1. Project Rome: Activity API & Pick Up Where I Left Off
Megan Brown
Hi, I’m Megan Brown. I’m a Program Manager on Project Rome.
Today I’ll be talking to you about Activity APIs and Pick Up Where I Left Off
Program Manager

2. Outline Project Rome User Activities Timeline
9/17/ :44 PM
Outline
Project Rome
User Activities
Pick Up Where I Left Off Demo
Creating User Activities
Timeline
Demo
I’ll quickly go over what Project Rome is, introduce you to User Activities and demo how they’re being used in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, then show you how you can take advantage of this functionality in your own app. Lastly, I’ll give you a sneak peek at what’s coming up.
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

3. 9/17/ :44 PM
What is Project Rome?
A device runtime for connecting and integrating Windows-based and cross-platform devices to the Project Rome infrastructure services
A set of infrastructure services in the Microsoft cloud for Windows-based, and cross-platform devices
A programming model delivered as APIs for Windows, Android, iOS, and Microsoft Graph, enabling client and cloud apps to build experiences using the Project Rome capabilities
Our vision with Project Rome is to deliver a personal OS that is not tied to a particular device or a platform. Imagine that you or your users live in a world where it does not matter what device, platform or form factor you are on, and the task or the project you are working on can happen regardless
At our core, we aim to be a platform that serves you, the developer. We KNOW that your users are on the move, doing multiple things at the same time, bring their own devices to work and play
We provide you APIs that will enable you to break down silos between devices.
Microsoft has had a vision of mobility of experiences – what does that mean? It means that wherever you are, you can still do what you want – seamlessly. We also have a vision of ubiquitous computing – what does this mean? It means that your workload should happen on the device that its best intended to run on
© Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

4. ROME Remote Control & Sessions Remote Control & Sessions Activities
Device Discovery
Device Discovery
Launch
Launch
App services
App services
User Activity
User Activity
Activity Feed
Activity Feed
Adaptive Cards
Adaptive Cards
The easiest way to think about Project Rome is like an umbrella of functionality grouped into experiences happening now and later. The Remote Control and Sessions are experiences happening now. My collegue Carmen Forsmann has a similar video on these features, I encourage you to take a look at her video to explore more. Activities are experiences happening later. I’ll be giving you an overview of Activities and how you can use them increase engagement in your apps.

5. A typical day Morning 1-2 hours Work 8–10 hours Evening 4–6 hours
9/17/ :44 PM
A typical day
Work
8–10 hours
Commute
0-2 hours
Morning
1-2 hours
Evening
4–6 hours
Lets talk about a typical day
Our time each day is spread across multiple devices
We might start in the morning watching TV, then play on our phones while on the bus, work on a PC during the day, then go back to the TV and tablet or phone in the evening.
When a user’s attention is divided across so many different devices, how can you as an app developer get users to re-engage in your app on each device they pick up?
© Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

6. User Activities UserActivity ActivityID : string ActivationUri : Uri
DisplayText : string
+ SaveAsync()
+ CreateSession()
Project Rome and User Activities seek to solve that problem for you. Think of a user activity as a unit of engagement. What is the verb if you were to describe what you are doing in an application? We want to make sure that whatever that verb is, you can continue you on any of your devices. To leverage User Activities you need 3 things, an Acitivity ID, an Activation URI and some display text to show the user. This lets you create a notification as seen on the desktop snip on the right.

7. Demo
Pick Up Where I Left Off

8. Creating a User Activity
Populate User Activity properties
Save User Activity
Create a session for User Activity
UserActivitySession _currentActivity;​
private async void GenerateActivity()​ {​
    UserActivityChannel channel = UserActivityChannel.GetDefault();​
    UserActivity userActivity = await channel.GetOrCreateUserActivityAsync("MainPage");​ ​
    userActivity.VisualElements.DisplayText = "Hello Activities";​
    userActivity.ActivationUri = new Uri("hello-activities:");​
    await userActivity.SaveAsync(); //save the new metadata​
    _currentActivity = userActivity.CreateSession();​ }
Now that you’ve seen how it works, let’s dig into how you can leverage this behavior in your applications. As I previously mentioned, you need 3 properties to create a user activity. The activity ID provides context on where the user is in the application. In this case, we’re creating an activity on the Main Page. If an activity for Main Page has already been created, we’ll get handed back the existing one to update. Then we’re setting some display text that the user will see in Action center when they receive the notification, and the activation URI which will determine where the user gets directed once they click on the notification. Once we’ve set these properties, we need to save the user activity and create the session. This returns a user activity session, and as long as your app holds onto this it will accrue activity engagement by adding new activities to the existing session.

9. Demo
Timeline
Now you may have heard of Timeline from //Build or various other events. Timeline is a richer experience of your task view that takes advantage of User Activities to show you a chronological view of what you’ve been doing across your devices.

10. Release Schedule Anniversary update Creator’s update
9/17/ :44 PM
Release Schedule
Anniversary update
Creator’s update
Fall Creator’s update
APIs
Remote Launch ✓
Remote App Services
Remote Systems ✓+
Remote Sessions
✓ (PC <--> PC)
User Activity
✓ (REST only)
Platforms
Windows SDK
Android SDK
iOS SDK
MS Graph SDK
The User Activity functionality, along with our new iOS and MS Graph SDKs are being released along with the Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update
© Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

11. https://aka.ms/projectrome
9/17/ :44 PM
I hope you’re as excited about Project Rome as I am. Please check out our website for more information on User Activities or any of our other functionality to learn more about how you can increase engagement in your apps across devices.
Windows 10 Insider Preview SDK | Project Rome SDK for iOS and Android
Microsoft Graph REST APIs
© Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

12. Thank you! https://github.com/microsoft/project-rome
I hope you are as excited about the Project Rome platform as I am. To try all of this out please visit our GitHub at github/Microsoft/project-rome and try out what we have available today.