What is "Custom Attribute Key Configuration" for ?

[practitioner-pin]

I'm trying to find any documentation or explanation about this interface from the internet. Unfortunately, I can't find any. Does anyone can provide a guidance or any document linkage? Thank you,

[mosesmaxen]

Hello @practitioner-pin, a custom recommendations key is for when you want to base the recommendations off an attribute / value that does not exist from the out of the box options.   So for example if I wanted to show recommendations based on the users most purchased item, I could pass into Target (or leverage a profile script) to store a value of the user's most purchased item.  The value of the attribute would be a single entity.id of the user's most purchased item. This could be passed in as a profile attribute or generated through a profile script. More information on the custom key feature can be found in the documentation here:  https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/target/using/recommendations/criteria/algorithms.html?lang=e....  

[practitioner-pin]

Hi @mosesmaxen, thanks for your prompt response and pointing out the document linkage. The document only shows a custom key that can be added when creating a new Criteria. It's not a setting step from the "Settings" interface. 

Supposedly, I need to configure a new custom attribute first. Then, I could use the targetPageParams method to pass data into it. Or leverage a profile script that you mentioned earlier. Besides this custom attributes setting, I'm also confused about both user's attribute (user.XXX) and the profile's attribute (profile.XXX). It seems both are correlated.

Hope you could provide further guidance. Thank you.

[mosesmaxen]

Hi @practitioner-pin, the custom key created during the Criteria creation and from the Settings page are one in the same.   So whether you create the custom key from the Criteria creation or the Settings page, the custom key is added to the same list.   

user.XXX represents a Target profile script, which is a way to track behavioral data using code executed on Target's server side on each mbox / location request.   profile.XXX represents a profile parameter that is passed in through the mbox / location request. More information on profile scripts and profile attributes can be found here: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/target/using/audiences/visitor-profiles/profile-parameters.h... 

[practitioner-pin]

Hi @mosesmaxen, thank you for the clarification. These two statements help me a lot to know the logic behind them.

• user.XXX represents a Target profile script, which is a way to track behavioral data using code executed on Target's server-side on each mbox / location request. 
• profile.XXX represents a profile parameter that is passed in through the mbox / location request. 

One more question is about the setting process. I found no value from the dropdown field (the red rectangle below). Is any missing step while creating a custom attribute key?

[mosesmaxen · Accepted solution]

Hi @practitioner-pin, I'm glad the clarification on the profile.XXX vs user.XXX was helpful.   If the dropdown highlighted in your screenshot is empty, then it is likely that you have not yet passed in any profile parameters or created any profile scripts, that is what will be populated in that dropdown.