Braze Cloud Mode Integration

Send events to Braze in RudderStack cloud mode.

6 minute read

After you have successfully instrumented Braze as a destination in RudderStack, follow this guide to correctly send your events to Braze in cloud mode.

Find the open source transformer code for this destination in the GitHub repository.

Identify

You can use the identify call to identify a user in Braze in any of the below cases:

When the user registers to the app for the first time.
When they log into their app.
When they update their information.

A sample identify call is shown below:

rudderanalytics.identify("1hKOmRA4GRlm", {
  email: "alex@example.com",
  name: "Alex Keener"
});

Set a custom user ID (`externalId`)

Note that:
Braze gives first preference to the externalId field in the identify event to identify the user. If externalId is absent, it falls back to the userId field.
Make sure to send the identify event containing the externalId before sending any subsequent track events so that RudderStack is able to persist the externalId information successfully.

You can explicitly set a custom user ID in the externalId field of your identify event. Note that if externalId is absent, RudderStack automatically sets the userId as the externalId field before sending the event to Braze.

The following code snippet shows how to add an externalId to your identify event using the JavaScript SDK, before sending it to the Braze destination:

rudderanalytics.identify(
  "1hKOmRA4GRlm", {
    firstName: "Alex",
    city: "New Orleans",
    country: "Louisiana",
    phone: "+1-202-555-0146",
    email: "alex@example.com",
    custom_flavor: "chocolate",
  } {
    externalId: [{
      id: "<external_id>",
      type: "brazeExternalId",
    }, ],
  }
);

Delete a user

To delete a user, make sure to:
Use a REST API key containing the users.delete permission for setting up the Braze destination in RudderStack.
Specify the userId in the event. You can also specify a custom identifier (optional) in the event.

You can delete a user in Braze using the Suppression with Delete regulation of the RudderStack User Suppression API.

A sample regulation request body for deleting a user in Braze is shown below:

{
  "regulationType": "suppress_with_delete",
  "destinationIds": ["2FIKkByqn37FhzczP23eZmURciA"],
  "users": [
    {
      "userId": "1hKOmRA4GRlm",
      "<customKey>": "<customValue>"
    }
  ]
}

Send user traits as nested custom attributes

You can send the user traits to Braze as nested custom attributes and perform add, update, and remove operations on them. To do so, turn on the Use Custom Attributes Operation dashboard setting while setting up the Braze destination.

You can send the user traits as nested custom attributes in your identify events in the following format:

rudderanalytics.identify("1hKOmRA4GRlm", {
  cars: {
    add: [{
      age: 27,
      id: 1,
      name: "Alex Keener"
    }],
    update: [{
        age: 30,
        id: 2,
        identifier: "id",
        name: "Alice"
      },
      {
        age: 27,
        id: 1,
        identifier: "id",
        name: "John"
      }
    ]
  },
  pets: [{
      breed: "Golden Retriever",
      id: 1,
      name: "Scooby",
      type: "Dog"
    },
    {
      breed: "German Shepherd",
      id: 2,
      name: "Milo",
      type: "Dog"
    }
  ]
  country: "USA",
  email: "alex@example.com",
  firstName: "Alex",
  gender: "M",
  properties: {
    mergeObjectsUpdateOperation: true
  }
});

To deep merge the updated custom attributes with the existing attributes, set mergeObjectsUpdateOperation to true within the event’s properties object, as seen above.

You can also set the user traits as custom user attributes in the track, page, or screen events by pass traits as a contextual field in the event, as shown:

rudderanalytics.track(
  "Product Viewed", {
    revenue: 8.99,
    currency: "USD"
  }, {
    traits: {
      cars: {
        add: [{
          age: 27,
          id: 1,
          name: "Alex Keener"
        }],
        update: [{
            age: 30,
            id: 2,
            identifier: "id",
            name: "Mike"
          },
          {
            age: 27,
            id: 1,
            identifier: "id",
            name: "Rowan"
          }
        ]
      },
      city: "Disney",
      country: "USA",
      email: "alexa@example.com",
      firstName: "Alexa",
      gender: "woman",
      pets: [{
          breed: "beagle",
          id: 1,
          name: "Scooby",
          type: "dog"
        },
        {
          breed: "calico",
          id: 2,
          name: "Garfield",
          type: "cat"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
);

Note that:
identifier is a required key for the update and remove operations.
RudderStack uses the create operation to create the properties if add, update, or remove operations are not present in the nested array.

See the Braze documentation for more information on sending nested custom attributes to Braze.

Track

The track call lets you record the customer events, that is, the actions that they perform, along with any properties associated with them.

A sample track call is shown below:

rudderanalytics.track("Product Added", {
  numberOfRatings: "12",
  name: "item 1"
});

Order Completed

When you call the track method for an Order Completed event, RudderStack sends the product information present in the event to Braze as purchases.

A sample Order Completed event is shown below:

rudderanalytics.track("Order Completed", {
  userId: "1hKOmRA4GRlm",
  currency: "USD",
  products: [
    {
      product_id: "123454387",
      name: "Game",
      price: 15.99
    }
  ]
});

Page

The page call allows you to record your website’s page views, with the additional relevant information about the viewed page.

A sample page call is as shown below:

rudderanalytics.page("Cart", "Cart Viewed", {
  path: "/cart",
  referrer: "test.com",
  search: "term",
  title: "test_item",
  url: "http://test.in"
});

Screen

The screen call lets you record your users’ mobile screen views with any additional information about the viewed scren.

A sample screen call is shown below:

[[RSClient sharedInstance] screen:@"Main"
                properties:@{@"prop_key" : @"prop_value"}];

Group

You can use the group event to link an identified user with a group, such as a company, organization, or an account.

rudderanalytics.group("12345", {
  name: "MyGroup",
  industry: "IT",
  employees: 450,
  plan: "basic"
});

Note that once you send a group event, RudderStack sends a custom attribute to Braze with the name as ab_rudder_group_<groupId> and the value as true.

For example, if the groupId is 12345, then RudderStack creates a custom attribute with the name ab_rudder_group_12345 and sends it to Braze with its value to true.

Subscription group status

To update the subscription group status, enable the Enable subscription groups in group call dashboard setting and send the subscription group status in the group call:

rudderanalytics.group("12345", {
  subscriptionState: "subscribed",
  email: "alex@example.com"
});

Either email or phone is mandatory to send the subscription group in a group call.

Alias

You can use the alias event to merge different identities of a known user.

A sample alias call is shown below:

rudderanalytics.alias("newUserId", "previousUserId");

When you send the above event, RudderStack removes the user with previousUserId from Braze and merges all the associated fields with the user having newUserId.

Delta management for `identify` and `track` calls

You can save costs by deduplicating the data sent to Braze via identify and track calls. To do so, enable the Deduplicate Traits dashboard setting. RudderStack then sends only the changed or modified attributes (traits) to Braze.

RudderStack recommends reviewing Braze’s data points policy to fully understand how this functionality can help you avoid data overages.

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