Our product catalog API unlocks the ability to send high-performing journeys such as back in stock, low inventory, and price drop. It also lets you segment your customers and branch journeys using product data.

Create high performing journeys, such as back in stock, low inventory, and price drop.
Segment customers based on their past browsing, add to cart, and purchasing activity using product data such as name, category, tag, price, and other attributes.
Branch journeys based on product attributes or inventory, such as only sending a message if the product is in stock.

Attentive also has several integrations with popular e-commerce platforms that sync product data to Attentive. These are available in the Integrations tab.

Important note for testing/QA

When you're testing journeys that use product catalog data (like price drop, back in stock, or low inventory), we strongly recommend adding a Wait step of at least one hour as the very first step in the journey. This initial wait step allows sufficient time for our system to process changes to your product catalog.

An initial wait step is generally not necessary for your actual live journeys. In most non-testing scenarios, subscribers will enter the journey after catalog updates have already been processed.

When testing back in stock journeys specifically, keep in mind that back in stock journeys are triggered when availableForPurchase is false, not when inventoryQuantity is 0 (or less than the threshold amount if you're using inventory thresholds).

How to Get Started

Create an Attentive app to get an api key
Review the authentication workflow
Read through the product catalog file format you'll need to generate to send us your product catalog.
Either use the sample script below to send us the file(s) you've generated, or implement something similar.
By default, validateOnly will be set to true when initiating the upload, in order for you to develop without saving the catalog Attentive side. Once you're ready for production, go ahead and set validateOnly to false.
Once the file has been uploaded, contact your CSM to confirm that the data quality is high enough for the Attentive product data features to be enabled.

Sample CLI Utility Script

Feel free to reuse and adapt this Python3 script to send Attentive the catalog files you've generated.

import argparse
import requests  # you may need to install this https://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/user/install/
import json
import time

from distutils.util import strtobool


API_KEY = ''  # Set this
API_BASE_URL = 'https://api.attentivemobile.com'
STATUS_INTERVAL = 10


def initiate_catalog_upload(validate_only, api_key):
    post_url = API_BASE_URL + '/v1/product-catalog/uploads'
    r = requests.post(
        post_url,
        json={'validateOnly': validate_only},
        headers={'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + api_key},
    )
    assert r.status_code == 200, "Are you sure your api key is correct?"
    resp = r.json()
    return resp['uploadId'], resp['uploadUrl']


def print_errors(errors):
    print("Validation Errors:")
    for error in errors:
        print(json.dumps(error))


def wait_for_validation(upload_id, validate_only, api_key, counter):
    """
    The file at this point should now be queued up and we are awaiting validation. If there are any
    validation errors, we'll print them out from here. You may want to integrate your own more
    advanced monitoring.
    """
    time.sleep(STATUS_INTERVAL)
    get_url = API_BASE_URL + '/v1/product-catalog/uploads/' + upload_id
    r = requests.get(get_url, headers={'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + api_key}).json()
    if r['errors']:
        # Consider implementing alerting over here
        print_errors(r['errors'])
    if r['status'] == 'validated':
        return
    # waiting approximately an hour before giving up. Totally up to you how long, but Attentive should
    # rarely be behind an hour behind in processing
    if counter == 360:
        print("Giving up on waiting for validation for " + upload_id)
        return

    wait_for_validation(upload_id, validate_only, api_key, counter + 1)


def upload_catalog(filepath, validate_only, api_key):
    upload_id, upload_url = initiate_catalog_upload(validate_only, api_key)
    with open(filepath, 'rb') as f:
        r = requests.put(upload_url, data=f)
        assert r.status_code == 200, 'Unexpected issue uploading'
    wait_for_validation(upload_id, validate_only, api_key, 0)
    return upload_id


if __name__ == '__main__':
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        description='CLI utility script to demonstrate and assist in sending your generated product catalog to Attentive via its API'
    )
    parser.add_argument('filepath', help='Path to your catalog file')
    parser.add_argument(
        '--validateOnly',
        default=True,
        dest='validate_only',
        type=lambda x: bool(strtobool(x)),
        help='Boolean flag to choose whether or not Attentive should only validate the file for correctness only or not. '
        'Defaults to True to prevent saving invalid data during development. Set to False when everything passes without errors.',
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        '--apiKey',
        dest='api_key',
        help='You can pass the API Key in here as an argument or set it in the API_KEY variable at the top of this file',
    )
    args = parser.parse_args()

    key = args.api_key or API_KEY
    assert key, (
        'Please either pass in the apiKey argument to this script, or '
        'update the API_KEY variable at the top of this file to authenticate to Attentive'
    )
    id = upload_catalog(args.filepath, args.validate_only, key)

Product catalog file format

You can use the Product Catalog API to provide Attentive with your entire product catalog programmatically in order to segment or branch on different product attributes to send more targeted SMS messages. It also unlocks other unique product features (e.g. Back In-Stock Journeys).

In order to use the Product Catalog API, you must first provide Attentive with your full or partial product catalog as a ndjson format file to be HTTP file uploaded to a specified URL. Each line in the file represents a full product, as described in the sample below. This article outlines the structure of each product/row, as well as the definitions of each object and field.

