Tracking Users
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We recommend that you get yourself acquainted with all the concepts related to Users and Events before proceeding. Doing so will help you understand the workings of this section, better.
At WebEngage we start detecting users as soon as you integrate your platform through our Capacitor library. Each time a user visits your App, the WebEngage SDK automatically creates a unique ID (LUID) for them. This helps us record users in our backend and create an anonymous profile. All their behavioural data and session data (System Events, Custom Events, System User Attributes and Custom User Attributes) are stored under the anonymous profile.
You can assign a unique ID (CUID) to each user to identify them. We recommend that you assign a CUID at any of the following moments in their lifecycle:
- On signup
- On login
- On page views where user's identity becomes known
- When the user context changes
Whenever a CUID is assigned to a user it means that:
- The user is identified (they become Known Users in your dashboard).
- A new, Known User Profile is created for them that contains all their data.
- All their previous anonymous profiles are merged with the new Known User Profile to create a single unified view of your users. (This means that data from their first visit to your App to their latest interactions can all be found under a single user profile!)
How User Profiles are Merged When User is Identified (assigned a CUID by you)?
Let's assume that User A visits your App a few times before signing up.
User A visits your App on Day 1: WebEngage assigns them an LUID and automatically creates an anonymous user profile containing all their data (Anonymous Profile 1).
User A revisits your App on Day 3: WebEngage assigns them an LUID and creates another anonymous profile to record all their data (Anonymous Profile 2).
User A revisits your App on Day 7 and creates an account: On account creation, you can choose to assign the user a CUID. This will lead to the creation of a new user profile.
- As soon as the Known User Profile is created, WebEngage will run a quick check in it's backend to identify all the existing anonymous user profiles of the user that were created on their previous visits.
- In this case, Anonymous Profile 1 and Anonymous Profile 2 will be merged with the final profile of User A to provide a unified view of their preferences and behavioral history.
Guidelines
Here are a few things to keep in mind when assigning a unique ID (CUID) to identify your users:
- All user-related APIs are part of the WebEngage Capacitor library’s user object.
- An ID can have of maximum 100 characters.
- A user ID cannot be changed once it has been assigned.
- Although ID can be any String that uniquely identifies users in your system, we recommend using system-generated user IDs from your database instead of information that can change over time such as email addresses, usernames, or phone numbers.
On Login
You can assign an ID by calling the login
method. All attributes, events, and session information accumulated before this API has been called get associated with an anonymous user created by default.
- Once
login
is called, all of this stored information is attributed to this identified user. - Make sure you call
login
as soon as the user logs in to your application, or whenever earliest you are able to identify the user.
import { WebengageUser } from "@awesome-cordova-plugins/webengage";
WebengageUser.login(userId);
On Logout
Make sure you call logout
when the logged-in user logs out, or you do not want to attach any future event, session or user data with this user, until login
is called again.
import { WebengageUser } from "@awesome-cordova-plugins/webengage";
WebengageUser.logout();
User Attributes
Several additional details like a user's name. email address, location and so on can be associated with their user profile. All such details are referred to as User Attributes which can be of 2 types - System User Attributes and Custom User Attributes. (All user attributes are tracked for both, anonymous and known users.)
WebEngage provides setters for assigning values against each attribute for your users. These attributes can be used to segment users, configure campaign targeting and personalize messages sent through each channel of engagement.
Each session has its own user attributes that get copied from one session to the next. This is in contrast to event parameters, which may take on different values in each session. For this reason, we recommend that you use user attributes for recording details that don't change with each session or details with which you want to entire session to be associated.
Setting System Attributes
Please note that the value of String
type attributes must be less than 1000 characters long. Additional characters will be truncated.
Email
WebengageUser.setAttribute('we_email', '[email protected]');
Hashed Email
Many businesses are averse to sharing contact details of their users with third-party platforms like WebEngage. This is why, we've made it possible for you to pass encrypted email IDs of your users as the system user attribute we_hashed_email
.
WebengageUser.setAttribute('we_hashed_email', '144e0424883546e07dcd727057fd3b62');
You can set up a private ESP API endpoint at your end to decrypt the email addresses and pass the data on to your ESP for final delivery.
Birth Date in yyyy-mm-dd Format
WebengageUser.setAttribute('we_birth_date', '1986-08-19');
Phone Number
The string we_phone
must be in E.164 format, eg. +551155256325, +917850009678.
WebengageUser.setAttribute('we_phone', '+551155256325');
Hashed Phone Number
Many businesses are averse to sharing contact details of their users with third-party platforms like WebEngage. This is why, we've made it possible for you to pass encrypted phone numbers of your users as the system user attribute we_hashed_phone
.
