Geofencing
Explore Roam's Geofencing documentation.
Last updated
Explore Roam's Geofencing documentation.
Last updated
Geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographical area. A geofence can be dynamically generated around a location point with a radius (circle geofence) or with a pre-defined set of boundaries (polygon geofence) for stores, neighborhoods, or even cities.
Every time the end user enters or exits a geofence with a location aware device, events are generated. These events can be used to alert the user or perform actions in the backend.
The Roam API is organized around REST. Our API has predictable resource-oriented URLs, accepts JSON-encoded request bodies, returns JSON-encoded responses, and uses standard HTTP response codes, authentication, and verbs.
Roam API uses API keys to authenticate requests. You can view and manage your API keys in the Roam Dashboard.
Your API keys carry many privileges, so be sure to keep them secure! Do not share your secret API keys in publicly accessible areas such as GitHub, client-side code, and so forth. Authentication to the API is performed via a custom header Api-Key. Provide your API key as the value for the header Api-Key
All API requests must be made over HTTPS. Calls made over plain HTTP and API requests without authentication will fail.
Geofences can be created using the Roam API. They can be created over a circle or a polygon geometry. By default, a geofence is applicable to all the users of a project but can also be restricted to a group of users. Geofences can be configured to be enabled for a specified time interval.
Roam allows you to create two geofence geometry types:
Circle
Polygon
A circular geofence is the region around a location point defined by a radius. To create a circular geofence, the required body parameters are coordinates, and geometry_radius .
Sample Request // Circle Geofence
Sample Response // Circle Geofence
A polygon geofence is the area defined by a set of boundaries forming any shape around a location area. To create a polygon geofence, the required body parameters are geometry_type andcoordinates.
Same Request to create a Polygon geofence
Sample Response
You can monitor geofence events for a specific user or a list of users by passing user_ids which are generated at the time of creating a user. In the case of a user group, you may pass the group_id. If by default, user_ids and group_ids are not specified, then the geofence is activated for all the users of the project.
Pass a user_id under the "user_ids" body parameter. Pass an array ofuser_idsto create a geofence specific to multiple users.
Sample Request for single User ID
Sample Request for multiple User IDs
Pass a group_id under the "group_ids" body parameter. You may pass multiple group IDs into an array to create a geofence specific to those groups.
Sample Request for single Group ID
Sample Request for multiple Group ID
You can create time aware geofences to trigger events between a specific time range. You can do so by passing the date and time as the second and third elements of the array to theis_enabledfield in the body section.
During the specified time interval, the entry and exit events will be triggered. However, outside the time interval, you need to ensure that the"is_enabled" field is set to "false".
Sample Response
Adding a description and metadata can help identify and personalize the geofences while displaying them on a map. You can add this information while creating a geofence or updating a geofence.
Sample Request
Sample Response
Adding tag can help filter geofences easily. This field is optional. When a geofence event is generated, the tag is also sent along with the event.
color_code defines the color of the geofence and how it is displayed on the dashboard. Hex Code for CSS colors should be passed in this field without '#'.
Sample Request
Sample Response
Geofence can be updated using PUT API request along with the geofence endpoint.
The following are the values that can be updated once after the Geofence is created.
Parameters
Type
group_ids
array
user_ids
array
metadata
object
color_code
string
tag
string
description
string
is_enabled
array
The values that cannot be updated once the geofence is created are:
Parameters
Type
coordinates
array
geometry_type
string
geometry_radius
integer
This API gives you a filtered list of geofences. You can filter by geofence_id, created_at, start_date and end_date fields, user_id and group_id.
Sample Request
This filter allows you to filter the geofences within the given date range. These are non-mandatory fields and will be set to the current date by default.
You may also pass either the start_date or the end_date as filters. If you pass a specific start date, make sure it is less than the current date since the end date will be set default to the current date. If you pass a specific end_date and leave the start_date empty, make sure it is greater than the current date.
Below are the acceptable formats for the date filter:
Parameter
Mandatory
Format
Default
start_date
No
YYYY-MM-DD
Current date
end_date
No
YYYY-MM-DD
Current date
You can also use geofence_id as a filter. If you pass a valid geofence_id, the results will be filtered to the given geofence id.
