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BlueConic provides standard Timeline event types out-of-the-box, which you can use to store common customer event data on the profile timeline. You add customer data to the profile timeline via connections or using the REST API.

You can also create new Timeline event type and customize the properties, data types, and priority level to suit your data.

Inspect and customize existing Timeline event types

1. 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. 
   
2. 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.
   
3. Save your settings.

Create custom event types

1. To create a new, custom Timeline event type, select Timeline event types from the BlueConic navigation bar.
2. Click the Add timeline event type button in the top right corner.
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
5. Set the retention period to indefinite (default for high priority events), or a fixed period of days (for low priority events).
   
   Note that if you change the Retention period for a Timeline event type, it only applies to newly created events of this type.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
   
9. Save your changes. 

Use BlueConic Connections to add data to profile timelines 

Once you've created a custom Timeline event type, you can begin adding customer data to this event type, for example via BlueConic connections (via the Amazon Web Services (S3), Google BigQuery, SFTP, or Salesforce Marketing Cloud connection). You can also create queries against Timeline data using the Timeline Query Connection.