Help CenterA custom attribute is something you track about your users, for example, what time zone they're in. It's a powerful feature because you can filter and target users based on the custom attributes you add and the data you send to us. It allows you to pass information to Inline Manual that is important to you. This means you have much more flexibility and can accurately target your users.
By default, Inline Manual supports the following keys for people tracking: UID, email, username, name, created, updated, roles, group, and plan. In this article, we'll show you how to set up custom attributes to have more control over who sees Topics.
Be careful when adding custom attributes: they cannot be deleted! Standard plan users have 3 slots available per format. Standard PRO and Enterprise users have 10 slots available per format.
How to add custom attributes
- Choose the correct site and go to the People tab.
- Click on People attributes on the left side of the screen.
- You'll be redirected to the People attributes settings. From here you can edit the titles and descriptions of existing attributes, add new custom attributes, and see how many free slots you have left for custom attributes.
- To add a new custom attribute, click the Create custom attribute button.
- Provide required information:
- Title: provide a title for your custom attribute.
- Description: you can provide a description for your custom attribute. However, this is optional.
- Format: Text, Number, Array, Date.
- Key: will be generated automatically based on the title. It is lower-case and should be implemented the same way in the People Tracking code as it is case-sensitive.
Custom attribute formats:
Text - text value must be a string. The maximum length is 128 characters. Use double quotes around text strings. Example: name: "John Doe"
Array - the maximum amount is 20 values, max. 64 characters each. Use double quotes around each value. All values have to be separated by commas and placed in square brackets. Example: roles: ["admin", "editor"]
Date - date values must be in UNIX Timestamp format in seconds. The limit is +/- 10000. Send date values without double quotes or brackets. Example: created: 1360610467
Number - the limit is +/- 9007199254740991. Send date values without double quotes or brackets. Example: some_key: 1234
- Confirm adding your custom attribute with the Save button.
- When you hover over the attribute, you'll see the option to copy the key to your clipboard. After clicking the button, you'll see a confirmation message.
- Finally, add your custom attribute (key) to the People tracking code you've implemented to pass the information to Inline Manual, and you're done!
Get the most out of your custom attributes
Because custom attributes cannot be deleted once they've been created, and because there's a limit on how many you can create, it's important to think carefully before you add any.
Let's say you want to track the features of an application in order to target certain users with reminders to check out the ones they haven't seen yet. It would be easy to create a custom attribute for each feature you want to track. However, if you're tracking lots of features, this could easily use up all of your custom attributes. That may be fine for now, but what about in the future when more features you want to track have been added or you want to create a custom attribute for some different purpose?
A more efficient method would be to create a single custom attribute of the array type. This way, you can create and send an array to Inline Manual that includes strings representing the tracked features a given user has seen. Then, if you want to create an Autolauncher, for example, you can add a rule that checks the values in a user's array to determine whether it should play.
If you're thinking about creating custom attributes, feel free to reach out to our Support team at support@inlinemanual.com. We'll be happy to help brainstorm the best and most efficient use of your custom attributes and give you all the information you'll need to take to your development team.