Segmentation

You can define your audience based on named users, attributes, tags, tag groups, and Airship channel IDs.

Named Users

Named Users allow you to associate multiple devices to a single user or profile that may be associated with more than one device, e.g., an end-user’s tablet and phone. A device can have only one Named User, and a single Named User should not be associated with more than 50 devices. Named Users provide the ability to directly set tags on them.

By default, Named Users can only be associated server-side, via the API. A 403 Forbidden response is returned if Named User association is attempted when client-side association is disabled. In order to associate a Named User through the application, you must change the application’s Named Users security setting to allow Named Users to be set from devices. See: Enable Named Users.

 Note

Associating the channel with a Named User ID will implicitly disassociate the channel from the previously associated Named User ID, if an association existed.

Associating the Named User
Airship.Instance.NamedUser = "NamedUserID";
Dissociating the Named User
Airship.Instance.NamedUser = null;

Attributes

Attributes are metadata that you can use for audience segmentation. Attributes differ from tags in that when evaluating users with attributes, Airship uses operators, e.g., equals, less than/greater than, contains, before/after, to determine whether or not to target a user. Supported attribute types are TEXT, NUMBER, and DATE. For more information see the attributes guide.

Channel Attributes Example
// Set string and number attributes
Airship.Instance.EditChannelAttributes()
       .SetAttribute("device_name", "Bobby's Phone")
       .SetAttribute("average_rating", 4.99)
       .RemoveAttribute("connection_type")
       .Apply();

Tag-based segmentation

Tags are an easy way to group channels. Many tags can be applied to one or more devices. Then, a message sent to a tag will be sent out to all devices that are associated with that tag. After modifying tags, make sure to call updateRegistration to have the SDK sync the tags with Airship.

Modifying tags
// Add tags
Airship.Instance.EditDeviceTags()
       .AddTags(new string[] { "one", "two", "three" })
       .Apply();

// Add a tag
Airship.Instance.EditDeviceTags()
       .AddTag("a_tag")
       .Apply();

// Remove a tag
Airship.Instance.EditDeviceTags()
       .RemoveTag("a_tag")
       .Apply();

Tag Groups

Tag groups are configurable namespaces for organizing tags for the channel and Named User. Please view the Tag Groups documentation for more details.

 Note

If setting channel tags is enabled on the device, the predefined device Tag Group cannot be modified from the device and will log an error message. Disable channel tags by disabling channelTagRegistrationEnabled on the UAChannel instance if you want to modify this “default” Tag Group.

Channel Tag Group Example
// Add tags to a group
Airship.Instance.EditChannelTagGroups()
       .AddTags(new string[] { "silver-member", "gold-member" }, "loyalty")
       .Apply();

// Remove tags from a group
Airship.Instance.EditChannelTagGroups()
       .RemoveTags(new string[] { "bronze-member", "club-member"}, "loyalty")
       .Apply();

// Set tags on a group
Airship.Instance.EditChannelTagGroups()
       .SetTags(new string[] { "bingo" }, "games")
       .Apply();
Named User Tag Group Example
// Add tags to a group
Airship.Instance.EditNamedUserTagGroups()
       .AddTags(new string[] { "silver-member", "gold-member" }, "loyalty")
       .Apply();

// Remove tags from a group
Airship.Instance.EditNamedUserTagGroups()
       .RemoveTags(new string[] { "bronze-member", "club-member" }, "loyalty")
       .Apply();

// Set tags on a group
Airship.Instance.EditNamedUserTagGroups()
       .SetTags(new string[] { "bingo" }, "games")
       .Apply();

By default, Tag Groups can only be modified from the server. A 403 Forbidden response is returned if Tag Groups modification is attempted when client-side Tag Groups is disabled. In order to modify Tag Groups through the application, you must change the application’s Tag Group security settings to allow these tags to be set from devices. Follow the steps in Manage Tag Groups to enable this option.

Airship Channel IDs

The Channel ID is a unique identifier that ties together an application/device pair on iOS devices. The Channel ID is used to target pushes to specific devices using the Airship API.

The Channel ID will be logged for all apps. You can get the Channel ID by adding one extra line to your application:

Getting the Channel ID
string channelId = Airship.Instance.ChannelId;

Don’t worry if this value initially comes back as null on your app’s first run (or after clearing the application data), as the Channel ID will be created and persisted during registration.