Group Identities API Reference

Use the Group Identities API to create and manage groups of users that are related by a single shared user identifier. User groups can contain shared attributes, where each profile of a user in a group inherits all of the shared attributes their values.

Example use case

Imagine you want to send a discount coupon to all of your users who own a dog, but you know that some of the users you want to reach might live in a household where only one person is identified as the dog owner.

By creating a group identity for members of a household, where a household consists of users who share the same physical address, you can create an attribute has_dog (or use an existing attribute) that is inherited by all members of the group if any other member’s profile has that attribute.

You can then use the shared, or inherited, attribute when creating audiences of users.

Step 1: Create a group definition

First, we use the Group Identities API to create a new group definition for families by sending a POST API request to /platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/

The body of our request is:

{
  "id": "group-123",
  "description": "users who share the same physical address",
  "source_user_attribute": "$address",
  "attributes": [
    {
      "id": "has_dog",
      "type": "boolean_or"
    }
  ]
}

The identifier field defines how mParticle determines if a user should be added to a group. In this example, two users who share the same value of $address will be added to a new group using this group definition.

The group definition includes a list of group attributes within the attributes object, where each attribute has an id equaling the name of the user attribute to use as a group attribute, and a type specifying the type of group attribute. To learn more about group attributes and group attribute types, see Group attributes.

Group attributes are added to the profiles for all users who join a group. User profiles are updated with new group attributes on a nightly basis (US time), once per day.

Step 2: mParticle automatically adds users to a group

Once you have created a group definition, mParticle runs a nightly search every 24 hours for any users with a user attribute that matches a group definition’s source_user_attribute. Users with matching attributes are added to a group instance created using the group definition. Their profiles then inherit any group attribute listed in the group’s definition.

In our example, imagine two users John Doe and Jane Doe where both John and Jane have the same address, "$address": "123 Main St", they are added to a new group using the household group definition.

Both profiles for John and Jane then also display the new shared attribute has_dog. If any member of the group has a user attribute has_dog: true, then the group attribute household:has_dog=true is added to all other members of the same group. Otherwise, the value of household:has_dog remains false for all group members.

Step 3: Create an audience using your new group identity and group attributes

In the the mParticle audience builder, we can now use our new group attributes such as household:has_dog as criteria to create or supplement an audience that contains users who are members of a household that has a dog. For more information on how to create audiences, see Create an audience.

The Group Identities API allows you to create definitions of user groups. mParticle then uses these definitions to create groups of users based on their shared user identifiers. This means you can create one group definition for families that results in the creation of multiple family groups. (For example, all of the “Jones” family members and all of the “Smith” family members.)

Authentication

The Group Identities API can be authenticated using a bearer token.

Authenticate with a bearer token

To create a bearer token, send a POST request to mParticle’s SSO token endpoint at https://sso.auth.mparticle.com/oauth/token.

The JSON body of the request must contain:

• client_id - the client ID, issued by mParticle when creating the API credentials
• client_secret - the client secret, issued by mParticle when creating the API credentials
• audience - set to a value of "https://api.mparticle.com"
• grant_type - set to a value of "client_credentials"

Example cURL request

curl --request POST \
  --url https://sso.auth.mparticle.com/oauth/token \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"client_id":"...","client_secret":"...","audience":"https://api.mparticle.com","grant_type":"client_credentials"}'

Example HTTP request

POST /oauth/token HTTP/1.1
Host: sso.auth.mparticle.com
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "client_id": "your_client_id",
  "client_secret": "your_client_secret",
  "audience": "https://api.mparticle.com",
  "grant_type": "client_credentials"
}

A successful POST request to the token endpoint results in a JSON response as follows:

{
  "access_token": "YWIxMjdi883GHBBDnjsdKAJQxNjdjYUUJABbg6hdI.8V6HhxW-",
  "expires_in" : 28800,
  "token_type": "Bearer"
}

Subsequent requests to the API can then be authorized by setting the authorization header to:

Authorization: Bearer YWIxMjdi883GHBBDnjsdKAJQxNjdjYUUJABbg6hdI.8V6HhxW-

Tokens cannot be revoked, but they expire every eight hours. The initial token request can take between one and three seconds, so mParticle recommends that you cache the token and refresh it only when necessary.

Get a specific group definition by its group ID

GET https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/{group_id}

Path parameters

Example cURL request

curl --location --request GET 'https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/{group_id}' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <access_token>'

Example JSON request body

No request body.

