Manage user updates

Update user details and receive events whenever someone updates them.

Requires App Context

To store data about users, you must enable App Context for your app's keyset in the Admin Portal.

Update user details

You can edit the metadata of an existing user with update() and updateUser().

Both of these methods give the same output. The only difference is that you call a given method either on the Chat (updateUser()) or the User (update()) object. Depending on the object, these methods take a different set of input parameters - you either have to specify the user ID you want to update or not because it's already known.

Update and overwrite vs synchronize

The User interface offers two methods to update metadata:

• Overwrite: Directly set and replace user fields like name, email, and status with new values on the server.

• Synchronize: Use the updateAction function for conditional updates in sync with the latest server data. This method adapts to server changes and may repeat until successful.

Choose based on whether you need to overwrite data or synchronize with server updates.

Method signature

These methods take the following parameters:

• update() and overwrite

  user.update(
      name: String?,
      externalId: String?,
      profileUrl: String?,
      email: String?,
      custom: CustomObject?,
      status: String?,
      type: String?,
  ): PNFuture<User>

• update() and synchronize

  user.update(
      updateAction: UpdatableValues.(
          user: User
      ) -> Unit
  ): PNFuture<User>

• updateUser()

  chat.updateUser(
      id: String,
      name: String?,
      externalId: String?,
      profileUrl: String?,
      email: String?,
      custom: CustomObject?,
      status: String?,
      type: String?,
  ): PNFuture<User>

Input

Parameter	Type	Required in update() (overwrite)	Required in update() (synchronize)	Required in updateUser()	Default	Description
id	String	No	No	Yes	n/a	Unique user identifier.
name	String	No	No	No	n/a	Display name for the user (must not be empty or consist only of whitespace characters).
externalId	String	No	No	No	n/a	User's identifier in an external system. You can use it to match id with a similar identifier from an external database.
profileUrl	String	No	No	No	n/a	URL of the user's profile picture.
email	String	No	No	No	n/a	User's email address.
custom	ObjectCustom	No	No	No	n/a	JSON providing custom data about the user. Values must be scalar only; arrays or objects are not supported. Filtering App Context data through the custom property is not recommended in SDKs.
status	String	No	No	No	n/a	Tag that lets you categorize your app users by their current state. The tag choice is entirely up to you and depends on your use case. For example, you can use status to mark users in your chat app as invited, active, or archived.
type	String	No	No	No	n/a	Tag that lets you categorize your app users by their functional roles. The tag choice is entirely up to you and depends on your use case. For example, you can use type to group users by their roles in your app, such as moderator, player, or support-agent.
updateAction	Lambda function	No	Yes	No	n/a	A lambda function with a receiver of type UpdatableValues. If new values are fetched from the server, the function may run more than once. This function takes a User object as its parameter. Inside this function, you can compute new values for the user's fields and assign them to the properties of the UpdatableValues receiver: name externalId profileUrl email custom status type

API limits

To learn about the maximum length of parameters used to set user metadata, refer to REST API docs.

Output

Type	Description
PNFuture<User>	Returned object containing the updated user metadata.

Basic usage

Change the link to the user's support_agent_15 LinkedIn profile to https://www.linkedin.com/mkelly_vp2.

• update() and overwrite

  // reference the "chat" object and invoke the "getUser()" method
  chat.getUser("support_agent_15").async { result ->
      result.onSuccess { user ->
          // handle success: update the "linkedInUrl" custom field
          user.update(
              custom = mapOf(
                  "linkedInUrl" to "https://www.linkedin.com/mkelly_vp2"
              )
          ).async { updateResult ->
              updateResult.onSuccess {
                  // handle success
              }.onFailure {
                  // handle failure
              }
          }

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• update() and synchronize

  // reference the "chat" object and invoke the "getUser()" method
  chat.getUser("support_agent_15").async { result ->
      result.onSuccess { user ->
          // handle success: update using an updateAction
          user.update { 
              this.custom = buildMap {
                  user.custom?.let { putAll(it) }
                  put("linkedInUrl", "https://www.linkedin.com/mkelly_vp2")
              }
              
