In addition to storing information about a profile in profile properties, BlueConic stores time-based data on events that occur for a profile, such as product orders, page views, clicks, etc.
Events are stored on each BlueConic profile's Timeline to capture information about timing and sequence of events.
BlueConic data structure for events, profiles, and groups
Events are data points tied to the BlueConic Timeline of a customer's profile, for example an order the customer has placed, or a subscription event. This example data structure shows how BlueConic customer profiles can also have related event timelines, and how profiles can be part of groups such as households, companies, or accounts.
Timeline events use cases
Storing relevant customer events in profiles enables marketing teams to do much deeper analysis and data collection that is time-based. There are many ways you can use Timeline events in BlueConic:
Use the more granular, time-based data in events for better insight and greater data activation and targeting.
Serve improved recommendations that account for which products have been bought, both by the current profile and overall statistics for products bought by others.
Find greater opportunities for personalization based on customer order data.
Calculate profile properties based on events in individual profile Timelines by running timeline event rollup queries. Use that profile data for segmentation, data activation, or machine learning and AI transaction-based calculations.
Evaluate customer data based on time.
Navigating to Timeline events
Timeline events are visible in the Profiles tab for a particular profile. Select Profile Timeline to see details on events for a profile's Timeline. Note that you first have to add or import Timeline events to a profile in order for Timeline events to appear here. Use the All event types dropdown menu to select the event types to appear in the timeline. Then you can see details for specific dates or events.
You can also see Timeline events in the BlueConic Simulator.
Click Show all timeline events in the Simulator to open a lightbox listing all events related to the current profile. Learn more about the high or low priority setting for Timeline events.
Data visibility and timeline events
BlueConic protects sensitive data by limiting data visibility by user role. Event and profile data in BlueConic can have a data sensitivity setting of PII (for personally identifiable information) or non-PII. Only BlueConic users whose role includes data visibility for sensitive PII data can view this data in the platform. Data marked as non-PII is visible to all BlueConic users. Learn more about BlueConic roles and data visibility.
Managing timeline event types
Select More > Timeline events from the BlueConic navigation menu, and click the Timeline event types tab. The Timeline events page shows the standard event types as well as any custom event types you have created. Use this page to create and administer Timeline event types. You can inspect event types to see the data they store on the timeline. For example, the Order event type is provided by default and defines event details such as the date, time, price, item URL, item SKU, etc. for a customer order.
To customize a standard Timeline event type, scroll to the bottom of the event type's configuration page and click the Add property or Add nested subproperty button to add additional properties.
Save your settings.
Creating custom event types
By default, BlueConic offers a set of out-of-the-box Timeline event types. You can also create custom Timeline event types to suit your data.
To create a new, custom Timeline event type, select Timeline event types from the BlueConic navigation bar.
Click the Add timeline event type button in the top right corner.
Enter a name for your new Timeline event type. BlueConic creates a unique ID for the event type based on this name. You can change the ID now, but as soon as you save the new event type, the ID becomes read-only.
Note: For storage of Timeline events, the maximum event size is 1kb. Events bigger than 1kb will not be stored. For this reason, it is recommended to keep the event Property ID short, to reduce the effect on storage and event size limit.Adjust the priority setting if needed. Events have high or low priority, and this determines how long they are stored on the timeline. Learn more about Timeline event priority settings.
Set the retention period to indefinite (default for high priority events), or a fixed period of days (for low priority events).
Note: If you change the Retention period for a Timeline event type, it only applies to newly created events of this type.
In the Properties section, set up the event attributes you want to track for each event. By default, the Event ID and Event date/time are stored for all events.
Click Add property to add additional event properties and fill in the name, description, data type, and data sensitivity setting (PII or non-PII) for each one.
Once you save the Timeline event type, the property ID and type cannot be changed. The data sensitivity can be changed from non-PII to PII, but not from PII to non-PII.
Note: For storage of Timeline events, the maximum event size is 1kb. Events bigger than 1kb will not be stored. For this reason, we recommend that you keep the event Property ID short, to reduce the effect on the storage and event size limit.Use the Add nested property and Add subproperty buttons to further define the information to be collected for each event type. Note: Each event type can have one nested property.
Save your changes.
Query timeline event data and roll results up into profile properties
Use the Basic Query Builder for timeline event rollups to query timeline event data and store the results in profile properties. Timeline event rollups take into account data retention and data updates to ensure your query is refreshed appropriately. Create new segments or augment your CDP use cases based on data stored in the profile timeline. Learn more about timeline event rollups.
