Importing historical user tracking data¶
The recommendation engine supports replaying historical user events by adding a special parameter overridetimestamp on the buy event to simulate the event date. This is then used as the datetime of an event instead of the current timestamp of the request.
To give an example: it's often requested to import the buy history of users to avoid the cold start problem and being able to start with good recommendations. Instead of waiting till the user profile is built by collecting events from the day, you implemented the tracking. Usually a curl input file is generated which creates buy requests that are sent to the tracking endpoint.
User identifiers
Ensure that user identifiers used in an import file are the same that are used in the live tracking, for example, the user login identifiers.
There must be some validation to avoid importing buy events by any user. Therefore a signature parameter needs to be added, which is calculated like the following:
String signature=md5(encode("<itemtype>&<itemid>&<licensekey>&fullprice=<fullprice>&overridetimestamp=<timestamp>&quantity=<quantity>"));
Parameters without a value
The order of the parameters to be signed is crucial. They must be sent in alphabetical order based on the parameter names to create a signature. Encodings must always contain capital letters (for example, %3A and not %3a).
If a parameter value is "" or "null" or "undefined" it needs to be excluded from the signing and must not be sent in the query string.
valid: https://event.perso.ibexa.co/api/00000/buy/johndoe/1/11?fullprice=19.99EUR&overridetimestamp=2012-01-01T11%3A00%3A00&quantity=1&signature=d0026f017ae823f19530d93318c5a2f6
invalid: https://event.perso.ibexa.co/api/00000/buy/johndoe/1/11?fullprice=19.99EUR&overridetimestamp=2012-01-01T11%3A00%3A00&quantity=&signature=d0026f017ae823f19530d93318c5a2f6
Example¶
With a license key of "8695-1828-92810-5535-4239" and a purchase of certain products, there can be the following signature values:
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