Associating users with Amazon Pinpoint endpoints

An endpoint can include attributes that define a user, which represents a person in your audience. For example, a user might represent someone who installed your mobile app, or someone who has an account on your website.

You define a user by specifying a unique user ID and, optionally, custom user attributes. If someone uses your app on multiple devices, or if that person can be messaged at multiple addresses, you can assign the same user ID to multiple endpoints. In this case, Amazon Pinpoint synchronizes user attributes across the endpoints. So, if you add a user attribute to one endpoint, Amazon Pinpoint adds that attribute to each endpoint that includes the same user ID.

You can add user attributes to track data that applies to an individual and doesn't vary based on which device the person is using. For example, you can add attributes for a person's name, age, or account status.

Tip

If your application uses Amazon Cognito user pools to handle user authentication, Amazon Cognito can add user IDs and attributes to your endpoints automatically. For the endpoint user ID value, Amazon Cognito assigns the sub value that's assigned to the user in the user pool. To learn about adding users with Amazon Cognito, see Using amazon pinpoint analytics with amazon cognito user pools in the Amazon Cognito Developer Guide.

After you add user definitions to your endpoints, you have more options for how you segment your audience. You can define a segment based on user attributes, or you can define a segment by importing a list of user IDs. When you send a message to a segment that's based on users, the potential destinations include each endpoint that's associated with each user in the segment.

You also have more options for how you message your audience. You can use a campaign to message a segment of users, or you can send a message directly to a list of user IDs. To personalize your message, you can include message variables that are substituted with user attribute values.

Examples

The following examples show you how to add a user definition to an endpoint.

AWS CLI

You can use Amazon Pinpoint by running commands with the AWS CLI.

Example Update endpoint command

To add a user to an endpoint, use the update-endpoint command. For the --endpoint-request parameter, you can define a new endpoint, which can include a user. Or, to update an existing endpoint, you can provide just the attributes that you want to change. The following example adds a user to an existing endpoint by providing only the user attributes:

$ aws pinpoint update-endpoint \
> --application-id application-id \
> --endpoint-id endpoint-id \
> --endpoint-request file://endpoint-request-file.json

Where:

• application-id is the ID of the Amazon Pinpoint project in which you're adding or updating an endpoint.

• endpoint-id is the ID that you're assigning to a new endpoint, or it's the ID of an existing endpoint that you're updating.

• endpoint-request-file.json is the file path to a local JSON file that contains the input for the --endpoint-request parameter.

Example Endpoint request file

The example update-endpoint command uses a JSON file as the argument for the --endpoint-request parameter. This file contains a user definition like the following:

{ 
    "User":{ 
        "UserId":"example_user",
        "UserAttributes":{ 
            "FirstName":["Wang"],
            "LastName":["Xiulan"],
            "Gender":["Female"],
            "Age":"39"
        }
    }
}

For the attributes that you can use to define a user, see the User object in the EndpointRequest schema in the Amazon Pinpoint API Reference.

AWS SDK for Java

You can use the Amazon Pinpoint API in your Java applications by using the client that's provided by the AWS SDK for Java.

Example Code

To add a user to an endpoint, initialize an EndpointRequest object, and pass it to the updateEndpoint method of the AmazonPinpoint client. You can use this object to define a new endpoint, which can include a user. Or, to update an existing endpoint, you can update just the properties that you want to change. The following example adds a user to an existing endpoint by adding an EndpointUser object to the EndpointRequest object:

import software.amazon.awssdk.regions.Region;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.pinpoint.PinpointClient;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.pinpoint.model.EndpointRequest;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.pinpoint.model.EndpointUser;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.pinpoint.model.ChannelType;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.pinpoint.model.UpdateEndpointRequest;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.pinpoint.model.UpdateEndpointResponse;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.pinpoint.model.PinpointException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

    public static void updatePinpointEndpoint(PinpointClient pinpoint,String applicationId, String endPointId) {

        try{
            List<String> wangXiList = new ArrayList<String>();
            wangXiList.add("cooking");
            wangXiList.add("running");
            wangXiList.add("swimming");

            Map myMapWang = new HashMap<String, List>();
            myMapWang.put("interests", wangXiList);

            List<String> myNameWang = new ArrayList<String>();
            myNameWang.add("Wang ");
            myNameWang.add("Xiulan");

            Map wangName = new HashMap<String, List>();
            wangName.put("name",myNameWang );

            EndpointUser wangMajor = EndpointUser.builder()
                .userId("example_user_10")
                .userAttributes(wangName)
                .build();

            // Create an EndpointBatchItem object for Mary Major
            EndpointRequest wangXiulanEndpoint = EndpointRequest.builder()
                .channelType(ChannelType.EMAIL)
                .address("[e-mail]")
                .attributes(myMapWang)
                .user(wangMajor)
                .build();

            // Adds multiple endpoint definitions to a single request object.
            UpdateEndpointRequest endpointList = UpdateEndpointRequest.builder()
               .applicationId(applicationId)
                .endpointRequest(wangXiulanEndpoint)
                .endpointId(endPointId)
                .build();

            UpdateEndpointResponse result = pinpoint.updateEndpoint(endpointList);

            System.out.format("Update endpoint result: %s\n", result.messageBody().message());

    } catch (PinpointException e) {
        System.err.println(e.awsErrorDetails().errorMessage());
        System.exit(1);
    }

For the full SDK example, see AddExampleUser.java on GitHub.

HTTP

You can use Amazon Pinpoint by making HTTP requests directly to the REST API.

Example Put endpoint request with user definition

To add a user to an endpoint, issue a PUT request to the Endpoint resource at the following URI:

/v1/apps/application-id/endpoints/endpoint-id

Where:

• application-id is the ID of the Amazon Pinpoint project in which you're adding or updating an endpoint.

• endpoint-id is the ID that you're assigning to a new endpoint, or it's the ID of an existing endpoint that you're updating.

In your request, include the required headers, and provide the EndpointRequest JSON as the body. The request body can define a new endpoint, which can include a user. Or, to update an existing endpoint, you can provide just the attributes that you want to change. The following example adds a user to an existing endpoint by providing only the user attributes:

PUT /v1/apps/application_id/endpoints/example_endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: pinpoint.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
X-Amz-Date: 20180415T182538Z
Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/json
Authorization: AWS4-HMAC-SHA256 Credential=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE/20180501/us-east-1/mobiletargeting/aws4_request, SignedHeaders=accept;content-length;content-type;host;x-amz-date, Signature=c25cbd6bf61bd3b3667c571ae764b9bf2d8af61b875cacced95d1e68d91b4170
Cache-Control: no-cache

{ 
    "User":{ 
        "UserId":"example_user",
        "UserAttributes":{ 
            "FirstName":"Wang",
            "LastName":"Xiulan",
            "Gender":"Female",
            "Age":"39"
        }
    }
}

If the request succeeds, you receive a response like the following:

{
    "RequestID": "67e572ed-41d5-11e8-9dc5-db288f3cbb72",
    "Message": "Accepted"
}

Related information

For more information about the Endpoint resource in the Amazon Pinpoint API, including supported HTTP methods and request parameters, see Endpoint in the Amazon Pinpoint API Reference.

For more information about personalizing messages with variables, see Message variables in the Amazon Pinpoint User Guide.

To learn how to define a segment by importing a list of user IDs, see Importing segments in the Amazon Pinpoint User Guide.

For information about sending a direct message to up to 100 user IDs, see Users messages in the Amazon Pinpoint API Reference.

For information about the quotas that apply to endpoints, including the number of user attributes that you can assign, see Endpoint quotas.