Retail v2 API - Class UserEvent (2.9.0) 

public sealed class UserEvent : IMessage<UserEvent>, IEquatable<UserEvent>, IDeepCloneable<UserEvent>, IBufferMessage, IMessage

Reference documentation and code samples for the Retail v2 API class UserEvent.

UserEvent captures all metadata information Retail API needs to know about how end users interact with customers' website.

Inheritance

object > UserEvent

Namespace

Google.Cloud.Retail.V2

Assembly

Google.Cloud.Retail.V2.dll

Constructors

UserEvent()

public UserEvent()

UserEvent(UserEvent)

public UserEvent(UserEvent other)
Parameter
Name Description
other UserEvent

Properties

Attributes

public MapField<string, CustomAttribute> Attributes { get; }

Extra user event features to include in the recommendation model.

If you provide custom attributes for ingested user events, also include them in the user events that you associate with prediction requests. Custom attribute formatting must be consistent between imported events and events provided with prediction requests. This lets the Retail API use those custom attributes when training models and serving predictions, which helps improve recommendation quality.

This field needs to pass all below criteria, otherwise an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned:

  • The key must be a UTF-8 encoded string with a length limit of 5,000 characters.
  • For text attributes, at most 400 values are allowed. Empty values are not allowed. Each value must be a UTF-8 encoded string with a length limit of 256 characters.
  • For number attributes, at most 400 values are allowed.

For product recommendations, an example of extra user information is traffic_channel, which is how a user arrives at the site. Users can arrive at the site by coming to the site directly, coming through Google search, or in other ways.

Property Value
Type Description
MapFieldstringCustomAttribute

AttributionToken

public string AttributionToken { get; set; }

Highly recommended for user events that are the result of [PredictionService.Predict][google.cloud.retail.v2.PredictionService.Predict]. This field enables accurate attribution of recommendation model performance.

The value must be a valid [PredictResponse.attribution_token][google.cloud.retail.v2.PredictResponse.attribution_token] for user events that are the result of [PredictionService.Predict][google.cloud.retail.v2.PredictionService.Predict]. The value must be a valid [SearchResponse.attribution_token][google.cloud.retail.v2.SearchResponse.attribution_token] for user events that are the result of [SearchService.Search][google.cloud.retail.v2.SearchService.Search].

This token enables us to accurately attribute page view or purchase back to the event and the particular predict response containing this clicked/purchased product. If user clicks on product K in the recommendation results, pass [PredictResponse.attribution_token][google.cloud.retail.v2.PredictResponse.attribution_token] as a URL parameter to product K's page. When recording events on product K's page, log the [PredictResponse.attribution_token][google.cloud.retail.v2.PredictResponse.attribution_token] to this field.

Property Value
Type Description
string

CartId

public string CartId { get; set; }

The ID or name of the associated shopping cart. This ID is used to associate multiple items added or present in the cart before purchase.

This can only be set for add-to-cart, purchase-complete, or shopping-cart-page-view events.

Property Value
Type Description
string

CompletionDetail

public CompletionDetail CompletionDetail { get; set; }

The main auto-completion details related to the event.

This field should be set for search event when autocomplete function is enabled and the user clicks a suggestion for search.

Property Value
Type Description
CompletionDetail

Entity

public string Entity { get; set; }

The entity for customers that may run multiple different entities, domains, sites or regions, for example, Google US, Google Ads, Waymo, google.com, youtube.com, etc. It is recommended to set this field to get better per-entity search, completion and prediction results.

Property Value
Type Description
string

EventTime

public Timestamp EventTime { get; set; }

Only required for [UserEventService.ImportUserEvents][google.cloud.retail.v2.UserEventService.ImportUserEvents] method. Timestamp of when the user event happened.

Property Value
Type Description
Timestamp

EventType

public string EventType { get; set; }

Required. User event type. Allowed values are:

  • add-to-cart: Products being added to cart.
  • category-page-view: Special pages such as sale or promotion pages viewed.
  • detail-page-view: Products detail page viewed.
  • home-page-view: Homepage viewed.
  • promotion-offered: Promotion is offered to a user.
  • promotion-not-offered: Promotion is not offered to a user.
  • purchase-complete: User finishing a purchase.
  • search: Product search.
  • shopping-cart-page-view: User viewing a shopping cart.
Property Value
Type Description
string

ExperimentIds

public RepeatedField<string> ExperimentIds { get; }

A list of identifiers for the independent experiment groups this user event belongs to. This is used to distinguish between user events associated with different experiment setups (e.g. using Retail API, using different recommendation models).

Property Value
Type Description
RepeatedFieldstring

Filter

public string Filter { get; set; }

The filter syntax consists of an expression language for constructing a predicate from one or more fields of the products being filtered.

See [SearchRequest.filter][google.cloud.retail.v2.SearchRequest.filter] for definition and syntax.

