If you have not set up the RUM iOS SDK yet, follow the in-app setup instructions or refer to the RUM iOS setup documentation.

Enrich user sessions

iOS RUM automatically tracks attributes such as user activity, screens, errors, and network requests. See the RUM Data Collection documentation to learn about the RUM events and default attributes. You can further enrich user session information and gain finer control over the attributes collected by tracking custom events.

Custom Views

In addition to tracking views automatically, you can also track specific distinct views such as viewControllers when they become visible and interactive. Stop tracking when the view is no longer visible using the following methods in RUMMonitor.shared():

• .startView(viewController:)
• .stopView(viewController:)

For example:

import DatadogRUM

// in your `UIViewController`:
let rum = RUMMonitor.shared()

override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    super.viewDidAppear(animated)
    rum.startView(viewController: self)
}

override func viewDidDisappear(_ animated: Bool) {
  super.viewDidDisappear(animated)
  rum.stopView(viewController: self)
}

@import DatadogObjc;
// in your `UIViewController`:

DDRUMMonitor *rum = [DDRUMMonitor shared];

- (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewDidAppear:animated];

    [rum startViewWithViewController:self name:nil attributes:nil];
}

- (void)viewDidDisappear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewDidDisappear:animated];

    [rum stopViewWithViewController:self attributes:nil];
}

For more details and available options, filter the relevant file on GitHub for the DDRUMMonitor class.

Add your own performance timing

In addition to RUM’s default attributes, you can measure where your application is spending its time by using the addTiming(name:) API. The timing measure is relative to the start of the current RUM view.

For example, you can time how long it takes for your hero image to appear:

func onHeroImageLoaded() {
    let rum = RUMMonitor.shared()
    rum.addTiming(name: "hero_image")
}

- (void)onHeroImageLoad {
    [[DDRUMMonitor shared] addTimingWithName:@"hero_image"];
}

Once you set the timing, it is accessible as @view.custom_timings.<timing_name>. For example, @view.custom_timings.hero_image.

To create visualizations in your dashboards, create a measure first.

Custom Actions

In addition to tracking actions automatically, you can track specific custom user actions (taps, clicks, and scrolls) with the addAction(type:name:) API.

To manually register instantaneous RUM actions such as .tap on RUMMonitor.shared(), use .addAction(type:name:). For continuous RUM actions such as .scroll, use .startAction(type:name:) or .stopAction(type:name:).

For example:

import DatadogRUM

// in your `UIViewController`:

let rum = RUMMonitor.shared()

@IBAction func didTapDownloadResourceButton(_ sender: UIButton) {
    rum.addAction(
        type: .tap,
        name: sender.currentTitle ?? "",
    )
}

- (IBAction)didTapDownloadResourceButton:(UIButton *)sender {
    NSString *name = sender.currentTitle ? sender.currentTitle : @"";
    [[DDRUMMonitor shared] addActionWithType:DDRUMActionTypeTap name:name attributes:@{}];
}

Note: When using .startAction(type:name:) and .stopAction(type:name:), the action type must be the same. This is necessary for the RUM iOS SDK to match an action start with its completion.

Find more details and available options in the DDRUMMonitor class.

Custom Resources

In addition to tracking resources automatically, you can also track specific custom resources such as network requests or third-party provider APIs. Use the following methods on RUMMonitor.shared() to manually collect RUM resources:

• .startResource(resourceKey:request:)
• .stopResource(resourceKey:response:)
• .stopResourceWithError(resourceKey:error:)
• .stopResourceWithError(resourceKey:message:)

For example:

import DatadogRUM

// in your network client:

let rum = RUMMonitor.shared()

rum.startResource(
    resourceKey: "resource-key",
    request: request
)

rum.stopResource(
    resourceKey: "resource-key",
    response: response
)

// in your network client:

[[DDRUMMonitor shared] startResourceWithResourceKey:@"resource-key"
                                            request:request
                                         attributes:@{}];

[[DDRUMMonitor shared] stopResourceWithResourceKey:@"resource-key"
                                          response:response
                                        attributes:@{}];

Note: The String used for resourceKey in both calls must be unique for the resource you are calling. This is necessary for the RUM iOS SDK to match a resource’s start with its completion.