WebengageUser.setAttribute('we_hashed_phone', 'e0ec043b3f9e198ec09041687e4d4e8d');
You can set up a private SSP API endpoint at your end to decrypt the phone numbers and pass the data on to your SSP for final delivery.
Gender
Specify the user's gender using one of the following values: male
, female
, or other
.
WebengageUser.setAttribute('we_gender', 'male');
First Name
Assign the user's first name.
WebengageUser.setAttribute('we_first_name', 'John');
Last Name
Assign the user's last name.
WebengageUser.setAttribute('we_last_name', 'Doe');
Company
Set the user's company or organization name.
WebengageUser.setAttribute('we_company', 'Alphabet Inc.');
Opt In Status
You can set the subscription preference of your users for SMS, Web Push, Email, viber and WhatsApp using setOptIn
, as shown below.
WebengageUser.setUserOptIn(channel, true);
Channel
is a string value and it can be whatsapp
, sms
, viber
, push
, in_app
and email
.
By default, all users who have shared their email address and phone number are opted in to Email and SMS respectively. All users who have downloaded your app are opted-in to Push and In-app.
WhatsApp opt-in is set to false
by default. You will need to explicitly set it to true
as and when users opt into the channel. (Detailed Read)
Users who have opted out of a particular channel will not receive any communication through it.
Location
If auto-location (Android/iOS) tracking is enabled, WebEngage SDK will manage location updates on its own. However, you can use this method to set user location if you have disabled auto-location tracking.
WebengageUser.setLocation(lat,lng)
Setting Custom Attributes
You can use setAttribute
to track custom attributes for all your users through the WebEngage Capacitor SDK.
Guidelines for Tracking User Attributes
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- User Attribute names are case sensitive and must be less than 50 characters long.
String
attribute values must be less than 1000 characters long. Additional characters will be truncated. - You can create a maximum of 25 Custom User Attributes of each data type.
userAttributeName
must not start withwe_
. Names starting withwe_
are reserved exclusively for internal use at WebEngage. Thus, to avoid data contamination for your account, such data will be ignored if used for your Custom User Attributes.- The first datapoint synced to WebEngage defines the data type for that user attribute. Thus, data types must be consistent with the value that you want to store against the attribute. If the data type is changed at a later date, then Custom Users Attribute data will stop flowing to your WebEngage dashboard.
Simple Custom User Attributes
User attributes of the data types String
, Number
, Boolean
and Date
are called simple custom user attributes. They can be used for creating segments and personalizing campaigns.
1. String Attribute
WebengageUser.setAttribute("Category", "GOLD");
2. Number Attribute
WebengageUser.setAttribute("Value Index", 5.06);
3. Boolean Attribute
WebengageUser.setAttribute("Inactive", false);
4. Date Attribute
WebengageUser.setAttribute("Registered On", new Date("2015-11-09T10:01:11.000Z"));
Complex Custom User Attributes
User attributes of Array
and Object
data types are called complex custom user attributes. As shown below, you can use this data to personalize your campaigns. However, you will not be able to use these data types for creating.
1. Array Attribute
Array values must be one of the simple or complex attribute types.
WebengageUser.setAttribute("Brand affinity", [
"Hugo Boss",
"Armani Exchange",
"GAS",
"Brooks Brothers"
]);
2. Object Attribute
You can define multiple user attributes in one go using JavaScript Object
. The keys of this Object
will be attribute names and values will be the respective attribute values. These attribute values must be one of the simple or complex attribute types.
Example 1
WebengageUser.setAttribute("Address", {
"Flat" : "Z-62",
"Building" : "Pennant Court",
"Locality" : "Penn Road",
"City" : "Wolverhampton",
"State" : "West Midlands",
"PIN" : "WV30DT"
});
Example 2
WebengageUser.setAttribute({
/* System attributes */
"we_first_name" : "John",
"we_last_name" : "Doe",
"we_email" : "[email protected]",
"we_gender" : "male",
/* Strings */
"Category" : "GOLD",
/* Numbers */
"Value Index" : 5.06,
/* Booleans */
"Inactive" : false,
/* Dates */
"Registered On" : new Date("2015-11-09T10:01:11.000Z"),
"Contact Number 1" : "+44628976359",
"Contact Number 2" : "+44776977507",
"Address Flat" : "Z-62",
"Address Building" : "Pennant Court",
"Address Locality" : "Penn Road",
"Address City" : "Wolverhampton",
"Address State" : "West Midlands",
"Address PIN" : "WV30DT"
});
Please feel free to drop in a few lines at [email protected] or get in touch with your Onboarding Manager in case you have any further queries. We're always just an email away!
Updated 25 days ago