Session Replay iOS Segment Integration

This article covers the installation of Session Replay using the Session Replay iOS Segment plugin. If your app is already instrumented with Segment using their Analytics-Swift library and Amplitude (Actions) destination, use this option.

If your app is already instrumented with an Amplitude iOS SDK, use the Session Replay iOS SDK Plugin.

If you use Segment using other options, choose the standalone implementation.

Session Replay captures changes to an app's view tree, this means the main view and all it's child views recursively. It then replays these changes to build a video-like replay. For example, at the start of a session, Session Replay captures a full snapshot of the app's view tree. As the user interacts with the app, Session Replay captures each change to the view as a diff. When you watch the replay of a session, Session Replay applies each diff back to the original view tree in sequential order, to construct the replay. Session replays have no maximum length.

Before you begin

Use the latest version of the Session Replay iOS Segment Plugin above 0.1.3.

The Session Replay iOS Segment Plugin requires that:

1. Your application runs on iOS or iPadOS.
2. You are using Segment's Analytics-Swift library for ingestion.
3. You are using Segment's Amplitude (Actions) destination
4. You are using Segment's Amplitude Plugin

Supported iOS versions

Session replay supports a minimum target version of iOS 13. Over 91% of Apple devices are running iOS 16 or later, per App Store statistics.

Quickstart

Add the latest version of the plugin to your project dependencies.

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/amplitude/AmplitudeSessionReplay-iOS", .branch("main"))
]

.product(name: "AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin", package: "AmplitudeSessionReplay")

pod 'AmplitudeSessionReplay', :git => 'https://github.com/amplitude/AmplitudeSessionReplay-iOS.git'
pod 'AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin', :git => 'https://github.com/amplitude/AmplitudeSessionReplay-iOS.git'

Configure your application code:

import AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin
import Segment
import SegmentAmplitude
 
// Initialize Segment
let analytics = Analytics(configuration: config)
 
// Ensure Segment's AmplitudeSession plugin is added before AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin
analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSession())
 
// Initialize AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin with your Amplitude API key
analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                              sampleRate: 0.1))

Pass the following option when you initialize the Session Replay plugin:

Remote configuration

Enable remote configuration to set Sample Rate and Masking Level in Amplitude.

Block on-screen data

Session Replay supports three ways to block sensitive on-screen data.

Mask level

Session Replay for iOS supports three levels of masking, configurable with the the maskLevel config option.

Use this option in the Session Replay configuration.

Privacy methods for UIKit

Session Replay provides an extension on UIView to manage privacy. Import the Session Replay library to access it.

import AmplitudeSessionReplay

Privacy Modifiers for SwiftUI

Session Replay provides an extension on View to manage privacy. Import the Session Replay Library to access it.

import AmplitudeSessionReplay

User opt-out

Set optOut on the plugin to indicate a user has opted out of session replay.

// Pass a boolean value to indicate a users opt-out status
amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin.optOut = true

EU data residency

Session Replay is available to Amplitude Customers who use the EU data center. Set the serverZone configuration option to EU during initialization. For example:

// Set serverZone on the AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin
let plugin = AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                     sampleRate: 0.1,
                                                     serverZone: .EU)

Sampling rate

By default, Session Replay captures 0% of sessions for replay. Use the sampleRate configuration option to set the percentage of total sessions that Session Replay captures. For example:

To set the sampleRate consider the monthly quota on your Session Replay plan. For example, if your monthly quota is 2,500,000 sessions, and you average 3,000,000 monthly sessions, your quota is 83% of your average sessions. In this case, to ensure sampling lasts through the month, set sampleRate to .83 or lower.

Keep the following in mind as you consider your sample rate:

• When you reach your monthly session quota, Amplitude stops capturing sessions for replay.
• Session quotas reset on the first of every month.
• Use sample rate to distribute your session quota over the course of a month, rather than using your full quota at the beginning of the month.
• To find the best sample rate, Amplitude recommends that you start low, for example .01. If this value doesn't capture enough replays, raise the rate over the course of a few days. For ways to monitor the number of session replays captured, see View the number of captured sessions.
• Replays with processing errors don't count toward your monthly quota. Replays with a retention error message have already been counted against the quota, when the session was still in the retention period.