Find more details and available options in the DDRUMMonitor class.

Custom Errors

To track specific errors, notify RUMMonitor when an error occurs with the message, source, exception, and additional attributes. Refer to the Error Attributes documentation.

let rum = RUMMonitor.shared()
rum.addError(message: "error message.")

[[DDRUMMonitor shared] addErrorWithMessage:@"error message." stack:nil source:DDRUMErrorSourceCustom attributes:@{}];

For more details and available options, refer to the code documentation comments in the DDRUMMonitor class.

Track custom global attributes

In addition to the default RUM attributes captured by the RUM iOS SDK automatically, you can choose to add additional contextual information (such as custom attributes) to your RUM events to enrich your observability within Datadog.

Custom attributes allow you to filter and group information about observed user behavior (such as the cart value, merchant tier, or ad campaign) with code-level information (such as backend services, session timeline, error logs, and network health).

Set a custom global attribute

To set a custom global attribute, use RUMMonitor.shared().addAttribute(forKey:value:).

• To add an attribute, use RUMMonitor.shared().addAttribute(forKey: "<KEY>", value: "<VALUE>").
• To update the value, use RUMMonitor.shared().addAttribute(forKey: "<KEY>", value: "<UPDATED_VALUE>").
• To remove the key, use RUMMonitor.shared().removeAttribute(forKey: "<KEY_TO_REMOVE>").

Note: You can’t create facets on custom attributes if you use spaces or special characters in your key names. For example, use forKey: "store_id" instead of forKey: "Store ID".

Track user sessions

Adding user information to your RUM sessions makes it easy to:

• Follow the journey of a given user
• Know which users are the most impacted by errors
• Monitor performance for your most important users

The following attributes are optional, you should provide at least one of them:

To identify user sessions, use the setUserInfo(id:name:email:) API.

For example:

Datadog.setUserInfo(id: "1234", name: "John Doe", email: "john@doe.com")

[DDDatadog setUserInfoWithId:@"1234" name:@"John Doe" email:@"john@doe.com" extraInfo:@{}];

Initialization Parameters

You can use the following properties in Datadog.Configuration when creating the Datadog configuration to initialize the library:

site

Sets the Datadog server endpoint that data is sent to.

batchSize

Sets the preferred size of batched data uploaded to Datadog. This value impacts the size and number of requests performed by the RUM iOS SDK (small batches mean more requests, but each request becomes smaller in size). Available values include: .small, .medium, and .large.

uploadFrequency

Sets the preferred frequency of uploading data to Datadog. Available values include: .frequent, .average, and .rare.

RUM configuration

You can use the following properties in RUM.Configuration when enabling RUM:

sessionSampleRate

Sets the sampling rate for RUM sessions. The sessionSampleRate value must be between 0.0 and 100.0. A value of 0.0 means no sessions are sent, 100.0 means all sessions are sent to Datadog. If not configured, the default value of 100.0 is used.

uiKitViewsPredicate

Enables tracking UIViewControllers as RUM views. You can use default implementation of predicate by setting the DefaultUIKitRUMViewsPredicate or implement your own UIKitRUMViewsPredicate customized for your app.

uiKitActionsPredicate

Enables tracking user interactions (taps) as RUM actions. You can use the default implementation of predicate by setting the DefaultUIKitRUMActionsPredicate or implement your own UIKitRUMActionsPredicate customized for your app.

urlSessionTracking

Enables tracking URLSession tasks (network requests) as RUM resources. The firstPartyHostsTracing parameter defines hosts that are categorized as first-party resources (if RUM is enabled) and have tracing information injected (if tracing feature is enabled). The resourceAttributesProvider parameter defines a closure to provide custom attributes for intercepted resources that is called for each resource collected by the RUM iOS SDK. This closure is called with task information and may return custom resource attributes or nil if no attributes should be attached.