Response

A successful request receives a 200 response with a JSON object for the group.

{
  "id": "neustar-household-group",
  "description": "A group of users related by shared Neustar household ID",
  "source_user_attribute": "neustar-household-id",
  "attributes": [
    {
      "id": "has_dog",
      "type": "boolean_or"
    }
  ],
  "created_on": "2023-11-13T21:50:17.732Z",
  "created_by": "developer@example.com",
  "last_modified_on": "2023-11-13T21:50:17.732Z",
  "last_modified_by": "developer@example.com"
}

Get all group definitions contained in a workspace

GET https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/

Path parameters

Example cURL request

curl --location --request GET 'https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <access_token>'

Example JSON request body

No request body.

Response

A successful request receives a 200 response with an array containing all user groups.

[
  {
    "id": "neustar-household-group",
    "description": "A group of users related by shared Neustar household ID",
    "source_user_attribute": "neustar-household-id",
    "attributes": [
      {
        "id": "has_dog",
        "type": "boolean_or"
      }
    ],
    "created_on": "2023-11-13T21:50:17.732Z",
    "created_by": "developer@example.com",
    "last_modified_on": "2023-11-13T21:50:17.732Z",
    "last_modified_by": "developer@example.com"
  }
]

Create a new group definition in a workspace

POST https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/

Request body options

Example cURL request

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <access_token>'

Example JSON request body

{
  "id": "neustar-household-group",
  "description": "A group of users related by shared Neustar household ID",
  "source_user_attribute": "neustar-household-id",
  "attributes": [
    {
      "id": "has_dog",
      "type": "boolean_or"
    }
  ]
}

Response

A successful request receives a 200 response with a JSON object for the new group.

{
  "id": "neustar-household-group",
  "description": "A group of users related by shared Neustar household ID",
  "source_user_attribute": "neustar-household-id",
  "attributes": [
    {
      "id": "has_dog",
      "type": "boolean_or"
    }
  ],
  "created_on": "2023-11-13T21:50:17.732Z",
  "created_by": "developer@example.com",
  "last_modified_on": "2023-11-13T21:50:17.732Z",
  "last_modified_by": "developer@example.com"
}

Update a group definition

PUT https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/{group_id}

Path parameters

Example cURL request

curl --location --request PUT 'https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/{group_id}' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <access_token>'

Example JSON request body

{
  "description": "A group of users related by shared Neustar household ID",
  "source_user_attribute": "neustar-household-id",
  "attributes": [
    {
      "id": "has_dog",
      "type": "boolean_or"
    }
  ]
}

Response

A successful request receives a 200 response with a JSON object for the group.

{
  "id": "group-id",
  "description": "A group of users related by shared Neustar household ID",
  "source_user_attribute": "neustar-household-id",
  "attributes": [
    {
      "id": "has_dog",
      "type": "boolean_or"
    }
  ],
  "created_on": "2023-11-13T21:53:57.917Z",
  "created_by": "developer@example.com",
  "last_modified_on": "2023-11-13T21:53:57.917Z",
  "last_modified_by": "developer@example.com"
}

Set attributes for a group

PATCH https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/{group_id}

Path parameters

Example cURL request

curl --location --request PUT 'https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/{group_id}' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <access_token>'

Example JSON request body

{
  "attributes": [
    {
      "id": "has_dog",
      "type": "boolean_or"
    },
    {
      "id": "country",
      "type": "latest"
    }
  ]
}

Response

A successful request receives a 200 response with a JSON object for the group.

{
  "id": "group-id",
  "description": "A group of users related by shared Neustar household ID",
  "source_user_attribute": "neustar-household-id",
  "attributes": [
    {
      "id": "id of the attribute shared by the group",
      "type": "either 'latest' or 'boolean_or'"
    }
  ],
  "created_on": "2023-11-13T21:57:26.947Z",
  "created_by": "developer@example.com",
  "last_modified_on": "2023-11-13T21:57:26.947Z",
  "last_modified_by": "developer@example.com"
}

Delete a group

DELETE https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/{group_id}

Path parameters

Example cURL request

curl --location --request DELETE 'https://api.mparticle.com/platform/experimental/workspaces/{workspace_id}/groups/{group_id}' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <access_token>'

Example JSON request body

No request body.

Response

A successful request receives a 204 response with an empty body.

Limitations

Error handling