Facebook Messenger Chatbot Custom Event Tracking

Question

I am trying to log custom events with a Facebook Chatbot I have developed, however I cannot for the life of me find a reference for the custom_events types.

The example listed on their reference shows fb_mobile_purchase as a custom eventName. I don't want that, and I can't find anywhere that lists other types.

I want to be able to track when the chatbot sends the user a specific message, but just setting the eventName to anything results in an event name in the Analytics as Reserved5.

Is there a reference to eventNames anywhere within Facebook Documentation?

Szechwan

The very definition of “custom” here is that you specify how the event should be named. “I want to be able to track when the chatbot sends the user a specific message” – why would you need to track that using events? It is your bot that sent the message, so you already know that it has happened. – Genesis

Unfortunately, as I stated above, the custom name shows up as Reserved5 in the analytics. I need to be able to track when a specific message is sent to the user, as it stands, the analytics only says that any message was sent, but not what that message was. – Szechwan

Answer 1

You could consider using Chatbase for bot analytics (free to use), which has a Custom Events API.

Forbidden

Answer 2

Currently the docs give this as an example request:

var request = require('request');

request.post({ 
  url : "https://graph.facebook.com/<app_id>/activities",
  form: {
    event: 'CUSTOM_APP_EVENTS',
    custom_events: JSON.stringify([{
      _eventName: "fb_mobile_purchase",
      _valueToSum: 55.22,
      _fb_currency: 'USD'
    }]),
    advertiser_tracking_enabled: 0,
    application_tracking_enabled: 0,
    extinfo: JSON.stringify(['mb1']),
    page_id: <page_id>,
    page_scoped_user_id: recipientId
  }
}, function(err,httpResponse,body){ 
  console.error(err);
  console.log(httpResponse.statusCode);
  console.log(body);
});

So, when the bot is sending that specific message you want to keep an eye out for, fire that message but with a different _eventName, and if needed other parameters.

Keep in mind, by recipientId they mean the PSID of the user the bot is sending the message to.

Juvenility