viewEventMapper

Sets the data scrubbing callback for views. This can be used to modify view events before they are sent to Datadog. For more information, see Modify or drop RUM events.

resourceEventMapper

Sets the data scrubbing callback for resources. This can be used to modify or drop resource events before they are sent to Datadog. For more information, see Modify or drop RUM events.

actionEventMapper

Sets the data scrubbing callback for actions. This can be used to modify or drop action events before they are sent to Datadog. For more information, see Modify or drop RUM events.

errorEventMapper

Sets the data scrubbing callback for errors. This can be used to modify or drop error events before they are sent to Datadog. For more information, see Modify or drop RUM events.

longTaskEventMapper

Sets the data scrubbing callback for long tasks. This can be used to modify or drop long task events before they are sent to Datadog. For more information, see Modify or drop RUM events.

vitalsUpdateFrequency

Sets the preferred frequency of collecting mobile vitals. Available values include: .frequent (every 100ms), .average (every 500ms), .rare (every 1s), and .never (disable vitals monitoring).

appHangThreshold

Sets the threshold for reporting app hangs. The minimum allowed value for this option is 0.1 seconds. To disable app hangs reporting, set this to nil. For more information, see Add app hang reporting.

Automatically track views

To automatically track views (UIViewControllers), use the uiKitViewsPredicate option when enabling RUM. By default, views are named with the view controller’s class name. To customize it, provide your own implementation of the predicate which conforms to UIKitRUMViewsPredicate protocol:

public protocol UIKitRUMViewsPredicate {
    func rumView(for viewController: UIViewController) -> RUMView?
}

@objc
public protocol DDUIKitRUMViewsPredicate: AnyObject {
    func rumView(for viewController: UIViewController) -> DDRUMView?
}

Inside the rumView(for:) implementation, your app should decide if a given UIViewController instance should start the RUM view (return value) or not (return nil). The returned RUMView value must specify the name and may provide additional attributes for the created RUM view.

For instance, you can configure the predicate to use explicit type check for each view controller in your app:

class YourCustomPredicate: UIKitRUMViewsPredicate {

    func rumView(for viewController: UIViewController) -> RUMView? {
        switch viewController {
        case is HomeViewController:     return .init(name: "Home")
        case is DetailsViewController:  return .init(name: "Details")
        default:                        return nil
        }
    }
}

@interface YourCustomPredicate : NSObject<DDUIKitRUMViewsPredicate>

@end

@implementation YourCustomPredicate

- (DDRUMView * _Nullable)rumViewFor:(UIViewController * _Nonnull)viewController {
    if ([viewController isKindOfClass:[HomeViewController class]]) {
        return [[DDRUMView alloc] initWithName:@"Home" attributes:@{}];
    }

    if ([viewController isKindOfClass:[DetailsViewController class]]) {
        return [[DDRUMView alloc] initWithName:@"Details" attributes:@{}];
    }

    return nil;
}

@end

You can even come up with a more dynamic solution depending on your app’s architecture.

For example, if your view controllers use accessibilityLabel consistently, you can name views by the value of accessibility label:

class YourCustomPredicate: UIKitRUMViewsPredicate {

    func rumView(for viewController: UIViewController) -> RUMView? {
        guard let accessibilityLabel = viewController.accessibilityLabel else {
            return nil
        }

        return RUMView(name: accessibilityLabel)
    }
}

@interface YourCustomPredicate : NSObject<DDUIKitRUMViewsPredicate>

@end

@implementation YourCustomPredicate

- (DDRUMView * _Nullable)rumViewFor:(UIViewController * _Nonnull)viewController {
    if (viewController.accessibilityLabel) {
        return [[DDRUMView alloc] initWithName:viewController.accessibilityLabel attributes:@{}];
    }

    return nil;
}

@end

Note: The RUM iOS SDK calls rumView(for:) many times while your app is running. It is recommended to keep its implementation fast and single-threaded.