Top-level product
{
   "name": string, *
   "id": string, *
   "description": string,
   "brand": string,
   "link": string, *
   "lastUpdated": timestamp, *
   "categories": Array<string>,
   "tags": Array<string>,
   "productOptions": Array<ProductOption>,
   "images": Array<Image>,
   "attributes": Array<Attribute>
   "variants": Array<Variant> *,
   "collections": Array<String>
}

Product Option
{
   "name": string, *
   "position": int, *
   "values": Array<string> *
}

Image
{
   "position": int,
   "alt": string,
   "src": string, *
   "width": int,
   "height": int,
   "variantIds": Array<string>
}

Attribute
{
   "name": string, *
   "value": string *
}

Variant
{
   "name": string, * full name
   "id": string, *
   "position": int,
   "prices": Array<Price>,
   "availableForPurchase": boolean, *
   "inventoryQuantity": int,
   "productOptionValues": Array<ProductOptionValue>,
   "link": string, *
   "lastUpdated": timestamp, *
   "attributes": Array<Attribute>
}

Product Option Value
{
   "productOptionName": string, *
   "value": string *
}

Price
{
   "currencyCode": string, *
   "amount": string, *
   "compareAtPrice": string,
}

Definition of terms

Product

Products are the goods that you are selling on your website. For example, it can be a t-shirt or a pair of shoes. This is the root JSON object on each line and is inherently required.

Field	Description	Type	Required
id	This is your product ID and the field we key off of. It must be unique across your catalog. You need this unique ID to make any updates to the product by uploading your product with the same id. The maximum length of the ID is 256 characters.	string	Required
name	The name of your product. Note that this is how it appears in messages. The maximum length of the name is 256 characters.	string	Required
description	A short description of your product. The maximum length of the description is 1024 characters.	string	Optional
brand	Brand for your product. Maximum length of brand is 256 characters.	string	Optional
link	The link to your product's detail page online. Maximum length of link is 2048 characters. (http(s) required)	string	Required
lastUpdated	The date and time (in UTC) of when your product was last updated.	timestamp	Required
categories	One or more categories in your taxonomy associated with this product. You can specify up to ten categories per product and each category can be up to 64 characters long.	Array<string>	Optional
tags	One or more tags that are associated with and used to categorize this product. You can specify up to 50 tags per product and each tag can be up to 64 characters long.	Array<string>	Optional
productOptions	See Product Option. Up to 10 ProductOptions are allowed per product and up to 100 values are allowed per option.	Array<ProductOption>	Optional
images	See Image. Up to 250 images are allowed per product.	Array<Image>	Optional
attributes	See Attribute. Up to 100 attributes are allowed per product.	Array<Attribute>	Optional
variants	See Variant. Up to 100 variants are allowed per product.	Array<Variant>	Required
collections	The grouping of products that this product belongs to. Up to 20 collections per product are allowed.	Array<string>	Optional

Variant

A variant can be added to a Product to represent one version of a product with several options. The Product has a variant for every possible combination of its options. Following the example in Product, a variant is a size small and color black. An order can begin fulfillment once a variant is selected. Each product must have at least one variant

Field	Description	Type	Required
id	This is your variant ID and the field we key off of. It must be unique across your catalog. You need this unique ID to make any updates to the product by uploading your variant with the same id. The maximum length of the ID is 256 characters.	string	Required
name	The name of this variant. Note that this is how it appears in messages to your subscribers. The maximum length of the name is 256 characters.	string	Required
position	The order in which this variant appears among all the other variants that belong to this product. The variant with the lowest number is the default variant. This value must be greater than or equal to 0.	int	Optional
link	The link to your variant's detail page online. If there is no link for your variant, you can use your product link. The maximum length of the link is 2048 characters. (http(s) required)	string	Required
prices	See Price	Array<Price>	Required
availableForPurchase	Is this variant still being sold?	boolean	Required
inventoryQuantity	The amount of the variant available before the variant is out of stock.	int	Optional
productOptionValues	The combination of options that this variant represents for the product. See Product Options section for details.	Array<ProductOption>	Optional
attributes	See Attribute. Up to 100 Variants allowed.	Array<Attribute>	Optional
lastUpdated	The date and time (in UTC) of when your product or variant was last updated.	timestamp	Required

Product Option

Product options are the dimensions or choices that a customer has to select to add a variant to their cart. Following our previous Product example above with the t-shirt, the customer needs to select the size and color they want. In this example, size and color are the product options.

Field	Description	Type	Required
name	The name/title of this product option. Up to 256 characters long	string	Required
position	The order in which this option appears among all the other options. The option with the lowest number is first in the order. This value must be greater than or equal to 0.	int	Required
values	The different possible values for this product option. Up to 256 characters long for each value.	Array<string>	Required

Product Option Value

Product option values are the unique product option selections associated with a given variant. These are contextualized within the Variant object.

