermainUX through the Mobile App library.

Handled exceptions should be collected selectively. Report failures that have technical or business significance rather than every internally handled condition.

🖼 Screen and Fragment Monitoring

GermainUX can monitor the lifecycle, usage, and performance of configured activities, screens, views, and fragments.

Analysis can include:

Metric
Screen visits
Screen duration
Navigation paths
Fragment activity
Screen-loading transactions
Errors associated with a screen
Usage by application version or device type
Entry and exit points

This helps identify frequently used features, ineffective navigation, slow screens, and areas where users abandon a process.

📈 Transaction Monitoring

Use transactions to measure important application operations, including:

Operation
Application startup
Authentication
Data synchronization
Search
Form submission
Record creation or update
Network requests
Local database operations
File processing
Checkout or payment workflows
Custom application functions

Depending on the operation and application implementation, custom instrumentation may be required to define transaction boundaries and report success, failure, duration, and relevant context.

Transaction data can include:

Transaction Data
Start and completion time
Duration
Success or failure
Error information
Application and device context
Related user session
Custom business attributes

💼 Business-Process Monitoring

GermainUX can reconstruct business processes from configured screens, events, and transactions.

Examples include:

Process
Login
Customer onboarding
Account registration
Product search
Order creation
Payment
Form completion
Case management
Field-service activity
Custom employee workflows

For each process, GermainUX can analyze:

Metric
Process volume
Completion and failure rates
Abandonment
End-to-end duration
Step duration
Repeated steps
Unexpected paths
Process overrun
Lost productivity

Business-process visibility depends on the events and transactions instrumented in the application.

⚙️ Application and System Events

The GermainUX Mobile App library can capture configured Android application and system events when permitted by the operating system and application permissions.

Examples include:

Event
Network connectivity changes
Battery state changes
Low-memory conditions
Device restart
Locale or time-zone changes
Power connection changes
Storage conditions
Application installation, replacement, or removal events where available

Android versions restrict access to many system broadcasts and device details. GermainUX can collect only events delivered to the monitored application and permitted by Android.

Capture only the system events relevant to application behavior and support requirements.

📱 Device and Release Analysis

Android telemetry can be analyzed by dimensions such as:

Dimension
Application
Environment
Application version
Android version
Device manufacturer and model
Screen or fragment
Network state
User segment
Geographic region, when collected
Business process
Error or transaction

This helps determine whether an issue is limited to a particular application release, Android version, device model, workflow, or user group.

📊 Dashboards and Analysis

GermainUX dashboards can display:

Dashboard Metric
Active and unique users
Session volume and duration
Application launches
Launch performance
Screen and fragment usage
Transaction volume and duration
Crash and exception rates
Users and sessions affected by errors
Business-process completion and abandonment
Application-version adoption
Performance by device and Android version
Lost productivity

Teams can drill down from aggregated KPIs to individual errors, sessions, events, and transactions.

🔔 Alerts and Reports

Configure alerts for conditions such as:

Alert
Increased crash rate
New unhandled exceptions
Slow application launches
Failed or slow transactions
Increased business-process abandonment
Application-version-specific regressions
Repeated low-memory events
Missing expected application activity

Scheduled reports can summarize:

Report
Users and sessions
Application usage
Performance trends
Crashes and exceptions
Affected application versions and devices
Business-process performance
Changes compared with the previous period

📦 Deployment

Android monitoring requires the GermainUX Mobile App library to be added to the application.

The deployment process includes:

Add the GermainUX library to the Android project.
Configure the GermainUX environment and application identity.
Initialize monitoring during application startup.
Enable the required automatic monitoring features.
Instrument custom events and transactions.
Configure crash and handled-exception reporting.
Apply privacy and exclusion rules.
Build and test the application.
Confirm that telemetry reaches GermainUX.
Release the monitored application through the approved deployment process.

Refer to the Android deployment and configuration pages for implementation details and compatibility requirements.

🔒 Privacy and Security

Before production deployment:

Requirement
Do not collect passwords or authentication tokens.
Exclude payment and sensitive personal information.
Review custom event and transaction attributes.
Use pseudonymous user identifiers where possible.
Avoid capturing sensitive values from exception messages.
Restrict access to user and diagnostic data.
Define appropriate retention periods.
Document the monitoring performed by the application.
Follow applicable consent and regulatory requirements.

✅ Validation

After deploying the monitored application:

Start the application and create a test session.
Navigate through representative screens and fragments.
Execute configured transactions.
Send a controlled handled exception.
Validate crash collection in a safe test environment.
Confirm application, version, device, and environment attributes.
Verify business-process reconstruction.
Confirm that sensitive information is excluded.
Test alerts and scheduled reports.
Compare monitoring overhead with the organization’s performance requirements.

ℹ️ Get Help

The Germain Team can help you set this up. Contact GermainUX Support.

Component: Engine, Mobile App, RUM JS

Feature Availability: 2022.1 or later