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 add users with Amazon Cognito, see Using Amazon Pinpoint Analytics with Amazon Cognito User Pools.

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 CLIAWS SDK for JavaHTTP

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": {
      "name": [
        "Wang",
        "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 com.amazonaws.regions.Regions;
import com.amazonaws.services.pinpoint.AmazonPinpoint;
import com.amazonaws.services.pinpoint.AmazonPinpointClientBuilder;
import com.amazonaws.services.pinpoint.model.EndpointRequest;
import com.amazonaws.services.pinpoint.model.EndpointUser;
import com.amazonaws.services.pinpoint.model.UpdateEndpointRequest;
import com.amazonaws.services.pinpoint.model.UpdateEndpointResult;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Collections;

public class AddExampleUser {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        final String USAGE = "\n" +
                "AddExampleUser - Adds a user definition to the specified Amazon Pinpoint endpoint." +
                "Usage: AddExampleUser <endpointId> <applicationId>" +
                "Where:\n" +
                "  endpointId - The ID of the endpoint to add the user to." +
                "  applicationId - The ID of the Amazon Pinpoint application that contains the endpoint.";

        if (args.length < 1) {
            System.out.println(USAGE);
            System.exit(1);
        }

        String endpointId = args[0];
        String applicationId = args[1];

        // Creates a new user definition.
        EndpointUser wangXiulan = new EndpointUser().withUserId("example_user");

        // Assigns custom user attributes.
        wangXiulan.addUserAttributesEntry("name", Arrays.asList("Wang", "Xiulan"));
        wangXiulan.addUserAttributesEntry("gender", Collections.singletonList("female"));
        wangXiulan.addUserAttributesEntry("age", Collections.singletonList("39"));

        // Adds the user definition to the EndpointRequest that is passed to the Amazon Pinpoint client.
        EndpointRequest wangXiulansIphone = new EndpointRequest()
                .withUser(wangXiulan);

        // Initializes the Amazon Pinpoint client.
        AmazonPinpoint pinpointClient = AmazonPinpointClientBuilder.standard()
                .withRegion(Regions.US_EAST_1).build();

        // Updates the specified endpoint with Amazon Pinpoint.
        UpdateEndpointResult result = pinpointClient.updateEndpoint(new UpdateEndpointRequest()
                .withEndpointRequest(wangXiulansIphone)
                .withApplicationId(applicationId)
                .withEndpointId(endpointId));

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

    }
}

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": {
      "name": [
        "Wang",
        "Xiulan"
      ],
      "gender": [
        "female"
      ],
      "age": [
        "39"
      ]
    }
  }
}

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


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

For more information about the Endpoint resource in the Amazon Pinpoint API, including the 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 define a segment by importing a list of user IDs, see Importing Segments in the Amazon Pinpoint User Guide.

To send a direct message to up to 100 user IDs, see Users Messages in the Amazon Pinpoint API Reference.

For the limits that apply to endpoints, including the number of user attributes you can assign, see Endpoint Limits.

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Associating Users with Amazon Pinpoint Endpoints

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