Ingesting Usage

Using our SDKs or native API calls, Lotus ingests events that then can be matched to billable metrics and associated with pricing plans. After sending a usage event to Lotus, you no longer have to worry about that event being tracked or computed for billing later down the line.

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Setup

For every billable metric you define, you need to put a track event API or SDK call in your backend with the associated.

Events are defined as the following:

{
    "event_name": string, // [required], name of the type of event, defined in your billable metrics
    "idempotency_id": string,//[required], unique id of the specific event instance
    "properties": object, //[optional] dictionary of extra information
    "customer_id": string, //[required] customer associated with the event
    "time_created": string, //[required] timestamp when the event occured
}

The event_name should correspond to what the event is and match what you define in your metrics.

The time_created is an RFC3339 format date in UTC.

The idempotency_id is a unique identifier for the specific event being passed in. Passing in a unique id allows Lotus to make sure no double counting occurs.

The properties object is how you can extend your event information. In your metrics, you can define properties to filter or aggregate over.

Therefore, you should include as many important characteristics in your properties as possible.

The customer_id is the id you defined in your backend for the corresponding customer and the same id that you passed into Lotus when creating the customer.

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Segment Integration (Contact Us)

The segment integration allows companies who are already metering and tracking customer usage through Segment to route and transform their data into Lotus without bothering to add our sdk calls in addition to the current analytics.js you have.

Our Segment integration is not public yet. However, if you are using Lotus Cloud, reach out to our team if you are interested.

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Events Debugger

In order to be sure Lotus is collecting your events correctly, you can use the debugger in the Metrics Tab.