1526395 - Consider including `install_date` in ping_info

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Data Platform and Tools :: Glean: SDK, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Frank Bertsch [:frank]]

This date is separate from first_run and could provide some alternative valuable insight that we don't have. The best we can do about installs right now is to look at Google Play data, but that isn't particular for any client. This piece of data could be useful in funnel analysis.

Comment 1

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

Frank, this looks like to be onlt available on Android, and not iOS. Should this be an app metric?

Comment 2

[Frank Bertsch [:frank]]

I think it's worth collecting, especially since we're targeting Android first. But whether it's an app metric is a good question. Do we expect further divergence between platforms? Will Desktop be similarly constrained?

We could consider using a proxy for install_date on platforms that don't support it explicitly.

Could we have it be a baseline ping metric that is only available in android-components/glean? I.e. when we build out the iOS library, have a separate metrics.yaml without the metric?

Comment 3

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

(In reply to Frank Bertsch [:frank] from comment #2)

I think it's worth collecting, especially since we're targeting Android first. But whether it's an app metric is a good question. Do we expect further divergence between platforms? Will Desktop be similarly constrained?

I'm not sure how the story is on desktop :/ I wouldn't be surprised if we had something, but I'm not sure about that.

We could consider using a proxy for install_date on platforms that don't support it explicitly.

This is a good point. I wonder if analysts would be happier to not have the data instead of overloading the field with slightly different approximations :o

Could we have it be a baseline ping metric that is only available in android-components/glean? I.e. when we build out the iOS library, have a separate metrics.yaml without the metric?

yes! We could do that!

Comment 4

[Jan-Erik Rediger [:janerik]]

This is better implemented by an application, especially as it won't apply equally across all target platforms.