Automatically track user actions

To automatically track user tap actions, set the uiKitActionsPredicate option when enabling RUM.

Automatically track network requests

To automatically track resources (network requests) and get their timing information such as time to first byte or DNS resolution, use the urlSessionTracking option when enabling RUM and enable URLSessionInstrumentation:

URLSessionInstrumentation.enable(
    with: .init(
        delegateClass: <YourSessionDelegate>.self
    )
)

let session = URLSession(
    configuration: .default,
    delegate: <YourSessionDelegate>(),
    delegateQueue: nil
)

DDURLSessionInstrumentationConfiguration *config = [[DDURLSessionInstrumentationConfiguration alloc] initWithDelegateClass:[<YourSessionDelegate> class]];
[DDURLSessionInstrumentation enableWithConfiguration:config];

NSURLSession *session = [NSURLSession sessionWithConfiguration:[NSURLSessionConfiguration defaultSessionConfiguration]
                                                      delegate:[[<YourSessionDelegate> alloc] init]
                                                 delegateQueue:nil];

If you have more than one delegate type in your app that you want to instrument, you can call URLSessionInstrumentation.enable(with:) for each delegate type.

Also, you can configure first party hosts using urlSessionTracking. This classifies resources that match the given domain as “first party” in RUM and propagates tracing information to your backend (if you have enabled Tracing). Network traces are sampled with an adjustable sampling rate. A sampling of 20% is applied by default.

For instance, you can configure example.com as the first party host and enable both RUM and Tracing features:

import DatadogRUM

RUM.enable(
  with: RUM.Configuration(
    applicationID: "<rum application id>",
    uiKitViewsPredicate: DefaultUIKitRUMViewsPredicate(),
    uiKitActionsPredicate: DefaultUIKitRUMActionsPredicate(),
    urlSessionTracking: RUM.Configuration.URLSessionTracking(
        firstPartyHostsTracing: .trace(hosts: ["example.com"], sampleRate: 20)
    )
  )
)

URLSessionInstrumentation.enable(
    with: .init(
        delegateClass: <YourSessionDelegate>.self
    )
)

let session = URLSession(
    configuration: .default,
    delegate: <YourSessionDelegate>(),
    delegateQueue: nil
)

@import DatadogObjc;

DDRUMConfiguration *configuration = [[DDRUMConfiguration alloc] initWithApplicationID:@"<rum application id>"];
DDRUMURLSessionTracking *urlSessionTracking = [DDRUMURLSessionTracking new];
[urlSessionTracking setFirstPartyHostsTracing:[DDRUMFirstPartyHostsTracing alloc] initWithHosts:@[@"example.com"] sampleRate:20];
[configuration setURLSessionTracking:urlSessionTracking];

[DDRUM enableWith:configuration];

To add custom attributes to resources, use the URLSessionTracking.resourceAttributesProvider option when enabling the RUM. By setting attributes provider closure, you can return additional attributes to be attached to tracked resource.

For instance, you may want to add HTTP request and response headers to the RUM resource:

RUM.enable(
  with: RUM.Configuration(
    ...
    urlSessionTracking: RUM.Configuration.URLSessionTracking(
        resourceAttributesProvider: { request, response, data, error in
            return [
                "request.headers" : redactedHeaders(from: request),
                "response.headers" : redactedHeaders(from: response)
            ]
        }
    )
  )
)

If you don’t want to track requests, you can disable URLSessionInstrumentation for the delegate type:

URLSessionInstrumentation.disable(delegateClass: <YourSessionDelegate>.self)

[DDURLSessionInstrumentation disableWithDelegateClass:[<YourSessionDelegate> class]];

Automatically track errors

All “error” and “critical” logs sent with Logger are automatically reported as RUM errors and linked to the current RUM view:

import DatadogLogs

let logger = Logger.create()

logger.error("message")
logger.critical("message")

@import DatadogObjc;

DDLogger *logger = [DDLogger create];
[logger error:@"message"];
[logger critical:@"message"];