          }.async { updateResult ->
              updateResult.onSuccess {
                  // handle success
              }.onFailure {
                  // handle failure

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• updateUser()

  // reference the "chat" object and invoke the "updateUser()" method
  chat.updateUser(
      id = "support_agent_15",
      custom = mapOf(
          "linkedInUrl" to "https://www.linkedin.com/mkelly_vp2"
      )
  ).async { result ->
      result.onSuccess {
          // handle success
      }.onFailure {
          // handle failure
      }
  }

Get user updates

Two methods let you receive updates about users (user IDs) added, edited, or removed on other clients:

• streamUpdates() checks updates on a single User object.
• streamUpdatesOn() checks updates on a list of User objects.

Both methods accept a callback function as an argument. The Chat SDK invokes this callback whenever someone adds, changes, or removes user metadata.

Underneath, these methods subscribe the current user to a channel and add an objects event listener to receive all objects (known as App Context) events of type uuid. These methods also return the unsubscribe function you can invoke to stop receiving objects events and unsubscribe from the channel.

Method signature

These methods take the following parameters:

• streamUpdates()

  user.streamUpdates(callback: (user: User?) -> Unit): AutoCloseable

• streamUpdatesOn()

  class User {
      companion object {
          fun streamUpdatesOn(
              users: Collection<User>,
              callback: (users: Collection<User>) -> Unit
          ): AutoCloseable
      }
  }

Input

Parameter	Type	Required in streamUpdates()	Required in streamUpdatesOn()	Default	Description
users	Collection<User>	No	Yes	n/a	A collection of User objects for which you want to get updates.
callback	(user: User?) -> Unit	Yes	No	n/a	Function that takes a single User object. It defines the custom behavior to be executed when detecting user changes.
callback	(users: Collection<User>) -> Unit	No	Yes	n/a	Function that takes a set of User objects. It defines the custom behavior to be executed when detecting user changes.

Output

Type	Description
AutoCloseable	Interface that lets you stop receiving channel-related updates (objects events) by invoking the close() method.

Basic usage

Get updates on support_agent_15.

• streamUpdates()

  // fetch a user by their ID
  val supportAgentUser = chat.getUser("support_agent_15")
  
  // stream updates for the specified user
  val autoCloseable = supportAgentUser.streamUpdates { updatedUser ->
      if (updatedUser != null) {
          println("Updated user: $updatedUser")
      } else {
          println("User update failed or user doesn't exist.")
      }
  }

Get updates on support_agent_15 and support-manager.

• streamUpdatesOn()

  // fetch users by their IDs
  val supportAgentUser = chat.getUser("support_agent_15")
  val supportManagerUser = chat.getUser("support-manager")
  
  // collect the users you want to stream updates for
  val usersToMonitor = listOf(supportAgentUser, supportManagerUser)
  
  // stream updates for the specified users
  val autoCloseable = User.streamUpdatesOn(users = usersToMonitor) { updatedUsers ->
      println("Updated users: $updatedUsers")
  }

Other examples

Stop listening to updates on support_agent_15.

• streamUpdates()

  class MyActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
      private lateinit var autoCloseable: AutoCloseable
  
      override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
          super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
          // fetch a user by their ID
          val supportAgentUser = chat.getUser("support_agent_15")
  
          // start streaming updates for the specified user
          autoCloseable = supportAgentUser.streamUpdates { updatedUser ->
              if (updatedUser != null) {
                  println("Updated user: $updatedUser")
              } else {
                  println("User update failed or user doesn't exist.")
              }

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Stop listening to updates on support_agent_15 and support-manager.

• streamUpdatesOn()

  class MyActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
      private lateinit var autoCloseable: AutoCloseable
  
      override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
          super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
          // fetch users by their IDs
          val supportAgentUser = chat.getUser("support_agent_15")
          val supportManagerUser = chat.getUser("support_manager")
  
          val users = listOf(supportAgentUser, supportManagerUser)
          
          // start streaming updates for the specified users
          autoCloseable = User.streamUpdatesOn(users = users) { updatedUsers ->
              updatedUsers.forEach { updatedUser ->
                  if (updatedUser != null) {

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