Send user properties

User properties describe segments of your user base, such as language preference or geographic location. Analytics automatically logs some user properties. If you want to collect additional properties, you can set up to 25 additional user properties per project. See Custom user properties to learn how to set and register user properties.

User properties enhance user segmentation, but user property data is often only available server-side. The Measurement Protocol lets you augment client-side measurements with server-side data, which is typically infeasible using only client-side solutions.

Reserved names

Some user property names are reserved and cannot be used in measurements:

• first_open_time
• first_visit_time
• last_deep_link_referrer
• user_id
• first_open_after_install

Additionally, user property names cannot begin with:

• google_
• ga_
• firebase_

Example usage

In the following example, your CRM has a user property (customer_tier) you would like to add to your measurements. customer_tier can be set to one of premium or standard. To get this user property in your reports, you would do the following:

First, have the client send an add_payment_info event along with a call to a server API that has access to your CRM system:

client code

Your server then augments the measurement with the customer_tier user property using the Measurement Protocol:

server code

This user property reports the two segments premium and standard.

See Sending events for full details on how to send events using the Measurement Protocol.

Override timestamp

The Measurement Protocol uses the first timestamp it finds in the following list for each user property in the request:

1. The timestamp_micros of the entry in user_properties.
2. The timestamp_micros of the request.
3. The time that the Measurement Protocol receives the request.

The following example sends a request-level timestamp that applies to all of the user properties in the request. As a result, the Measurement Protocol assigns both the customer_tier and customer_group user properties a timestamp of requestUnixEpochTimeInMicros.

{
  "timestamp_micros": requestUnixEpochTimeInMicros,
  "user_properties": {
      "customer_tier": {
        "value": customerTierValue
      },
      "customer_group": {
        "value": customerGroupValue
      }
  }
}

The following example sends both a request-level timestamp and a timestamp for the customer_tier user property. As a result, the Measurement Protocol assigns the customer_tier a timestamp of customerTierUnixEpochTimeInMicros, and the customer_group a timestamp of requestUnixEpochTimeInMicros.

"timestamp_micros": requestUnixEpochTimeInMicros,
"user_properties": {
    "customer_tier": {
      "value": customerTierValue,
      "timestamp_micros": customerTierUnixEpochTimeInMicros
    },
    "customer_group": {
      "value": customerGroupValue
    }
}