Developer Guide

Android Recommendations

You can personalize the user experience and increase sales by adding recommendations of your goods and services to an app. The passed recommendations are based on the customer activity data and include the following options:

  • Out of stock - a selection based on similar items.
  • Cross-selling - offer of related products. The selected items are based on those added to the cart.
  • Upselling - offering based on more expensive and complementary goods and services to increase the order value.
  • Potential purchase - The selected items are based on the orders of users who have purchased this product.
  • Personal recommendations - based on the customer's purchase and browsing history.
  • Other - an offer is created individually if the required algorithm is not available among our platform's pre-configured algorithms.

📘

Note

Each type of recommendation uses different requests having their own algorithms and rules since they take data from different sources.

📘

Note

Recommendations are available in SDK starting from version 1.3.0.

Reteno Recommendations

To get an instance of the Recommendations object, you need to use the Reteno.recommendation property.

reteno.getRecommendation();
reteno.recommendation

E.g.

val recommendation = reteno.recommendation

Get recommendations

Before starting using recommendations you have to meet the following conditions:

  • Set up web tracking or tracking for mobile apps.
  • Create a data source with a required algorithm for each recommendation type to use its ID when calling an API.

Method signature:

/**
 * Obtain Recommendations.
 *
 * @param recomVariantId recommendation variant id. It is in r{recomId}v{variantId} format. Where recomId and variant Id are integer identifiers
 * @param recomRequest [com.reteno.core.domain.model.recommendation.get.RecomRequest] model
 * @param responseClass Class type to cast response to
 * @param responseCallback Type-safe [com.reteno.core.recommendation.GetRecommendationResponseCallback]
 *
 * @see [com.reteno.core.domain.model.recommendation.get.RecomRequest]
 * @see [com.reteno.core.recommendation.GetRecommendationResponseCallback]
 */
fun <T : RecomBase> fetchRecommendation(
    recomVariantId: String,
    recomRequest: RecomRequest,
    responseClass: Class<T>,
    responseCallback: GetRecommendationResponseCallback<T>
)

To get recomVariantId parameter, copy ID from JS script example in the recom Parameters screen. It is in r{recomId}v{variantId} format. Where recomId and variant Id are integer identifiers.

2154

There are three types of recommendations algorythms:

  • Personal based recommendations. In this case you don't need to pass productIds and categoryId parameters.
  • Category based recommendations. In this case categoryId parameter is required.
  • Product based recommendations. This algorithm requres passing productIds parameter.

RecomRequestModel

/**
 * This class describes the paramter model for getting Recommendations from Reteno SDK
 *
 * Return all product fields if a request does not contain fields parameter.
 *
 * Return only productId if fields array in a request is empty.
 *
 * @property products product IDs for product-based algorithms
 * @property category product category key for category-based algorithms
 * @property fields fields to return in response. If fields is null - all fields in the model returned
 * @property filters additional algorithm filters map. Filters are not supported yet. Reserved for the future.
 */
data class RecomRequest @JvmOverloads constructor(
    val products: List<String>?,
    val category: String?,
    val fields: List<String>? = null,
    val filters: RecomFilter? = null
)

In the fields parameter pass recommended product model fields you want to receive in the response.

📘

Note

SDK returns all product fields if a request does not contain fields parameter and only productId if fields array in a request is empty.

RecomFilter

data class RecomFilter(
    val name: String,
    val values: List<String>
)

You should provide the class your wish the response to be casted to in responseClass: Class<T> argument. If response casting is failed you will receive plain response in String format and then you can operate it as you wish.

Also provide the callback where you will receive the response:

interface GetRecommendationResponseCallback<T : RecomBase> {

    /**
     * @param response Response casted to a provided type
     */
    fun onSuccess(response: Recoms<T>)

    /**
     * @param response This callback is invoked if casting to a provided type fails. Provides raw JSON String
     */
    fun onSuccessFallbackToJson(response: String)

    /**
     * @param statusCode Rest status code (500, 400, etc)
     * @param response response message from the server
     * @param throwable exception thrown returned in this parameter if any
     */
    fun onFailure(statusCode: Int?, response: String?, throwable: Throwable?)
}

In the end you will receive recommendations either in the onSuccess(response: Recoms) callback method (if casting to provided model is successful) or in fun onSuccessFallbackToJson(response: String) if casting failed. If there is any problem with the server or if the request was created incorrectly you will receive all the information in the callback fun onFailure(statusCode: Int?, response: String?, throwable: Throwable?).
Note the possible errors from the server:

Case
StatusMessage
Invalid request parameters400recomVariantId 
- must be specified
- Invalid format: %s. Must be r{recomId}v{variantId}
recomVariantId doesn’t exist422Unknown recomVariantId r1105v148
product is empty for product-based algorithms400product ids must be set
category is empty for category-based algorithms400category id must be set

