The SDK Platform: Showing CX surveys in-app

In this article:

• What is an SDK?
• Customizing and configuring the SDK platform.
• Setting up the Delighted SDK — Developers' Guide.
• Previewing the Delighted SDK survey.
• Testing the SDK platform.

FAQs

• What are the benefits of using the Delighted SDK?
• What operating systems are supported?
• Can I make adjustments once my project is live?

Suggested next article: CocoaPods

What is an SDK?

Your app affords a tremendous opportunity to surface customer feedback — in real time. 

Delighted's SDK is a set of tools for developers to help integrate Delighted CX into your iOS or Android app. Instead of hammers and nails, our SDK toolkit includes:  

• Libraries
• Accessible and updated documentation
• Tutorials
• Helpful code samples
• Debugging tools
• Clear versioning
• And more!

Is the Delighted SDK a solid solution for your needs?

Implementing the Delighted SDK is a straightforward process. Still, there are two prerequisites:

• Does your company have an iOS or Android app?
• Is there a software developer with the necessary bandwidth?

If the answer is yes, then the Delighted SDK is a good bet!

Keeping developers in mind

Leveraging countless SDKs ourselves made us highly conscious of the developer experience. Consequently, it's our commitment to make our SDK one of the best available.

Our team was hyper focused on creating a dependable SDK that is instructive, not limiting, and enjoyable to work with.

Are you a developer?

Feel free to review this next section for context, or skip to our technical documentation.

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Customizing and configuring the SDK platform

Getting your SDK survey customized takes just a few minutes, and involves setting a handful of configurations around branding, survey copy, and survey placement behavior. 

Starting and customizing

To start the configuration process:

1

Click “Edit and send”

2

Choose “Set up” → seen under the under the SDK platform tile

2

Adjust your visual customizations → and click "Save changes." (See a detailed list of options below) 

Brand/product name	Set the brand or product name used in the survey question
Brand color	Set the color of the survey buttons
Presentation style	Set either a centered modal or a card popping up from the bottom of the screen
Presentation shape	Set either rounded or squared corners for the survey display
Button style	Set the style of the survey buttons (ex. filled or outlined)
Button shape	Set the shape of the survey buttons
Question customization	Set the question prompted to users in-app
Advanced customization	Set the language of the survey

Not seeing a change in the button style change?

If you're using an icon-based survey type, such as Smileys or 5-star, the button style won't affect your first question. However, it will affect any Additional Questions that you may add!

Configuring your options

The SDK offers a number of turnkey configurations for surveying visitors to your app:

Survey a user of your app once	Survey a sample of app users, either focusing on all users, or only those who are returning. We’ll survey customers once, and then never again
Periodically survey users of your app	Survey app users either immediately, or at a delay, after subscription with your service. Since you may want a constant pulse of feedback from your customer base, this configuration offers an optional recurring survey to app users on a regular, ongoing basis (ex. every 3 months)
Survey a user after a transaction or event	Survey all app users that land on a particular page of your app. We recommend placing it on a post-transaction page — such as where you show a receipt after a purchase

To configure your SDK:

1

Pick your survey option from the list

2

Adjust your configuration settings as seen below

3

Click "Next: Add SDK"

About source, published SDK code, and your Delighted ID

Pick the support code you need, either for GitHub, CocoaPods, or snag your Delighted ID.

And don't forget to click "Turn on" before leaving the page.

4

Don't forget to click the Turn on button! If that isn't enabled, your Mobile SDK will  not display.

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Setting up the Delighted SDK — Developers' Guide

Finishing the setup of Delighted's SDK requires just a few steps — including importing a framework and installing the applicable code to your app. Also, as with any SDK app build, you'll want to effectively test, debug, and continue to refine your surveys over time. 

iOS Devices

Requirements

• Xcode 10.1
• Apps targeting iOS 11.0 or greater
• Note: The Delighted iOS SDK is designed for iPhone's portrait mode. Support for other iOS devices is not available at this time

Swift Versions

• Swift 4
• Swift 4.2
• Swift 5

Dependencies

• Starscream (Used for WebSocket support)

Installation

You'll use CocoaPods to finalize your setup of the SDK. CocoaPods is a package dependency manager, which makes it easy to add, remove, and update libraries that are critical for the development of iOS applications. The full details for installation with CocoaPods can be found here.

