HTTP API

You can use the Freshpaint HTTP API to send server side events into Freshpaint. See the server side source docs for information on how you can use server side events.

Using the HTTP API

The Freshpaint server-side API can be used to send data from your backend to Freshpaint. To send a server-side event, you make a POST request to https://api.perfalytics.com/track with the event you want to send. Events have the following format:

{
    "event": "<name of the event>",
    "properties": {
        "distinct_id": "<unique user identifier>",
        "token": "<your environment id>",
        "time": <the epoch time when the event occurred, in seconds>,
        <additional properties>
    }
}

Properties

The following properties are required:

Argument	Type	Description
distinct_id	String	An identifier that uniquely identifies the user that performed the event (usually email address). This is the same as the identifier you would pass to freshpaint.identify().
token	String	Your environment ID. You can get it from the Server Side API section on the sources page of the Freshpaint app.
time	Number	The epoch time the event occurred, in seconds. The epoch time is the number of seconds since January 1st 1970.

The following properties are optional:

$device_id	String	A unique identifier for the device the event was sent from. This is sometimes referred to as the anonymous_id.
$insert_id	String	A unique identifier for this event. Subsequent events sent to the HTTP API that have the same $insert_id will be treated as duplicates.

In addition to the above properties, you can send any additional custom properties you want.

IP Address

The IP address from where you send the server-side event will be automatically captured. It may, however, be the case that you want to submit a different IP address. For example, your server may be located in a data center, but you may want a purchase event to reflect the IP address of the actual purchaser.

In that case, you can send the IP address by submitting a property named $ip. For example:

{
  "event": "Purchase",
  "properties": {
    "distinct_id": "123",
    "$ip": "1.2.3.4",
    "price": 500
  }
}

Example code:

Curl

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
    "event": "Purchase",
    "properties": {
        "distinct_id": "13793",
        "token": "2ce2b45b-af44-4426-a3ef-a314abce9c85",
        "time": 1577836800,
        "price": 500
    }
  }' https://api.perfalytics.com/track

JavaScript

If you can't use our JavaScript SDK, you can send a raw HTTP request as well:

const payload = {
  event: "Purchase",
  properties: {
    distinct_id: "13793",
    token: "2ce2b45b-af44-4426-a3ef-a314abce9c85",
    time: 1577836800,
    price: 500,
  },
};

fetch("https://api.perfalytics.com/track", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify(payload),
});

Python

import requests

payload = {
    "event": "purchase",
    "properties": {
        "distinct_id": "13793",
        "token": "2ce2b45b-af44-4426-a3ef-a314abce9c85",
        "time": 1577836800,
        "price": 500,
    },
}

requests.post("https://api.perfalytics.com/track", json=payload)

Ruby

require 'json'
require 'net/http'

uri = URI('https://api.perfalytics.com/track')
payload = {
    "event" => "purchase",
    "properties" => {
        "distinct_id" => "13793",
        "token" => "2ce2b45b-af44-4426-a3ef-a314abce9c85",
        "time" => 1577836800,
        "price" => 500,
    },
}

Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, :use_ssl => true) do |http|
  req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(uri, 'Content-Type' => 'application/json')
  req.body = payload.to_json
  puts http.request(req)
end

The Freshpaint HTTP API will return a 200 as soon as the event has been received. Validation of the event will be performed after the event is received. If you want to confirm Freshpaint has received your event, you should check the Freshpaint Live View.

Freshpaint APIs are fast, and we're committed to 99.9% uptime (see our SLA https://www.freshpaint.io/sla). That said, we recommend communicating with Freshpaint APIs in a "fire and forget" manner, for example by making the request from a separate thread or by using an async-await pattern if your language supports it. We recommend this so that your server processing is not blocked waiting for the Freshpaint API to respond.

Server-side Identify

You can also pass identify events server-side to attach user properties to users from the server. To do so, you pass a server-side event to the HTTP API with the following format:

{
  "event": "$identify",
  "properties": {
    "distinct_id": "<user identifier>",
    "token": "<your freshpaint environment id>",
    "time": <epoch time in seconds>,
    "$device_id": <anonymous user id (optional)>,
    "$user_props": {
      <any properties you want to attach to the user>
    }
  }
}

The following properties are required:

Argument	Type	Description
distinct_id	String	An identifier that uniquely identifies the user that performed the event (usually email address).
token	String	Your environment ID. You can get it from the Server Side API section on the sources page of the Freshpaint app.
time	Number	The epoch time the event occurred. The epoch time is the number of seconds since January 1st 1970.

Configuring Which Destinations Server-Side Events Are Sent To

There are two ways to configure server-side events to go to. First you can pass in a list of hardcoded destinations as part of the event in the $options property. You can either pass in a list of destinations the event should not go to:

{
  "event": "Test Event",
  "properties": {
    "distinct_id": "test-user-id",
    "token": "6dc2e9e2-3b9c-4259-b004-21f39dd6c81a",
    "time": 1577836800,
    "a": 5, 
    "$options": {"integrations": {"Mixpanel": false}}
  }
}

Or pass in a list of destinations the event should only go to:

{
  "event": "Test Event",
  "properties": {
    "distinct_id": "test-user-id",
    "token": "6dc2e9e2-3b9c-4259-b004-21f39dd6c81a",
    "time": 1577836800,
    "a": 5, 
    "$options": {"integrations": {"All": false, "Mixpanel": true}}
  }
}

Alternatively, you can go to the event schema page for the event, go to Settings. And flip the toggle for "Override hardcoded destinations". Then you'll be able to toggle each event on a per destination basis.

De-duplication

Events sent to the HTTP API are considered duplicates if they have the same value for the $insert_id property. If $insert_id is not provided, Freshpaint will compute a value based on the time and $device_id properties, so that if two events have the same value for these properties then they will be treated as duplicates.

To avoid events being de-duplicated erroneously, you may want to ensure that the time property you provide to the HTTP API uses millisecond precision.

For ultimate control over de-duplication behavior, consider providing an $insert_id with each event. A good way to generate an $insert_id is to hash together several pieces of information that uniquely identify the event, such as the timestamp, device id, user id, and event name.

Rate Limits

There is a 5000 request/second burst request limit for the HTTP API. Please throttle your requests accordingly. Contact [e-mail] if you have any questions.