JavaScript SDK

Identifying the Visitor

Identifying the visitor

There are several ways to identify the visitor on Upscope.

Providing identity information

Regardless of whether you have the identity information at page load or later on, we encourage you to call Upscope('init'); as soon as possible so there is no delay in the continuation of an active session.

You can provide the details right with the Upscope('init'); function if you have them from your backend.

// Rest of the installation code...
Upscope('init', {
 identities: ['John Smith', 'acme.com'],
 uniqueId: '00032'
})

You can call Upscope('init'); first, then provide the identity information with Upscope('updateConnection');.

// Rest of the installation code...
Upscope('init');
// getVisitorInfo is a made up function you might have in your code that gives you visitor information
getVisitorInfo().then(visitor => {
 Upscope('updateConnection', {
   identities: [visitor.name],
   uniqueId: visitor.id
 })
});

You can provide the following bits of visitor information:

Key	Type	Description
`identities`	String[]	An array of strings with whatever identifying information you want to send us.
`uniqueId`	String	A string with a unique id of the visitor from your database. This could be the visitor's email address.
`tags`	String[], each matching `/^#[A-Z-]+$/`	An array of hashtags to filter visitors by.
`integrationIds`	String[], each matching `/^[a-z]{3,}:.+$`	An array of strings representing an integration name an an integration id. For example if your app is called acmechat, and the acmechat. ID for the visitor is `123`, you could pass `["acmechat:123"]`

Removing pieces of identification

Any piece of identification set to undefined will be ignored, meaning that if you identify visitors on the /login page, and they navigate to another area of your site that doesn't have identification, we will keep the data we already have.

If you want to remove any piece of data, you'll need to set it to null.

Example

First page load on login screen…

Upscope('init', { identities: null });
// Visitor's identities will be null

Second pageload, visitor is now authenticated…

Upscope('init', { identities: ['John'] });
// Visitor's identities will be ['John']

Third pageload to area that doesn't require authentication…

Upscope('init');
// Visitor's identities will be ['John']

Fourth pageload after clicking logout…

Upscope('init', { identities: null });
// Visitor's identities will be null

If you set a uniqueId to null or to a different value after it was already set, Upscope will reset the connection and create a new visitor as we'll assume that they are now a different person. This will not happen if a session is currently ongoing.

Logging the visitor out

You can log the visitor out by calling Upscope('reset');. This will also reset the connection and create a new visitor with a new ID.

Using the watch link

The most reliable way to identify a visitor is to use the watch link. This is a unique link to the particular browser the visitor is using, generated for each visitor.

Browser or visitor?

Although we use the concept of "visitor" throughout the docs, we really mean visitor's session.
If the same person logs in on two different browsers, and you initiate UserView each time with the same uniqueId, you'll end up with two separate visitors in UserView.

Each watch link looks like this https://upscope.io/w/SHORT_ID.

We automatically add the watch link to most of our built-in integrations, but if you are building your own, you can retrieve the id by using the following

Upscope('getWatchLink', link => {
  console.log(link);
});

Authentication

The watch link is not meant to be secret. You can freely share it around, as it will still require the agent to authenticate on UserView's dashboard to be used.
If you want to use the link without authentication (or without the agent having an UserView account, you'll need to exchange it with a secure one through the REST API.)

Need only the Short ID?

If you only need the Upscope Short ID for an integration, you can retrieve that by doing:

Upscope('getShortId', shortId => {
  console.log(shortId);
});

Using the lookup code

Learn more about the lookup code on the dedicated page.