What constitutes a “session”? Do notifications trigger a “session”?

Generally, every time a user launches an application, a Session is created. Each Session represents one instance of a user opening the app. When a user closes the app or backgrounds it for more than the session timeout interval (set to 15 seconds for mobile apps and 30 minutes for web apps by default), the Session is then closed. For more, see Analytics Key Concepts from our User Guide.

A sent push notification does not create a new session unless this notification causes the app to open, which then creates a new session.

Specifically, when using Localytics.autoIntegrate():

• On Android, sessions are opened/resumed when an activity hits onStart(), and the timer for session close starts when onStop() gets hit while no other activities have hit onStart(). Localytics keeps a running counter internally of calls to onStart() / onStop() to do this.
• On iOS sessions are opened/resumed when applicationDidBecomeActive or applicationWillEnterForeground is called, and the timer for session close starts when applicationDidEnterBackground is hit.
• On the Web, sessions are opened/resumed when Localytics is initialized on a page, and the timer for session closes starts immediately. Event tags or new page loads that initialize Localytics again reset the session close timer.

Using alternative session management instead of automatic integration allows the developer to control session starts and stops to match their own logic.