Engage SDK Cluster publishing guidelines

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This guide includes a set of guidelines for cluster publishing that developers can use when integrating with Engage SDK.

Recommendation clusters

Cluster Title

We recommend providing a unique and relevant cluster title that gives users more insight on the content of the cluster.

Here are some examples of good cluster titles based on the content:

• Shopping-related clusters
  • Lightning Deals
  • Weekly must buys
  • Related to your purchase of Pixel Buds
  • Women’s rain boots
• Clusters of books on health
  • Health, mind & body
  • Recommended for you in Health
  • Best-sellers in Fitness

Cluster Content

When publishing recommendation clusters, developers must consider whether or not the user is signed in to the developer's application.

When user is signed in

If the user is signed in to the developer app, we recommend publishing personalized or user-generated content clusters. Because personalized and user-generated content is more relevant to the user, they are more motivated to visit the developer app from the Google surface.

• Personalized recommendations can be published.
  • Here are some examples of personalized recommendations:
    • Top picks based on the user's watch history.
    • Books similar to books that are in the user's read history.
    • Songs by the user's favorite artists.
• User-generated content libraries can be published.
  • Here are some examples of user-generated content libraries:
    • The user's watchlist from the developer app.
    • A self-reported list of the user's favorite artists from the developer app.

When user is not signed in

If a user is not signed in to the developer app, we still recommend publishing clusters so that users are encouraged to visit the developer app from the Google surface.

• Non-personalized recommendation clusters should be published.
  • Here are some examples of non-personalized recommendations:
    • Top 10 books read this year.
    • Newly released movies.
    • Trending podcasts.
• Publish a sign-in card.
  • In order to encourage users to sign in to the developer app, developers may choose to publish a sign-in card along with the non-personalized recommendation cluster. Check out the section below for more details on how to publish a Sign In Card.

Continuation clusters

When publishing continuation clusters, developers must consider whether or not the user is signed in to the developer's application.

When user is signed in

• User-generated continuation clusters should be published.
  • Here are some examples of user-generated continuation clusters:
    • Continue Watching from where the user left off.
    • Continue Reading from where the user left off.

When user is not signed in

Continuation journeys are primarily intended for signed-in users; however, you can also publish continuation clusters for signed-out users if your app supports guest sessions.

User Management Cluster

The main aim of the User Management Cluster is to nudge users to perform certain actions on the provider app. The signin action directs users to the app's sign in page so that the app can publish content (or provide more personalized content)

Sign In Card

var SIGN_IN_CARD_ENTITY =
      SignInCardEntity.Builder()
          .addPosterImage(
              Image.Builder()
                  .setImageUri(Uri.parse("http://www.x.com/image.png"))
                  .setImageHeightInPixel(500)
                  .setImageWidthInPixel(500)
                  .build())
          .setActionText("Sign In")
          .setActionUri(Uri.parse("http://xx.com/signin"))
          .build()

appEngagePublishClient.publishUserAccountManagementRequest(
            PublishUserAccountManagementRequest.Builder()
                .setSignInCardEntity(SIGN_IN_CARD_ENTITY)
                .build());

SignInCardEntity SIGN_IN_CARD_ENTITY =
      new SignInCardEntity.Builder()
          .addPosterImage(
              new Image.Builder()
                  .setImageUri(Uri.parse("http://www.x.com/image.png"))
                  .setImageHeightInPixel(500)
                  .setImageWidthInPixel(500)
                  .build())
          .setActionText("Sign In")
          .setActionUri(Uri.parse("http://xx.com/signin"))
          .build();

appEngagePublishClient.publishUserAccountManagementRequest(
            new PublishUserAccountManagementRequest.Builder()
                .setSignInCardEntity(SIGN_IN_CARD_ENTITY)
                .build());

After users have signed in, developers must delete the card by calling deleteUserManagementCluster() API.

Update Publish Status

If for any internal business reason, none of the clusters is published, we strongly recommend updating the publish status using the updatePublishStatus API. This is important because :

• Providing the status in all scenarios, even when the content is published (STATUS == PUBLISHED), is critical to populate dashboards that use this explicit status to convey the health and other metrics of your integration.
• If no content is published but the integration status isn't broken (STATUS == NOT_PUBLISHED), Google can avoid triggering alerts in the app health dashboards. It confirms that content is not published due to an expected situation from the provider's standpoint.
• It helps developers provide insights into when the data is published vs not.
• Google may use the status codes to nudge the user to do certain actions in the app so they can see the app content or overcome it.