Field	Description	Type	Required
productOptionName	The product option name	string	Required
value	The selection or value for this variant	string	Required

Attribute

Generic key/value data for products/variants that can be used for categorizing.

Field	Description	Type	Required
name	The attribute name. Up to 64 characters long.	string	Required
value	The attribute value. Up to 256 characters long.	string	Required

Image

Data for the images associated with your products and variants that can be used for Attentive product messaging and experiences.

Field	Description	Type	Required
src	The URL to the image (http(s) required).	string	Required
alt	The alt text for the image. This is used as a back up in case an image can't be displayed and standard on the web. Up to 512 characters allowed.	string	Optional
width	The width of the image in pixels	int	Optional
height	The height of the image in pixels	int	Optional
variantIds	The list of variant IDs this image applies to. Each id must match the ID of the field of one of the variants.	Array<string>	Optional
position	The order in which images are considered for a product or variant. The image with the lowest position will be the default image. In other words, ascending order. Defaults to 0.	int	Optional

Price

A price associated with the variant. You may have more than one price and currency associated with a variant. In those cases, Attentive will likely choose the lowest available price in messaging experiences.

Field	Description	Type	Required
currencyCode	This follows the three letter currency codes (e.g. USD). For more info, see ISO-4217.	string	Required
amount	The price amount	string	Required
compareAtPrice	This is another price field, and use of this field implies the variant is on sale. This is the price buyers compare against to evaluate how good a sale is. Example: "The price was <compareAtPrice> but now is <amount>! Get it while it lasts"	string	Optional

Formatted example of one product

The below example is formatted in json to clearly show the object schema. The file you pass to the API should be in ndjson format.

{
  "name": "Nasa T-Shirt",
  "id": "PD-123",
  "description": "A very popular T-Shirt",
  "brand": "NASA",
  "link": "https://www.google.com",
  "lastUpdated": "2021-10-05T18:08:28+00:00",
  "categories": ["Shirts"],
  "tags": ["Summer Sale", "Space"],
  "productOptions": [
    {"name": "Color", "position": 0, "values": ["Blue", "Black"]},
    {"name": "Size", "position": 1, "values": ["Small", "Medium", "Large"]}
  ],
  "images": [
    {"src": "https://www.google.com", "alt": "Picture of Nasa T-Shirt in Blue", "position": 0, "height": 250, "width": 400, "variantIds": ["VD-234"]},
    {"src": "https://www.google.com", "alt": "Another Picture of Nasa T-Shirt in Black", "position": 0, "height": 250, "width": 400, "variantIds": ["VD-235", "VD-236"]}
  ],
  "attributes": [{"name": "Fabric", "value": "Cotton"}],
  "variants": [
    {
      "name": "Nasa T-Shirt - Blue - Small",
      "id": "VD-234",
      "position": 0,
      "prices": [
        {"currencyCode": "USD", "amount": "10.00"}
      ],
      "availableForPurchase": true,
      "productOptionValues": [
        {"productOptionName": "Color", "value": "Blue"},
        {"productOptionName": "Size", "value": "Small"}
      ],
      "link": "https://www.google.com",
      "lastUpdated": "2021-10-05T18:08:28+00:00"
    },
    {
      "name": "Nasa T-Shirt - Black - Medium",
      "id": "VD-235",
      "position": 1,
      "prices": [
        {"currencyCode": "USD", "amount": "10.00"}
      ],
      "availableForPurchase": true,
      "productOptionValues": [
        {"productOptionName": "Color", "value": "Black"},
        {"productOptionName": "Size", "value": "Medium"}
      ],
      "link": "https://www.google.com",
      "lastUpdated": "2021-10-05T18:08:28+00:00"
    },
    {
      "name": "Nasa T-Shirt - Black - Large",
      "id": "VD-236",
      "position": 2,
      "prices": [
        {"currencyCode": "USD", "amount": "10.00"}
      ],
      "availableForPurchase": true,
      "productOptionValues": [
        {"productOptionName": "Color", "value": "Black"},
        {"productOptionName": "Size", "value": "Large"}
      ],
      "link": "https://www.google.com",
      "lastUpdated": "2021-10-05T18:08:28+00:00"
    }
  ]
}

Development Workflow Tips

As you're developing your code to generate this catalog file for Attentive, it's helpful to validate your generated files without any side effects on Attentive. To do that, please set the validateOnly boolean to true when calling /product-catalog/uploads. Please note your file is not immediately processed once the upload compeletes, but you can check the status of your upload with the same endpoint.
The cadence of uploading your catalog to Attentive is up to you. A daily job works great for most of our users, but we'd prefer we limit it to no more than every few hours if you're sending us your entire catalog on every upload. However, if you would like to send us "delta uploads" (only products/variants which have changed since your last upload), please feel free to be more liberal with your cadence. If we find there are upload frequency issues, we'll be sure to reach out.
If you have any questions as to how to map your catalog to the Attentive format above, please reach out to your client strategy partner at Attentive.

File Upload Limits

All files need to be UTF-8 encoded.
2GB maximum file size
4mb maximum line/product size
500k line/product limit per file