FAQs
How do I add events to a profile's Timeline?
In order to add events to a BlueConic profile's Timeline, you need to first decide what types of events you want to record and define a Timeline event type to record this event. To add product orders, for example, you can use the prebuilt Order Timeline event type by installing the Event type: Order plugin from BlueConic.
You can import Timeline events from your other systems using certain standard connections, including Airship, Braze, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Klaviyo, Shopify, and more.
How does the default Order Timeline event type work?
BlueConic provides a default Order Timeline event type you can use for importing product orders via the SFTP Connection.
To use this Order event information to enhance your product recommendations, you need to do two things:
In the Order details, you need to store the BlueConic product store ID in a property called "bcStoreId".
The Product IDs in the Order event must exactly match the product IDs in your BlueConic product store. You select the product store name in Step 5 of the order data import via the SFTP Connection.
In addition, keep the following guidelines in mind when creating product recommendations based on the default Order event type:
Products need to be present in the product or content store, in order to be recommended.
If you add an Order of this event type, and BlueConic matches the product id, BlueConic will add Order events to a profile's timeline.
Bought products for this order are added to a profile property that stores products ordered by this profile.
Also, product stores and related statistics are updated with new Order events. This additional product data lets you create better personal recommendations, because there is more product information available for the current profile.
Can I use timeline events to capture when a profile property was updated?
Yes, you can. Because BlueConic is not a relational database, the date or time a profile property is created is not stored or available in BlueConic. To track time stamps you can configure a date-time profile property that adds the current date and time when a property changes. This property must be configured to update within every source that changes the property. For instance, if you are importing data that you need a timestamp for with an SFTP Connection, you’ll also need to add a mapping for the last date/time when the connection runs. If this property can also be updated by a BlueConic listener, you’ll want to configure the listener to also update the date/time property when it updates the target property. Or, you can configure a custom Timeline event type instead, and then use the Timeline event rollup feature to query this timeline event and store the data into profile properties.
Can I use multiple Timeline event types in the Timeline Query Connection?
Yes, when setting up a Timeline query goal in the Timeline Query Connection, if you choose SQL in the dropdown menu, you can write a full SQL query to use multiple Timeline event types in a query. For step-by-step instructions on setting up the connection, see the Timeline Query Connection documentation.
How can I deduplicate Timeline events?
To prevent duplicate events being added to a timeline, you can set an "externalID" field. It is not possible to add an event with an externalID that already exists.
How does BlueConic handle Timeline event storage and priority?
Events are data points tied to the BlueConic Timeline of a profile, containing for example an order the customer placed. BlueConic comes out of the box with several predefined BlueConic Timeline event types. You can customize how long BlueConic stores these events on the profile timeline.
For the storage of Timeline events, the maximum event size is 1kb. Events bigger than 1kb will not be stored. For this reason, we recommend that you keep the event Property ID short, to reduce the effect on the storage and event size limit.
Retention period
The retention period for timeline events can be set to a specified number of days, or indefinitely. There are also rules on how many events can be stored in the profile timeline.
Example: You create an order event with a retention period set to 90 days. A web purchase a user makes today is stored in the profile for 90 days from today. If a purchase event occurred a year ago but is sent to the profile timeline today, it is also retained for 90 days. Both events are stored for a set period of 90 days starting from when they are added to the profile timeline.
Note: If you change a Timeline event type's retention setting, the update applies only to newly created timeline events of this type.
Some notes on how the retention period works for timeline events:
When a timeline event is added to the profile, the retention period is set based on the date it is added or update on the timeline, not the event date itself.
Limits on the number of stored events and retention periods are mutually exclusive. BlueConic cleans up events when a limit of events has been reached, and event data is retained for a period of time as defined in the retention setting.
Retention is based on when an event is imported, inserted, or created in BlueConic.
Cleanup of low-priority and high priority events is done based on the oldest event date.
Timeline event priority levels
Events can be defined as high or low priority. In a standard BlueConic subscription, there is a maximum number of 250 events per profile allowed. Low-priority events have a default retention period of 30 days. High-priority events are constrained by the total number of events and take precedence over low-priority events, which are capped at 50 if there are 200 or more high-priority events.
Learn more about customizing Timeline event priority settings in BlueConic.
Is there an extra cost to use Timeline events?
By default, there is currently no extra cost to use Timeline events, but events being stored are added to your BlueConic total data storage. If you have a lot of events to store, you may need to buy more data storage to be able to use Timeline events under your current contract. Contact your Customer Success Manager to discuss your data storage needs.