Firebase Analytics - Open and Closed Funnel Tracki

Question

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 ? Much appreciated :)

Answer 1

To add on to Steve's answer: note that since Firebase only provides "open" funnels, this technique only works for a flow where users are forced to go from one screen to the next.

If a screen can be accessed from outside this particular flow, your funnel visualization will be messed up - since the number of users from within that flow and outside of it will be added together, potentially creating a conversion rate of more than 100%.

(That makes open funnels pretty useless IMO, except for very specific use cases.)

Answer 2

Until Screen Tracking and User Flows become available, the closest alternatives are :

1. To log a distinct event for each screen (e.g. "welcome_menu") and to use a Funnel to visualize the flow through a sequence of connected screens.
2. To log a single event (e.g. "screenview") and add a parameter that identifies the screen itself. Note that, since Funnels don't allow you to specify event parameters, you would only be able to view reporting on this through BigQuery at the moment.