The list of eligible publish status codes are :

// Content is published
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.PUBLISHED,

// Content is not published as user is not signed in
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SIGN_IN,

// Content is not published as user is not subscribed
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SUBSCRIPTION,

// Content is not published as user location is ineligible
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_INELIGIBLE_LOCATION,

// Content is not published as there is no eligible content
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_NO_ELIGIBLE_CONTENT,

// Content is not published as the feature is disabled by the client
// Available in v1.3.1
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_FEATURE_DISABLED_BY_CLIENT,

// Content is not published as the feature due to a client error
// Available in v1.3.1
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_CLIENT_ERROR,

// Content is not published as the feature due to a service error
// Available in v1.3.1
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_SERVICE_ERROR,

// Content is not published due to some other reason
// Reach out to engage-developers@ before using this enum.
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_OTHER

If the content is not published due to a user not logged in, we would recommend publishing the Sign In Card. If for any reason providers are not able to publish the Sign In Card then we recommend calling the updatePublishStatus API with the status code NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SIGN_IN

client.updatePublishStatus(
   PublishStatusRequest.Builder()
     .setStatusCode(AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SIGN_IN)
     .build())

client.updatePublishStatus(
    new PublishStatusRequest.Builder()
        .setStatusCode(AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SIGN_IN)
        .build());

WorkManager for cluster publishing

We recommend using WorkManager to publish clusters, because it is the recommended solution for background work where the execution must be both opportunistic and guaranteed.

• WorkManager performs your background work as soon as it can.
• WorkManager handles the logic to start your work under a variety of conditions, even if a user navigates away from your app.

When the user navigates away from the app, we recommend starting a background job that publishes continuation clusters along with recommendation clusters. A good place to handle this logic is Activity.onStop(), which is called when the user navigates away from the app.

We suggest using PeriodicWorkRequest to schedule a recurring job that publishes clusters every 24 hours. By using a CANCEL_AND_REENQUEUE policy for triggering the work, developers can ensure that WorkManager sends the updated data every time a user navigates away from the app. This helps prevent users from seeing stale data.

The following example demonstrates this:

// Define the PublishClusters Worker requiring input
public class PublishClusters extends Worker {

   public PublishClusters(Context appContext, WorkerParameters workerParams) {
       super(appContext, workerParams);
   }

   @NonNull
   @Override
   public Result doWork() {
       // publish clusters
   }
   ...
}

public static void schedulePublishClusters(Context appContext) {
// Create a PeriodicWorkRequest to schedule a recurring job to update
// clusters at a regular interval
PeriodicWorkRequest publishClustersEntertainmentSpace =
// Define the time for the periodic job
       new PeriodicWorkRequest.Builder(PublishClusters.class, 24, TimeUnit.HOURS)
// Set up a tag for the worker.
// Tags are Unique identifier, which can be used to identify that work
// later in order to cancel the work or observe its progress.
          .addTag("Publish Clusters to Entertainment Space")
          .build();

// Trigger Periodic Job, this will ensure that the periodic job is triggered
// only once since we have defined a uniqueWorkName
WorkManager.getInstance(appContext).enqueueUniquePeriodicWork(
// uniqueWorkName
     "publishClustersEntertainmentSpace",
// If a work with the uniqueWorkName is already running, it will cancel the
// existing running jobs and replace it with the new instance.
// ExistingPeriodicWorkPolicy#CANCEL_AND_REENQUEUE
     ExistingPeriodicWorkPolicy.CANCEL_AND_REENQUEUE,
// Recurring Work Request
publishClustersEntertainmentSpace);

}

Handle broadcast intents

In addition to making publish content API calls through a job, it is also required to set up a BroadcastReceiver to receive the request for a content publish.

However, developers must be careful not to rely solely on broadcasts, because they are only triggered in certain scenarios—mainly, for app reactivation and forcing a data sync. They are only triggered when the Engage Service determines that the content might be stale. That way, there is greater confidence that the user will have a fresh content experience, even if the application has not been opened for a long time.

The BroadcastReceiver must be set up in the following two ways:

• Dynamically register an instance of the BroadcastReceiver class using Context.registerReceiver(). This enables communication from applications that are still live in memory.
• Statically declare an implementation with the <receiver> tag in your AndroidManifest.xml file. This allows the application to receive broadcast intents when it is not running, and also allows the application to publish the content.