Event Manager
Event Manager lets you view your configured events, and create Custom Events. Events track specific in-game behavior, such as newPlayer (a new installation of the game), and gameEnded (when the game is closed or exited).
What are events?
An event is an action that occurs in your game, such as when the game runs, or when the player does something like finding a treasure or buying an item. Events contain contextual information around that event such as: the item that was obtained, how much currency the player had, and how the item was acquired. These can be customized to suit your game and send useful information to you. Events can be used to measure player engagement, spending, and conversion through Data Explorer and Funnels.
Events provide a snapshot of the players' state at that point and give a point in history that can then be used to build up a behavior of the player. Events are sent as small JSON documents that describe a player action and state.
An event is a collection of parameters that describe a certain point in your game, for example: MissionStarted and MissionCompleted would have the parameters missionID and missionName which describes which mission has started and which has been completed.
Events
Standard Events are events that are ready to use without the need for instrumentation or developer configuration. These events are used to calculate the metrics and KPIs available through Unity Analytics.
Standard Events are triggered when players perform key actions. You can find out things like: How engaged are your players? What are your best performing countries? Which Audiences are underperforming?
The available standard events are:
| Event Name | Description | Trigger type |
|---|---|---|
| aquisitionSource | Record information about the channel that the user was acquired from. This event should be populated with the information available from the attribution provider's SDK. | Requires manual triggering |
| newPlayer | Sent when a new player installs the app on their device. | Automatic |
| gameStarted | Sent at the start of a new session. A new session starts when the user first launches an app. | Automatic |
| gameEnded | Sent when a player exits the game. | Automatic |
| gameRunning | Sent periodically when the app is running to detect session activity. | Automatically every 60 seconds, if no other events have been sent since the last check |
| clientDevice | Records the first time a user launches an app and when device information changes. | Automatic |
| ddnaForgetMe | Records when a player opt outs of data collection. | Automatic |
| adImpression | Available to be sent manually when a player has been shown an ad within the game. | Requires manual triggering |
| transaction | Sent when a player makes an in-app purchase and tracks the purchase amount. Transaction validation can be done via the Unity IAP. | Requires manual triggering |
| transactionFailed | Sent when a player makes an unsuccessful in-app purchase transaction. Successful transactions are tracked by the transaction event. | Requires manual triggering |
| sdkStart | Sent when the SDK initializes. | Automatic |
| notificationOpened | Sent when a Push Notification is opened or a notification was received while the game is in front. | Automatic |
| notificationServices | Records the player’s push notification tokens. | Automatic |
| outOfGameSend | Sent when a Push Notification is sent to a player. | Automatic |
| userAssignment | Automatically assigns a player to a campaign for reporting. | Automatic |
Custom Events
Unity Analytics comes with Standard Events that work without the need for additional configuration. However, you can create Custom Events by downloading and implementing an SDK into your game. The Custom Event creation workflow will be available within the Unity Dashboard and eventually from the Unity Editor.
Note: Legacy Unity Analytics custom events will need to be re-created in the UGS Event Manager for the data they are sending to be received and considered valid by UGS Analytics. Refer to the upgrade guide for more info.
You can see your events in the Unity Dashboard, create and edit custom events, and analyze event performance through the Data Explorer.
Note: The Analytics backend rejects events as invalid under the following scenarios:
- The timestamp the event was collected on the user's device is greater than 30 days earlier than the timestamp of when the event is ingested into the backend service.
- The timestamp the event was collected on the user's device is greater than 24 hours ahead of the timestamp of when the event is ingested into the backend service.
Create a Custom Event through the Unity Dashboard
- Go to the Event Manager and select Add New > Custom Event and give it a name and description. The first character of your event name needs to be a letter, then any alphanumeric character. Underscores are also allowed. You can enable or disable your Custom Event, but not delete.
- You can assign parameters from the Event Manager creation window. Select Assign Parameter > Create New Parameter to create your own. Parameters need a name, description, and data type. The first character of your parameter needs to be a letter, then any alphanumeric character. Underscores are also allowed. Parameters can be edited but not deleted. Data types include string, integer, float, and bool. You can add up to 1,500 parameters to the environment.
- Ensure your event is set to Enabled and that the schema defined in the Dashboard matches the schema defined in your game code.
- You can also create a parameter from the Event Manager page. Select Add New > Custom Parameter and give it a name, description, and type.
View and analyze a Standard or Custom Event through Data Explorer
Data Explorer allows you to visualize standard or custom data over time in a chart and table. You can select associated parameters, and apply dimension and parameters filters. Standard filters are location, platform, version, and Audience.
You can also filter a custom event by its available parameters. Parameters are optional, but unique users are always present to represent the number of unique users that triggered that event on a particular day. A parameter can be of type string, integer, float, and bool.
List of parameters associated with an Event.
You can group the available parameters to get an insight into your game. You can find out things like the most popular level and what difficulty most people like to play at.