Android Devices

Installation

See full details in our Developer documentation.

Maven

The easiest way to install Delighted SDK on your app is to add a dependency to the SDK in your build.gradle.

Delighted SDK is available through a Maven repository on S3, and you will need to instruct Gradle to use this repo. Provide the Maven coordinates for the SDK with the latest version. A list of released versions are available on our Github releases page.

Direct dependency on the AAR file

If you do not want to use Maven, you can download the AAR file from our Github releases page and import it into Android Studio.

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Previewing the Delighted SDK survey

iOS Devices

The Delighted SDK platform gives you the ability to view the survey on your actual mobile device (as opposed to a rendering on our website). With this advanced preview, your team will be able to view, fine-tune, and interact with the mobile survey.

To preview your SDK survey's customization, download the Delighted iOS app. Log into Delighted, so the next steps are as seamless as possible and then head to your customization section for the iOS SDK:

Grab your iOS device and follow these steps:

1

Open the Camera app 

2

Using the rear-facing camera:

• Position the viewfinder so the QR code is fully in frame and sharp
• Your iOS device will recognize the QR code and display a notification

3

Tap the notification → and open the Delighted link associated with the QR code

You're all set to preview on your iOS device!

Android Devices

The Android SDK includes a sample app, with an example of each survey type. By default, this app uses a Delighted Demo for its survey repository.

To update the sample app to show a survey from your Delighted project, your Developers will update the  delightedId to reference your survey's delightedId , which can be found after configuring the SDK. Changes made will be immediately reflected in the sample app.

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Testing the SDK platform

With Delighted's SDK, there are a number of conditional checks around eligibility (ex. throttling, delays, etc.) that are applied prior to rendering the survey in-app. During testing stages, it can be helpful to bypass those conditions to force a display and view the survey immediately.

To bypass the previously noted conditional checks, use  testMode which is a parameter that will force the user to bypass all checks and will result in the surveying appearing:

let eligibilityOverrides = EligibilityOverrides( 
    testMode: true ) Delighted.survey(delightedID: "mobile-sdk-xxxxxxxxx", eligibilityOverrides: eligibilityOverrides)<br>
	

To remove any responses collected during the testing phase, ask any account Admin to tackle the deletions from the Permalink pages.

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What are the benefits of the Delighted SDK?

Delighted's SDK offers the easiest and fastest paths for integrating Delighted CX projects within your app environment. No need to spend excessive engineering bandwidth on development or require expertise on the Delighted platform.

Here are just a few of the benefits your development team will actualize by leveraging the Delighted SDK:

Benefits of using in-app surveys

Delighted's SDK creates an opportunity to run in-app surveys. Here's two additional benefits worth a mention: 

SDK in-app use cases

Delighted's SDK makes it super simple to blend surveys seamlessly into your app experience, collecting feedback in a way that feels more like an extension of your app rather than an interruption. You'll unlock a degree of contextual feedback that is miles beyond what would historically be possible with traditional Web and Email surveys — meeting customers in your app, where they're most likely to be interacting with your product/brand on a regular basis.

With the SDK, your team can roll-out in-app surveys to cover a range of use cases:

• Gather contextual feedback about the app and in-app features to influence your product roadmap
• Identify and address dissatisfied customers early, providing an opportunity for outreach prior to your app users dropping negative public-facing feedback
• Blend in CTAs to push your most enthusiastic and satisfied customers to app stores, review pages, and other third-party apps
• Treat surveys as a feature of the app, such as a Learning Management System (LMS) prompting students to evaluate each course

These use cases just scratch the surface of what's truly possible with our full development kit at your team's disposal. Delighted surveys have never been more adaptable to your team's requirements — providing a truly frictionless way to capture feedback in your app.

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What operating systems are supported?

Delighted's SDK is supported by iOS and Android devices.

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Can I make adjustments once my project is live?

Yes!

Adjustments made in the dashboard will be reflected in your iOS app in near real-time. If you're overriding any Options shown above, you'll need to make updates to that code specifically (i.e., adjustments in the UI will continue to be overridden by the custom code).

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