Submit a data event

Submit an Event

$ curl https://api.intercom.io/events \
-X POST \
-H 'Authorization:Bearer <Your access token>' \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" -d'
{
  "event_name" : "placed-order",
  "created_at": 1389913941,
  "user_id": "314159",
  "metadata": {
    "order_date": 1392036272,
    "stripe_invoice": "inv_3434343434",
    "order_number": {
      "value":"3434-3434",
      "url": "https://example.org/orders/3434-3434"
    },
    "price": {
      "currency":"usd",
      "amount": 2999
    }
  }
}'
var more_metadata = {
  order_date: 1392036272,
  stripe_invoice: 'inv_3434343434',
  order_number: {
    value: "3434-3434",
    url: 'https://example.org/orders/3434-3434'
  },
  price: {
    currency: 'usd',
    amount: 2999
  }
};
Intercom('trackEvent', 'placed-order', more_metadata);
more_metadata = {
  :order_date => Time.now.to_i,
  :stripe_invoice => 'inv_3434343434',
  :order_number => {
    :value => '3434-3434',
    :url => 'https://example.org/orders/3434-3434'
  },
  price: {
    :currency => 'usd',
    :amount => 2999
  }
}
intercom.events.create({
  :event_name => "placed-order",
  :email => current_user.email,
  :created_at => 1391691571,
  :metadata => more_metadata
})
<?php
$metadata = ([
    "order_date" => time(),
    "stripe_invoice" => "inv_3434343434",
    "order_number" => ([
        "value" => "3434-3434",
        "url" => "https://example.org/orders/3434-3434"]),
        "price" => ([
            "currency" => "usd",
            "amount" => 2999])
]);

$intercom->events->create([
    "event_name" => "placed-order",
    "created_at" => 1500907515,
    "user_id" => "20413",
    "metadata" => $metadata
]);
?>
Map<String,Object> order = Maps.newHashMap();
order.put("value", "3434-3434");
order.put("url", "https://example.org/orders/3434-3434");

Map<String,Object> price = Maps.newHashMap();
price.put("currency", "usd");
price.put("amount", 2999);

Map<String,Object> meta = Maps.newHashMap();
meta.put("order_date", currentTimeMillis()/1000L);
meta.put("stripe_invoice", "inv_3434343434");
meta.put("price", price);
meta.put("order_number", order);

Event event = new Event()
  .setEventName("placed-order")
  .setUserID("314159")
  .setMetadata(meta);

Event.create(event);

You will need an Access Token that has write permissions to send Events. Once you have a key you can submit events via POST to the Events resource, which is located at https://api.intercom.io/events, or you can send events using one of the client libraries. When working with the HTTP API directly a client should send the event with a Content-Type of application/json.

When using the JavaScript API, adding the code to your app makes the Events API available. Once added, you can submit an event using the trackEvent method. This will associate the event with the Lead or currently logged-in user or logged-out visitor/lead and send it to Intercom. The final parameter is a map that can be used to send optional metadata about the event.

With the Ruby client you pass a hash describing the event to Intercom::Event.create, or call the track_user method directly on the current user object (e.g. user.track_event).

Request Body Parameters

AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
event_nameStringyesThe name of the event that occurred. This is presented to your App's admins when filtering and creating segments - a good event name is typically a past tense 'verb-noun' combination, to improve readability, for example updated-plan.
created_atDate (UNIX timestamp)yesThe time the event occurred as a UTC Unix timestamp
user_idStringyes if no emailYour identifier for the user.
idStringyes if no email or user_id.Intercom identifier for a lead or a user.
emailStringyes if no user_idAn email address for your user. An email should only be used where your application uses email to uniquely identify users
metadataObjectnooptional metadata about the event.

Metadata Object

TypeDescriptionExample
StringThe value is a JSON String"source":"desktop"
NumberThe value is a JSON Number"load": 3.67
DateThe key ends with the String _date or _at and the value is a Unix timestamp, assumed to be in the UTC timezone."contact_date": 1392036272 or "contacted_at": 1392036272
LinkThe value is a HTTP or HTTPS URI.`"article": "https://example.org/ab1de.html"
Rich LinkThe value is a JSON object that contains url and value keys."article": {"url": "https://example.org/ab1de.html", "value":"the dude abides"}
Monetary AmountThe value is a JSON object that contains amount and currency keys. The amount key is a positive integer representing the amount in cents. The price in the example to the right denotes €349.99."price": {"amount": 34999, "currency": "eur"}

NB: For the JSON object types, please note that we do not currently support nested JSON structure.

Lead Events

When submitting events for Leads, you will need to specify the Lead's id.

Metadata behaviour

We currently limit the number of tracked metadata keys to 10 per event. Once the quota is reached, we ignore any further keys we receive. The first 10 metadata keys are determined by the order in which they are sent in with the event.\n_ It is not possible to change the metadata keys once the event has been sent. A new event will need to be created with the new keys and you can archive the old one.\n_ There might be up to 24 hrs delay when you send a new metadata for an existing event.

Event de-duplication

The API may detect and ignore duplicate events. Each event is uniquely identified as a combination of the following data - the Workspace identifier, the Contact external identifier, the Data Event name and the Data Event created time. As a result, it is strongly recommended to send a second granularity Unix timestamp in the created_at field.\n\nDuplicated events are responded to using the normal 202 Accepted code - an error is not thrown, however repeat requests will be counted against any rate limit that is in place.

HTTP API Responses

  • Successful responses to submitted events return 202 Accepted with an empty body.
  • Unauthorised access will be rejected with a 401 Unauthorized or 403 Forbidden response code.
  • Events sent about users that cannot be found will return a 404 Not Found.
  • Event lists containing duplicate events will have those duplicates ignored.
  • Server errors will return a 500 response code and may contain an error message in the body.