The value must be a UTF-8 encoded string with a length limit of 1,000 characters. Otherwise, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.

Property Value
Type Description
string

Offset

public int Offset { get; set; }

An integer that specifies the current offset for pagination (the 0-indexed starting location, amongst the products deemed by the API as relevant).

See [SearchRequest.offset][google.cloud.retail.v2.SearchRequest.offset] for definition.

If this field is negative, an INVALID_ARGUMENT is returned.

This can only be set for search events. Other event types should not set this field. Otherwise, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.

Property Value
Type Description
int

OrderBy

public string OrderBy { get; set; }

The order in which products are returned.

See [SearchRequest.order_by][google.cloud.retail.v2.SearchRequest.order_by] for definition and syntax.

The value must be a UTF-8 encoded string with a length limit of 1,000 characters. Otherwise, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.

This can only be set for search events. Other event types should not set this field. Otherwise, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.

Property Value
Type Description
string

PageCategories

public RepeatedField<string> PageCategories { get; }

The categories associated with a category page.

To represent full path of category, use '>' sign to separate different hierarchies. If '>' is part of the category name, replace it with other character(s).

Category pages include special pages such as sales or promotions. For instance, a special sale page may have the category hierarchy: "pageCategories" : ["Sales > 2017 Black Friday Deals"].

Required for category-page-view events. At least one of [search_query][google.cloud.retail.v2.UserEvent.search_query] or [page_categories][google.cloud.retail.v2.UserEvent.page_categories] is required for search events. Other event types should not set this field. Otherwise, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.

Property Value
Type Description
RepeatedFieldstring

PageViewId

public string PageViewId { get; set; }

A unique ID of a web page view.

This should be kept the same for all user events triggered from the same pageview. For example, an item detail page view could trigger multiple events as the user is browsing the page. The pageViewId property should be kept the same for all these events so that they can be grouped together properly.

When using the client side event reporting with JavaScript pixel and Google Tag Manager, this value is filled in automatically.

Property Value
Type Description
string

ProductDetails

public RepeatedField<ProductDetail> ProductDetails { get; }

The main product details related to the event.

This field is optional except for the following event types:

  • add-to-cart
  • detail-page-view
  • purchase-complete

In a search event, this field represents the products returned to the end user on the current page (the end user may have not finished browsing the whole page yet). When a new page is returned to the end user, after pagination/filtering/ordering even for the same query, a new search event with different [product_details][google.cloud.retail.v2.UserEvent.product_details] is desired. The end user may have not finished browsing the whole page yet.

Property Value
Type Description
RepeatedFieldProductDetail

PurchaseTransaction

public PurchaseTransaction PurchaseTransaction { get; set; }

A transaction represents the entire purchase transaction.

Required for purchase-complete events. Other event types should not set this field. Otherwise, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.

Property Value
Type Description
PurchaseTransaction

ReferrerUri

public string ReferrerUri { get; set; }

The referrer URL of the current page.

When using the client side event reporting with JavaScript pixel and Google Tag Manager, this value is filled in automatically.

Property Value
Type Description
string

SearchQuery

public string SearchQuery { get; set; }

The user's search query.

See [SearchRequest.query][google.cloud.retail.v2.SearchRequest.query] for definition.

The value must be a UTF-8 encoded string with a length limit of 5,000 characters. Otherwise, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.

At least one of [search_query][google.cloud.retail.v2.UserEvent.search_query] or [page_categories][google.cloud.retail.v2.UserEvent.page_categories] is required for search events. Other event types should not set this field. Otherwise, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.

Property Value
Type Description
string

SessionId

public string SessionId { get; set; }

A unique identifier for tracking a visitor session with a length limit of 128 bytes. A session is an aggregation of an end user behavior in a time span.

A general guideline to populate the sesion_id:

  1. If user has no activity for 30 min, a new session_id should be assigned.
  2. The session_id should be unique across users, suggest use uuid or add visitor_id as prefix.
Property Value
Type Description
string

Uri

public string Uri { get; set; }

Complete URL (window.location.href) of the user's current page.

When using the client side event reporting with JavaScript pixel and Google Tag Manager, this value is filled in automatically. Maximum length 5,000 characters.

Property Value
Type Description
string

UserInfo

public UserInfo UserInfo { get; set; }

User information.

Property Value
Type Description
UserInfo

VisitorId

public string VisitorId { get; set; }

Required. A unique identifier for tracking visitors.

For example, this could be implemented with an HTTP cookie, which should be able to uniquely identify a visitor on a single device. This unique identifier should not change if the visitor log in/out of the website.

Don't set the field to the same fixed ID for different users. This mixes the event history of those users together, which results in degraded model quality.

The field must be a UTF-8 encoded string with a length limit of 128 characters. Otherwise, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.

The field should not contain PII or user-data. We recommend to use Google Analytics Client ID for this field.

Property Value
Type Description
string