// This configuration samples 1% of all sessions
amplitude.add(plugin: AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                              sampleRate: 0.01))

Disable replay collection

Once enabled, Session Replay runs on your app until either:

• The user leaves your app
• You call analytics.remove(plugin: amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin)

Call analytics.remove(plugin: amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin) before a user navigates to a restricted area of your app to disable replay collection while the user is in that area.

Call amplitude.add(plugin: amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin) to re-enable replay collection when the return to an unrestricted area of your app.

You can also use a feature flag product like Amplitude Experiment to create logic that enables or disables replay collection based on criteria like location. For example, you can create a feature flag that targets a specific user group, and add that to your initialization logic:

import AmplitudeSwift
import AmplitudeSwiftSessionReplayPlugin
 
// Your existing initialization logic with Segement
let analytics = Analytics(configuration: config)
analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSession())
 
if (nonEUCountryFlagEnabled) {
  // Create and Install Session Replay Plugin
  let amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin = AmplitudeSwiftSessionReplayPlugin(sampleRate: 0.1)
  analytics.add(plugin: amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin)
}

Web view support (Beta)

By default, Session Replay blocks web views in a capture. To enable capture of WebView components, use the settings described in Block on-screen data.

Map View Support (Alpha)

Session Replay supports capturing map views in iOS applications. To enable map view capture, unmask the map view in your implementation.

Data retention, deletion, and privacy

Session replay uses existing Amplitude tools and APIs to handle privacy and deletion requests.

Retention period

If your Amplitude plan includes Session Replay, Amplitude retains raw replay data for 30 days from the date of ingestion.

If you purchase extra session volume, Amplitude retains raw replay data for 90 days from the date of ingestion. If you need a more strict policy, contact Amplitude support to set the value to 30 days.

Changes to the retention period impact replays ingested after the change. Sessions captured and ingested before a retention period change retain the previous retention period.

Retention periods are set at the organization level. Replays that are outside of the retention period aren't viewable in Amplitude.

DSAR API

The Amplitude DSAR API returns metadata about session replays, but not the raw replay data. All events that are part of a session replay include a [Amplitude] Session Replay ID event property. This event provides information about the sessions collected for replay for the user, and includes all metadata collected with each event.

{
  "amplitude_id": 123456789,
  "app": 12345,
  "event_time": "2020-02-15 01:00:00.123456",
  "event_type": "first_event",
  "server_upload_time": "2020-02-18 01:00:00.234567",
  "device_id": "your device id",
  "user_properties": { ... }
  "event_properties": {
    "[Amplitude] Session Replay ID": "cb6ade06-cbdf-4e0c-8156-32c2863379d6/1699922971244"
  }
  "session_id": 1699922971244,
}

Data deletion

Session Replay uses Amplitude's User Privacy API to handle deletion requests. Successful deletion requests remove all session replays for the specified user.

When you delete the Amplitude project on which you use Session Replay, Amplitude deletes that replay data.

Bot filter

Session Replay uses the same block filter available in the Amplitude app. Session Replay doesn't block traffic based on event or user properties.

Session Replay storage

If a user opts out tracking in your app, use the optOut configuration option to disable replay collection for that user.

Session Replay temporarily stores replay data data on the file system before it is uploaded. At every initialization, the least recent replays are trimmed to bring the total disk usage down to a maximum size.

Known limitations

Keep the following limitations in mind as you implement Session Replay:

• Session Replay doesn't stitch together replays from a single user across multiple projects. For example:

  • You instrument multiple apps as separate Amplitude projects with Session Replay enabled in each.
  • A known user begins on one app, and then switch to another.
  • Amplitude captures both sessions.
  • The replay for each session is available for view in the corresponding host project.

• The User Sessions chart doesn't show session replays if your organization uses a custom session definition.

• Session Replay cannot capture the following iOS views:

  • Out-of-process iOS views, such as SFSafariViewController
  • AVPlayerLayer backed views