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Braze Learning courseCustom attributes

Custom attributes are a collection of your users’ unique traits. Custom attributes are best for storing attributes about your users, or information about low-value actions within your application.

When stored in Braze, these characteristics can be used to build out audience segments and personalize messaging using Liquid. You should keep in mind that we don’t store time-series information for custom attributes, so you won’t be able to get any graphs based upon them like you can for custom events.

Managing custom attributes

To create and manage custom attributes in the dashboard, go to Data Settings > Custom Attributes.

Four custom attributes that are booleans.

The Last updated column lists the last time the custom attribute was edited, such as when it was last set to blocklist or active.

From this page, you can view, manage, create, or blocklist existing custom attributes. Select the menu next to a custom attribute for the following actions:

Blocklisting

Custom attributes can be blocklisted individually via the actions menu, or up to 10 attributes can be selected and blocklisted in bulk. If you block a custom attribute, no data will be collected regarding that attribute, existing data will be unavailable unless reactivated, and blocklisted attributes will not show up in filters or graphs. In addition, if the attribute is currently being referenced by filters or triggers in other areas of the Braze dashboard, a warning modal will appear explaining that all instances of the filters or triggers that reference it will be removed and archived.

Marking as PII

Admins can also create custom attributes and mark them as PII from this page. These attributes will only be visible to admins and dashboard users with the “View Custom Attributes Marked as PII” permission.

Adding descriptions

You can add a description to a custom attribute after it’s created if you have the Manage Events, Attributes, Purchases user permission. Edit the custom attribute and input whatever you like, such as a note for your team.

Adding tags

You can add tags to a custom attribute after it’s created if you have the “Manage Events, Attributes, Purchases” user permission. The tags can then be used to filter the list of attributes.

Removing custom attributes

There are two ways you can remove custom attributes from user profiles:

Viewing usage reports

The usage report lists all the Canvases, campaigns, and segments using a specific custom attribute. This list does not include uses of Liquid.

You can view up to 10 usage reports at a time by selecting the checkboxes next to the respective custom attributes and then selecting View usage report.

Exporting data

To export the list of custom attributes as a CSV file, select Export all at the top of the page. The CSV file will be generated, and a download link will be emailed to you.

Setting custom attributes

The following lists methods across various platforms that are used to set custom attributes.

Expand for documentation by platform

Custom attribute storage

All data stored on the User Profile, including custom attribute data, is retained indefinitely as long as each profile is active.

Custom attribute data types

Custom attributes are extraordinarily flexible tools that allow for great targeting.

The following data types may be stored as custom attributes:

Booleans (true/false)

Boolean attributes are useful for storing simple binary data about your users, like subscription statuses. You can find users that explicitly have a variable set to a true or false value, in addition to those that don’t have any record of that attribute recorded yet.

Numbers

Numeric attributes include integers and floats, and have a wide variety of use-cases. Incrementing number custom attributes are useful for storing the number of times a given action or event has occurred without counting against your data cap. Standard numbers have all sorts of usages, such as recording:

  • Shoe size
  • Waist size
  • Number of times a user has viewed a certain product feature, or category

Number attribute details

  • “Exactly 0” and “Less Than” filters include users with NULL fields
    • To exclude users without a value for custom attributes, you need to include the is not blank filter.

Strings (alphanumeric characters)

String attributes are useful for storing user input, such as a favorite brand, a phone number, or a last search string within your application. String attributes can be up to 255 characters long.

Note that if you input any values with spaces in between, before, or after words, then Braze will also check for the same spaces.

Arrays

Array attributes are good for storing related lists of information about your users. For example, storing the last 100 pieces of content a user watched within an array would allow specific interest segmentation.

By default, the maximum length of an array for an attribute is set to 25, and can be increased to 100 for an individual array. For example, if you’re sending over an attribute such as “Movies Watched” and it is set to 100, when a user watches a 101st movie, the first movie will be removed from the array and the most recent movie will be added.

If you’d like this maximum increased, reach out to your customer success manager. Your dashboard administrator can then increase the maximum length for individual arrays to over 100 from the Custom Attributes tab of the Manage Settings page.

Note that If you input any values with spaces in between, before, or after words, then Braze will also check for the same spaces.

Time

Time attributes are useful for storing the last time a specific action was taken, so you can offer content specific re-engagement messaging to your users.

Time filters using relative dates (for example, more than 1 day ago, less than 2 days ago) measure 1 day as 24 hours. Any campaign that you run using these filters will include all users in 24-hour increments. For example, last used app more than 1 day ago will capture all users who “last used the app more than 24 hours” from the exact time the campaign runs. The same will be true for campaigns set with longer date ranges—so five days from activation will mean the prior 120 hours.

For example, to build a segment that targets users with a time attribute between 24 and 48 hours in the future, apply the filters in more than 1 day in the future and in less than 2 days in the future.

Time attribute details

  • Day of Recurring Event
    • When using the “Day of Recurring Event” filter, and are then prompted to select the “Calendar Day of Recurring Event”, if you select IS LESS THAN or IS MORE THAN, the current date will be counted for that segmentation filter.
    • For example, if on March 10, 2020, you selected the date of the attribute to be LESS THAN ... March 10, 2020, attributes will be considered for the days up to, and including March 10, 2020.
  • Less than X Days Ago: The “Less than X Days Ago” filter includes dates between X days ago and the current date/time.
  • Less than X Days in the Future: Includes dates between the current date/time and X days in the future.

Objects

You can use nested custom attributes to send objects as a data type for custom attributes. For more information, refer to Nested custom attributes.

Arrays of objects

Use an array of objects to group related attributes. For more details, refer to our article on Array of objects.

Consolidated operators

We’ve consolidated the list of operators available to use in attribute filters, custom attribute filters, and nested custom attribute filters. If you have existing filters using these operators, they will be automatically updated to use the new operators.

Purchase and revenue tracking

Using our purchase methods to record in-app purchases establishes the Lifetime Value (LTV) for each individual user profile. This data is viewable within our revenue page in time-series.

You can change the data type of your custom attribute, but you should be aware of the impacts of changing data types.

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