Similarly, all finished spans marked as error are reported as RUM errors:

import DatadogTrace

let span = Tracer.shared().startSpan(operationName: "operation")
// ... capture the `error`
span.setError(error)
span.finish()

// ... capture the `error`
id<OTSpan> span = [[DDTracer shared] startSpan:@"operation"];
[span setError:error];
[span finish];

Modify or drop RUM events

To modify attributes of a RUM event before it is sent to Datadog or to drop an event entirely, use the Event Mappers API when configuring the RUM iOS SDK:

let configuration = RUM.Configuration(
    applicationID: "<rum application id>",
    viewEventMapper: { RUMViewEvent in
        return RUMViewEvent
    }
    resourceEventMapper: { RUMResourceEvent in
        return RUMResourceEvent
    }
    actionEventMapper: { RUMActionEvent in
        return RUMActionEvent
    }
    errorEventMapper: { RUMErrorEvent in
        return RUMErrorEvent
    }
    longTaskEventMapper: { RUMLongTaskEvent in
        return RUMLongTaskEvent
    }
)

DDRUMConfiguration *configuration = [[DDRUMConfiguration alloc] initWithApplicationID:@"<rum application id>"];

[configuration setViewEventMapper:^DDRUMViewEvent * _Nonnull(DDRUMViewEvent * _Nonnull RUMViewEvent) {
    return RUMViewEvent;
}];

[configuration setErrorEventMapper:^DDRUMErrorEvent * _Nullable(DDRUMErrorEvent * _Nonnull RUMErrorEvent) {
    return RUMErrorEvent;
}];

[configuration setResourceEventMapper:^DDRUMResourceEvent * _Nullable(DDRUMResourceEvent * _Nonnull RUMResourceEvent) {
    return RUMResourceEvent;
}];

[configuration setActionEventMapper:^DDRUMActionEvent * _Nullable(DDRUMActionEvent * _Nonnull RUMActionEvent) {
    return RUMActionEvent;
}];

[configuration setLongTaskEventMapper:^DDRUMLongTaskEvent * _Nullable(DDRUMLongTaskEvent * _Nonnull RUMLongTaskEvent) {
    return RUMLongTaskEvent;
}];

Each mapper is a Swift closure with a signature of (T) -> T?, where T is a concrete RUM event type. This allows changing portions of the event before it is sent.

For example, to redact sensitive information in a RUM Resource’s url, implement a custom redacted(_:) -> String function and use it in resourceEventMapper:

let configuration = RUM.Configuration(
    applicationID: "<rum application id>",
    resourceEventMapper: { RUMResourceEvent in
        var RUMResourceEvent = RUMResourceEvent
        RUMResourceEvent.resource.url = redacted(RUMResourceEvent.resource.url)
        return RUMResourceEvent
    }
)

DDRUMConfiguration *configuration = [[DDRUMConfiguration alloc] initWithApplicationID:@"<rum application id>"];

[configuration setResourceEventMapper:^DDRUMResourceEvent * _Nullable(DDRUMResourceEvent * _Nonnull RUMResourceEvent) {
    return RUMResourceEvent;
}];

Returning nil from the error, resource, or action mapper drops the event entirely; the event is not sent to Datadog. The value returned from the view event mapper must not be nil (to drop views, customize your implementation of UIKitRUMViewsPredicate; read more in tracking views automatically).

Depending on the event’s type, only some specific properties can be modified:

Retrieve the RUM session ID

Retrieving the RUM session ID can be helpful for troubleshooting. For example, you can attach the session ID to support requests, emails, or bug reports so that your support team can later find the user session in Datadog.

You can access the RUM session ID at runtime without waiting for the sessionStarted event:

RumMonitor.shared().currentSessionID(completion: { sessionId in
  currentSessionId = sessionId
})

Further Reading

Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:

Source code for dd-sdk-iosSOURCE CODE RUM & Session ReplayDOCUMENTATION RUM iOS and tvOS monitoring supported versionsDOCUMENTATION