Upload Location Data

What Are Geofences?

A geofence is a virtual geographic boundary that uses mobile location data to define physical boundaries or areas of interest. A geofence enables software to trigger a response when a mobile device enters or leaves an area of interest. For example, a geofence might be defined around a store or a venue. If users have opted in to receive notifications from the store or venue’s mobile app, when their mobile device is detected (using cellular, Wi-Fi, or GPS location services) they can receive relevant marketing content in real time.

What Are Beacons?

Beacons are hardware transmitters that use BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) to broadcast proximity-based information. SAS Customer Intelligence 360 supports iBeacons, an implementation of the beacon concept. At a high level, here is how beacons work:

• On iOS 7 and later devices, the mobile device actively scans for beacons if Bluetooth is enabled (or turned on). When the mobile device detects a beacon, it notifies relevant mobile apps, even if the mobile apps are closed. iOS can scan for only 20 beacons or geofences at a time.
• On Android devices, the mobile app scans for beacons and therefore the mobile app must be active (either in the foreground or in the background).

As long as SAS Customer Intelligence 360 knows who the user is and push notifications are enabled (or turned on), the user can receive location-based triggered push notifications.

Using Geofences and Beacons

Geofences and beacons work together as an effective marketing strategy. A geofence can contain several beacons. Here is an example of how this partnership can be useful.

Assume that you want to bring a customer into a large department store and personalize their shopping experience. When the customer enters the store’s geofence, a geofence event (Geofence Entered) triggers a push notification that welcomes them to your store and directs the customer to the mobile app for details about current promotions. Several beacons are registered with the mobile app at this time. Inside the store, the customer enters the pharmacy. A beacon is detected, and a beacon event (Beacon Discovered) triggers the mobile app to send a push message offering 25% off all sunscreen products. The customer purchases sunscreen and proceeds to the Swimwear department. A beacon is detected and the mobile app sends a push message that offers a “Buy one item in Swimwear, get one at 50% off” coupon to be scanned at the register. Upon exiting the store, the customer leaves the original geofence and a geofence event (Geofence Exit) triggers a push notification that thanks them for their visit. The following figure shows the customer’s movements inside the store’s geofence (represented by a gray shaded background). The customer visits the pharmacy (represented by the orange cube) where there is a beacon (represented by ) and then visits the Seasonal Apparel department (represented by the green cube) where there is another beacon:

Geofence and Beacons in a Department Store

Working within Limits Set by Operating System

In SAS Customer Intelligence 360, there is a limit of 20 regions, either geofences or beacons, in use at any one time for both iOS and Android.

The first region (of the 20), is reserved as an overarching boundary for all locations of interest. It is a “super region”. Within this “super region”, there are 19 geofences that can be defined and used at the same time. In order to maximize the number of locations that can be tracked at any given time, SAS Customer Intelligence 360 uses this “super region” to handle mobile device movement over large distances. If a user leaves this “super region”, SAS Customer Intelligence 360 polls for more geofences that are in the new area. SAS Customer Intelligence 360 uses this new “super region” to encompass other smaller geofences (some of which might contain beacons of interest).

The following figure shows how the “super regions” (represented by a gray shaded background) vary in size in order to encompass 19 geofences (or real regions), each with one or more beacons (represented by ). In the figure, a user leaves home in the morning to go to work, stopping at the bank on the way. The user goes straight home after work. Notice that the radius of the “super region” around the user’s home is larger than the radius of the “super region” around the bank. This difference is likely because the home is in a neighborhood and the bank is in a commercial area where businesses are in closer proximity to one another. Notice too that the “super region” around the office is even smaller because the office is in the city where the geofences are in even closer proximity to one another. In short, as the user’s mobile device location moves, SAS Customer Intelligence 360 tries to encompass up to 19 of the closest real regions to the user’s current mobile device location. Upon exiting each “super region,” SAS Customer Intelligence 360 polls for more geofences that make up the new “super region.” There is no real maximum geographical size. The “super region” grows and shrinks as users leave a region and SAS Customer Intelligence 360 determines what the new optimal “super region” is.

Super Region across a Large Distance

In order to stay within iOS and Android limits for regions and to optimize the number of regions defined, follow these SAS Customer Intelligence 360 guidelines:

• Beacon UUIDs need to be the same within a single geofence (in the upload file).
• Geofences must have a radius of 225 meters or larger to achieve the best results.
  Note: If you define a large geofence that encompasses places where your customers might spend a lot of time (for example, home, work, school), remember that the detection of this geofence might always be "on". This definition could have a negative impact on the battery level of your customers' device.
• Geofences cannot overlap. If geofence boundaries overlap, incorrect events (Geofence Enter and Geofence Exit) might be triggered.
• Select a file type and structure that matches the data descriptor. Only CSV files are currently supported.

For more information about working with location data, see the appropriate section of the Apple Developer website (external) or the Google Developer website (external).

Upload Geofence and Beacon Data

To upload geofence and beacon data through the user interface:

1. Before you start the import process, ensure that your data file has all the necessary information:
   • The CSV file must contain 12 column headings. Only the mobile_appid column is not required.
   • The following columns must be populated before the file can be uploaded: latitude, longitude, radius, and geofence_name.

   This table describes the columns and data that should be in the imported file:

   Data Descriptor Column Headings

   Column Heading	Type	Description
   mobile_appid	String	The ID of your registered mobile app. For more information, see Register a Mobile Application. This column is optional. It is included to provide backward compatibility for previous usage of the geofence upload interface. The column can contain only one mobile app and it must be the mobile app for which the data is uploaded.
   latitude	Number	Up to six digits after the decimal, ranging from MIN to MAX (for example, 49.420432). Must be populated.
   longitude	Number	Up to six digits after the decimal, ranging from MIN to MAX (for example, –78.754268). Must be populated.
   radius	Integer	Min value: 100 meters. However, 225 meters or larger is recommended. Note: If a geofence is smaller than 225 meters, a geofence enter event (Geofence Entered) might be triggered upon entering that geofence area. However, a geofence exit event (Geofence Exit) is not triggered upon exiting that geofence area. In addition, the user must move outside the 225- meter radius to re-trigger a geofence enter event (Geofence Entered). Max value: 10,000 meters Must be populated.
   geofence_name	String	Up to 100 characters in length. The name must be unique. Must be populated.
   beacon_uuid	String (unique)	Determined by the manufacturer of the beacon device.
   beacon_major	Integer	Determined by the manufacturer of the beacon device. Leave blank if you are using only geofences.
   beacon_minor	Integer	Determined by the manufacturer of the beacon device. Leave blank if you are using only geofences.
   beacon_name	String	Up to 60 characters in length. Leave blank if you are using only geofences.
   region	String	Up to 60 characters in length (for example, Southeast).
   city	String	Up to 60 characters in length (for example, Cary).
   state	String	Up to 60 characters in length (for example, NC).
   keywords	String	Up to 100 characters in length. Space delimited (for example, shoes).

   Here is an example of a data file:

2. On the navigation bar, click Administration Tasks. Click Mobile Applications in Digital.

3. Select the mobile app for which you want to upload geofence or beacon data.
4. Click .
5. Click Browse and locate the CSV file on your local system.
6. Click OK to upload the data to the geofence_definition table.

After the data is uploaded, all mobile apps that have the mobile SDK deployed must have a focus event where users open the app at least once. This action triggers their devices to get the most recent list of locations (beacons and geofences) of interest. Location services must also be enabled on the devices. (For information, see SAS Customer Intelligence 360: Developer’s Guide for Mobile Applications.)