Usage example

1. Create recommended product model.

Make sure to extend your model from RecomBase as it should always contain at least productId field

data class RecommendationResponse(
    @SerializedName("productId")
    override val productId: String,
    @SerializedName("descr")
    val descr: String?
) : RecomBase
```
`RecomBase`:

```kotlin
interface RecomBase {
    val productId: String
}
public class RecommendationResponse implements RecomBase {

    @SerializedName("productId")
    private String productId;
    @SerializedName("descr")
    private String descr;

    public RecommendationResponse(String productId, String descr) {
        this.productId = productId;
        this.descr = descr;
    }

    @NonNull
    @Override
    public String getProductId() {
        return productId;
    }

    public String getDescr() {
        return descr;
    }
}

📘

Tip: at first and see what properties will be in the response model.

2. Make a request

Function works with generic response type, so you need to specify result type as follows:

val request = RecomRequest(
    products = listOf("product1", "product2"),
    category = null,
    fields = listOf("productId", "descr", "date_created_as", "date_created_es"),
    filters = null
)

reteno.recommendation.fetchRecommendation<RecommendationResponse>(
    "r123v123",
    request,
    RecommendationResponse::class.java,
    object : GetRecommendationResponseCallback<RecommendationResponse> {
        override fun onSuccess(response: Recoms<RecommendationResponse>) {
            // handle success
        }

        override fun onSuccessFallbackToJson(response: String) {
            // handle success when casting failed
        }

        override fun onFailure(statusCode: Int?, response: String?, throwable: Throwable?) {
            // handle error
        }
    })
RecomRequest request = new RecomRequest(
    List.of("prodcut1", "product2"), 
    category, 
    List.of("productId", "descr", "date_created_as", "date_created_es"), 
    null
);


getReteno().getRecommendation().fetchRecommendation("r123v123", request, RecommendationResponse.class, new GetRecommendationResponseCallback<RecommendationResponse>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(@NonNull Recoms<RecommendationResponse> response) {
        // handle success
    }

    @Override
    public void onSuccessFallbackToJson(@NonNull String response) {
        // success when casting failed
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(@Nullable Integer statusCode, @Nullable String response, @Nullable Throwable throwable) {
        // handle error
    }
});

📘

Note

The Recoms model, where T is the model you wish to receive (RecommendationResponse):

data class Recoms<T: RecomBase>(
    val recoms: List<T>,
)

Send recommendation events

Send events are cached locally and are sent to the server regularly in a batch of backend requests. So offline mode is supported.

Send events about showing user specific product recommendations or user clicks on recommended products via next SDK method:

/**
 * Log recommendation events
 * @param recomEvents - recommendation event to be logged
 *
 * @see [com.reteno.core.domain.model.recommendation.post.RecomEvents]
 */
fun logRecommendations(recomEvents: RecomEvents)

RecomEvents model:

/**
 * Model to log Recommendation events
 *
 * @param recomVariantId REQUIRED. Recommendation variant id. It is in r{recomId}v{variantId} format. Where recomId and variant Id are integer identifiers
 * @param recomEvents list of [com.reteno.core.domain.model.recommendation.post.RecomEvent]
 */
data class RecomEvents(
    val recomVariantId: String,
    val recomEvents: List<RecomEvent>?
)

RecomEvent model:

/**
 * Recommendation event
 *
 * @property recomEventType REQUIRED. Can be either IMPRESSIONS or CLICKS
 * @property occurred REQUIRED. Time in [java.time.ZonedDateTime]. Usually
 * ```
 * ZoneDateTime.now()
 * ```
 * @property productId REQUIRED. Id of the product
 *
 * @see [com.reteno.core.domain.model.recommendation.post.RecomEventType]
 */
data class RecomEvent(
    val recomEventType: RecomEventType,
    val occurred: ZonedDateTime,
    val productId: String
)

RecomEventType model:

enum class RecomEventType {
    IMPRESSIONS, CLICKS
}

Usage example:

val recomEvent1 = RecomEvent(RecomEventType.CLICKS, ZonedDateTime.now(), "product1")
val recomEvent2 = RecomEvent(RecomEventType.IMPRESSIONS, ZonedDateTime.now(), "product2")
val eventList: List<RecomEvent> = listOf(recomEvent1, recomEvent2)

val recomEvents = RecomEvents("r123v123", eventList)
reteno.recommendation.logRecommendations(recomEvents)
RecomEvent recomEvent1 = new RecomEvent(RecomEventType.CLICKS, ZonedDateTime.now(), "product1");
RecomEvent recomEvent2 = new RecomEvent(RecomEventType.IMPRESSIONS, ZonedDateTime.now(), "product2");
List<RecomEvent> eventList = new ArrayList<>();
eventList.add(recomEvent1);
eventList.add(recomEvent2);

RecomEvents recomEvents = new RecomEvents("r123v123", eventList);
getReteno().getRecommendation().logRecommendations(recomEvents);