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Data Collection

Managing access to user data via integrations with fine-grained control

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Some integrations support collecting user data to be made automatically accessible to your conversational app. Meya provides fine-grained control mechanisms in BFML to help you manage this data collection for your use-case.

Supported integrations

Meya's Orb and Web v1 integrations both data collection via lifecycle event. This event is created when the user opens the messaging integration. The event varies between these integrations:

Orb: page_open
Web v1: start_chat

When the lifecycle event occurs, Meya retrieves information about the user from the HTTP request, IPStack, and custom data specified by the developer.

You can configure where each piece of data is stored, or disable collection for that piece of data, in your Orb or Web v1 integration files using the collect property.

Fields

There are six data fields your app can collect.

FieldDescriptionSource
languageThe user's language code. Example: en-USHTTP request header
ip_addressThe user's IP address. Example: 198.111.222.10HTTP request header
locationA dictionary of information about the user's location. Disabled by default. Example:
{ "city": "Waterloo", "region": "Ontario", "country": "Canada", "latitude": 43.46, "longitude": -80.50, "time_zone": { "code": "EST", "name": "America/Toronto", "gmt_offset": -18000, "is_daylight_saving": false }, "country_flag_emoji": "🇨🇦" }		IPStack
referrerThe address of the webpage from which the HTTP request originated. Example: https://www.example.comHTTP request payload
urlThe URL of the page the user is on. Example: https://www.example.com/product/123HTTP request payload
contextA developer-defined dictionary of information passed in using the Orb's pageContext property or Web v1's data property.Developer-defined

Scopes

Each field can be stored on one of these scopes: event, user, and thread. You can also disable collection for a field by leaving the value blank (i.e. null).

ScopeHow to access it
event(@ flow.event.data.context )
user(@ user.<field> )
thread(@ thread.<field> )
user_overwrite(@ user.<field> )
thread_overwrite(@ thread.<field> )

🚧

Overwriting

user and thread scope check if a value is already stored at <scope>.<field> and, if so, won't overwrite it.

user_overwrite and thread_overwrite will write the value to <scope>.<field> regardless of whether a value already exists there or not.

The collect property

To configure where each field should be stored, add the collect property to your Orb or Web v1 integration file:

collect:
  language: event|user|thread|user_overwrite|thread_overwrite|<null>
  ip_address: event|user|thread|user_overwrite|thread_overwrite|<null>
  location: event|user|thread|user_overwrite|thread_overwrite|<null>
  referrer: event|user|thread|user_overwrite|thread_overwrite|<null>
  url: event|user|thread|user_overwrite|thread_overwrite|<null>
  context: event|user|thread|user_overwrite|thread_overwrite|<null>

Example

Here is an example of what the Orb integration file would look like with all six collection fields configured:

type: meya.orb.integration
collect:
  language: user
  ip_address: user
  location: thread
  referrer:
  url: event
  context: event

type: meya.webv1.integration
collect:
  language: user
  ip_address: user
  location: thread
  referrer:
  url: event
  context: event

Let's pass some custom data to the app using Orb's pageContext property:

<script type="text/javascript">
window.orbConfig = {
     connectionOptions: {
        gridUrl: "https://grid.meya.ai",
        appId: "APP_ID",
        integrationId: "integration.orb",
        pageContext: {
            userNumber: 3,
            userFirstName: "SuperCool",
            userLastName: "AwesomeSauce",
            userID: "13434234234",
            array: [1, 2, 3],
            dicto: {
                foo: "bar",
                fizz: "bazz"
            }
        }
    },
    windowApi: true,
};
(function(){
    var script = document.createElement("script");
    script.type = "text/javascript";
    script.async = true;
    script.src = "https://cdn.meya.ai/v2/orb.js";
    document.body.appendChild(script);
    var fontStyleSheet = document.createElement("link");
    fontStyleSheet.rel = "stylesheet";
    fontStyleSheet.href = "https://cdn.meya.ai/font/inter.css";
    document.body.appendChild(fontStyleSheet);
})();
</script>

<title>Web v1</title>
<script>
    // Rebuild and configure web widget URLs to use
    window.loclSettings = {
        app_id: 'web',
        account_id: 'acct-xxx',
        bot_id: 'app-xxx',
        base_url: 'YOUR_CDN_URL',
        locl_base_url: 'https://grid.meya.ai/gateway/v2/webv1/integration.webv1',
        data: {
            userNumber: 3,
            userFirstName: "SuperCool",
            userLastName: "AwesomeSauce",
            userID: "13434234234",
            array: [1, 2, 3],
            dicto: {
                foo: "bar",
                fizz: "bazz"
            }
        }
    };
</script>
<script>!function(){function t(){var t=n.createElement("script");t.type="text/javascript",t.async=!0,t.src=e.loclSettings.base_url+"/js/embed.js?x="+Math.random();var a=n.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];a.parentNode.insertBefore(t,a)}var e=window,a=e.Locl;if("function"==typeof a)a("reattach_activator"),a("update",loclSettings);else{var n=document,c=function(){c.c(arguments)};c.q=[],c.c=function(t){c.q.push(t)},e.Locl=c,e.attachEvent?e.attachEvent("onload",t):e.addEventListener("load",t,!1)}}();</script>

User scope

In this case, language, ip_address, and context will be stored on the user scope. To confirm that it worked, check the logs for meya.user.entry.data entries:

971

The user's language was saved to the user scope.

Alternatively, go to your app's Users page and take a look at the user's data:

399

The user's data.

Thread scope

In our example, the user's location is being stored on the thread scope:

type: meya.orb.integration
collect:
  language: user
  ip_address: user
  location: thread
  referrer:
  url: event
  context: event

type: meya.webv1.integration
collect:
  language: user
  ip_address: user
  location: thread
  referrer:
  url: event
  context: event

To confirm it's working, check the logs for a meya.thread.entry.data entry:

1022

The user's location was stored on thread scope.

Event scope

Referring back to our example, both url and context are configured to be stored on the event scope.

📘

Fields with the event scope will be merged into the context object and are available using (@ flow.event.data.context ) in your flow code (see Accessing event data)

type: meya.orb.integration
collect:
  language: user
  ip_address: user
  location: thread
  referrer:
  url: event
  context: event

type: meya.webv1.integration
collect:
  language: user
  ip_address: user
  location: thread
  referrer:
  url: event
  context: event

To confirm that the data is being collected correctly, check the logs for a meya.session.event.page.open entry.

📘

If you're using the Web v1 integration, look for a meya.lifecycle.event.event entry instead.

914

The url and context fields are stored in the event scope.

Accessing event data

We can access the event data from a flow using (@ flow.event.data.context ), like this:

triggers:
  - type: page_open

steps:
  - say: Flow => (@ flow.event.data.context )

triggers:
  - lifecycle_id: page_open

steps:
  - say: Flow => (@ flow.event.data.context )

Here's what the output would look like in the Orb integration:

428

Accessing event data in a flow.

Disabling field collection

Take a look at the referrer field in our example:

type: meya.orb.integration
collect:
  language: user
  ip_address: user
  location: thread
  referrer:
  url: event
  context: event

type: meya.webv1.integration
collect:
  language: user
  ip_address: user
  location: thread
  referrer:
  url: event
  context: event

Since it's set to null, the referrer won't be collected or stored anywhere.

Updated almost 3 years ago