You can get the geofence_id when you create a geofence using the Create Geofence API.
If you use a geofence_id as a filter along with a date filter, the date filters will not be considered.
Passing an empty or invalid geofence_id, will return an error.
Make sure the geofence_id used here belongs to the same project linked to the API key.
Similar to the geofence_id, you can fetch the list of geofences that are tagged with the given user_id, which was initially used during the Create Geofence API. The user_id is created within the SDK during thecreateUser method and returns a unique user_id for identification within the Roam environment.
If you use theuser_id as a filter along with the date filter, the date filters will not be considered. And if you pass an empty or invalid user_id, the API will return an error.
Make sure the user_id used here belongs to the same project linked with the API key.
To fetch the list of geofences that are tagged with the given group_id, which was initially used during the Create Geofence API, you can pass the group_id in the header parameter.
You can get the group_id when you create a group using the Create Group API.
If you use group_id as a filter along with the date filter, the date filters will not be considered. Passing an empty or invalid group_id, will return an error.
Make sure the group_id used here belongs to the same project linked with the API key.
Roam's geofence feature has 2 possible events that can be triggered based on user behavior:
Geofence Entry Event - triggered when a user enters the defined geofence area
Geofence Exit Event - triggered when a user exits from the defined geofence area
Sample Events:
Geofence Entry Event:
Geofence Exit Event:
To enable geofence events for a user, you’ll need to ensure the following:
Under Roam.toggleEvents the geofence flag must be set to true ,and
Ensure you’re publishing location to the server.
Toggle Events docs Links: iOS | Android | React Native | Using API
Publish Locations docs links: iOS | Android | React Native
If the geofence flag is false for a user and location is not being published, then geofence events will not be processed for their location updates.
Roam supports the posting of events to webhooks in real-time. To enable posting events via webhook, first the webhook URL needs to be configured in the project using the dashboard (Project Settings -> integration) and should be enabled.
Geofence events can be retrieved using the Roam API. The Get Events API lets you fetch entry or exit events of the users from your event-enabled geofences. The API also lets you filter by user, geofence, location, and more.
Delete any existing geofences from your projects by using the geofence_id.
You can delete the geofence with the delete API using the following two options:
Option 1: Delete geofence individually
You can delete one geofence at a time by passing the geofence ID as a query parameter.
Option 2: Delete geofences in bulk
By passing multiple geofence_ids as a body parameter, you can delete up to 200 geofences at a time.
Method
Status
Message
Reason
GET
400
"Error": [ "start_date provided is greater than end_date." ]
Invalid date filter
GET
400
"geofence_id": { "geofence_id": "This field is invalid." }
Invalid geofence id
GET
400
"Error": [ "Geofence does not exist." ]
Geofence does not exist
GET
400
"Error": [ "You are not authorized." ]
Invalid API key
GET
400
"Error": [ "Maximum 7 days data is allowed at a time." ]
Date filter greater than the limit of 7 days
GET
400
"ErrorMessage": "An error occurred"
Unknown server error
POST
400
"coordinates": [ "Invalid coordinates for given geometry type" ]
Invalid geofence geometry coordinates
POST
400
"enable_at": [ "DateTime has wrong format. Provide as YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss" ]
Invalid date time format
POST
400
"non_field_errors": [ "enable_at provided is greater than disable_at." ]
Invalid enable_at value
POST
400
"non_field_errors": [ "disable_at field is required when enable_at field is present." ]
Empty disable_at value
POST
400
"non_field_errors": [ "enable_at field is required when disable_at field is present." ]
Empty enable_at value
POST
400
"Invalid is_enabled format. Allowed format: [bool, enable_at, disable_at]"
Invalid is_enabled format
POST
400
"coordinates": [ "Coordinates must be sent in a list" ]
Invalid coordinates
POST
400
"geometry_radius": [ "This field is required." ]
Empty geometry radius
POST
400
"tag": { "tag": "This field is invalid." }
Invalid tag
PUT
400
"geofence_id": { "geofence_id": "This field is invalid." }
Invalid geofence id
DELETE
400
"details": "This geofence is part of an active campaign."
Geofence cannot be deleted since it is part of an active campaign
DELETE
400
"geofence_id": { "geofence_id": "This field is invalid." }
Invalid geofence id
