Self-Managed Currency

Self-managed currency is used when you are handling the currency of your users with your own servers. This method can give you more control with your user’s currency but it also means that you are completely responsible for the back-end work for storing and handling the currency amounts for all your users. getCurrencyBalance, awardCurrency, or spendCurrency are only available for Managed Currency. Tapjoy does not provide any client-side/app-side notifications for self-managed currency: you are responsible for notifying the app and your user when we call your callback server. You MUST set up a callback server to work with self-Managed currency.

Note: It’s important to note that while Tapjoy does its best to reward users as quickly as possibly we can’t guarantee that the user will be rewarded instantaneously. There are a lot of factors that determine how long it may take to reward a user. As a best practice, you should check for an updated balance at regular intervals and after certain app events like app launch, app resume, in between levels, video ad close, before your store loads, etc. We also recommend that you let your users know that it may take some time before an offer gets completed.

Note: Each platform must have its own currency, even if it is self managed.

1. Callback URL

When a user has earned currency by completing an offer, we will make an HTTP GET request to this URL. The format of the parameters will be:

<callback_url>?snuid=<user_id>&currency=<currency>&mac_address=<mac_address>

//Example

http://www.sampledoman.com/payments/offers/tapjoy?&amp;snuid=42&amp;currency=50&amp;mac\_address=00-16-41-34-2C-A6

The default request parameters include snuid and currency (how much currency should be added to the user’s account), and the user’s wifi mac_address (if available).

Server Response

Tapjoy servers will expect either a 200 or 403 response from your server.

Your server should respond with 200 only if:

• the user has successfully been awarded their currency.

Your server should respond with 403 if:

• the verifier parameter does not match the calculated value
• the snuid parameter is unknown to your system
• if there was any other error that should not be retried.

Tapjoy will continue to retry if Tapjoy servers receive any response other then 200 or 403. (Note that it is very important NOT to actually reward the user if you are giving a non-200 response, as Tapjoy will continue to re-attempt the callback, possibly resulting in large numbers of duplicate rewards.) We’ll retry every 2 minutes for 4 days. We will treat the request as having failed if your server takes more than 5 seconds to respond.

NOTE: The response body of the callback URL responses needs to be in UTF-8. If they are not in UTF-8 we will retry even if you return a 200.

Optional Parameters for fraud detection/prevention

You can access your Virtual Currency Secret Key in Dashboard > Monetize > Virtual Currency > Create/Edit. This key is different from the Application SDK Key. Use this Virtual Currency Secret Key to sign the callback.

If a secret key in the Currency is present (secret_key=) then we will add the following parameters to the callback request:

• id: An identifier to mark the specific currency awarded which will always be unique. (note this is NOT the currency_id, this represents the request_id)
• verifier: a MD5 hash of the id, snuid, currency and secret key (see below)

Fraud Scenarios to always look out for

• If you see a id being reused and/or an incorrect verifier the callback URL is not coming from Tapjoy and should be considered fraudulent.
• If your user id’s contain strictly only integers we recommend that you perform a simple validation to make sure the user ID isn’t being manipulated. For example, Tapjoy considers “001234″ and “1234″ 2 separate user ID’s while your backend server logic may not.

Verifier

The verifier is computed by taking the MD5 hash of the id, snuid, currency and secret key, separated by colons. In Ruby code, this would be:

Digest::MD5.hexdigest("#{id}:#{snuid}:#{currency}:#{secret_key}")

Your server should recompute the verifier and reject any requests that do not match. The server should respond with a 403 Forbidden if the verifier doesn’t match.

Note that each application should have a separate secret key. Please do not use the same secret key for all of your applications, as this might lead to a situation where rewarding a user in one application will also reward the user in the other application. Also the id above represents the request_id not currency_id.

2. User ID

It is critically important that you set a user id if you are using a self-managed currency. This value is what the snuid is set to in the callback URL. We recommended using the connect flags to set the user id on connect, before any content is requested.

If set incorrectly, your users will not be rewarded and you will not get paid. The user id should be set to a unique user ID (typically a number).

For data security and GDPR compliance purposes, the setUserID parameter should not include any recognizable or identifiable information, such as a username, real name, or email address. For security and fraud detection purposes, the user ID should be constant for the lifetime of the user. (Do not, for example, use the user ID parameter to communicate information like the user’s level or score.)

The User ID can be up to 190 characters long.

The code samples below demonstrate how to use the connect flag, and also how to call the setUserID API directly (after connect) if necessary. When calling the API directly use the callbacks to ensure your id has been set successfully. We strongly recommend using the connect flag where possible:

iOS Instructions

// Recommended approach using connect flag
NSDictionary *connectFlags = @{TJC_OPTION_USER_ID : @"<USER_ID_HERE>"};
[Tapjoy connect:@"SDK_KEY_GOES_HERE" options:connectFlags];

// Setting the user id directly
[Tapjoy setUserIDWithCompletion:@"<USER_ID_HERE>" completion:^(BOOL success, NSError *error) {

}];

Android Instructions

// Recommended approach using connect flag
Hashtable<String, Object> connectFlags = new Hashtable<String, Object>();
connectFlags.put(TapjoyConnectFlag.USER_ID, "<USER_ID_HERE>"); // Important for self-managed currency

Tapjoy.connect(getApplicationContext(), "SDK_KEY_GOES_HERE", connectFlags, new TJConnectListener() {...});

// Setting the user id directly

Tapjoy.setUserID("<USER_ID_HERE>", new TJSetUserIDListener() {
  @Override
  public void onSetUserIDSuccess() {
    
  }

  @Override
  public void onSetUserIDFailure(String error) {

  }
});

Unity Instructions

// Recommended approach using connect flag
Dictionary<string,string> connectFlags = new Dictionary<string,string>();
connectFlags.Add("TJC_OPTION_USER_ID", "<USER_ID_HERE>");

#if UNITY_ANDROID
  Tapjoy.Connect("your_android_sdk_key", connectFlags);
#elif UNITY_IOS
  Tapjoy.Connect("your_ios_sdk_key", connectFlags);
#endif

// Callbacks for SetUserID
TJPlacement.OnSetUserIDSuccess += HandleOnSetUserIDSuccess;
TJPlacement.OnSetUserIDFailure += HandleOnSetUserIDFailure;

// Setting the user id directly
Tapjoy.SetUserID("<USER_ID_HERE>")

You can find further examples on the Quickstart page for iOS, Android, and Unity.

TROUBLESHOOTING: If you are calling setUserID and the snuid in the callback URL isn’t a value you expect, then you need to call setUserID before the user goes to the in-app offerwall or tapjoy.com to complete offers. Tapjoy will send device id as snuid in the callback URL if there is no userID associated with a device. For example, a user could launch the app but then go to tapjoy.com before your app sends us the userID. To prevent this you need to make sure setUserID is called on every launch after the connect call.

If you have not set the user ID the system will attempt to use the best-available device ID. In most cases this will be the Advertising ID for the device. However, depending on SDK version, device model/version, device OS version, and Google Play Services the exact ID may vary. Other possible values include the Android ID, udid, and mac_address.

3. Mediation and NO_CALLBACK

There may be scenarios where no callback is preferred. In this case entering NO_CALLBACK for the URL will avoid an unnecessary call to your servers.

Mediation is a common reason to use NO_CALLBACK. If your mediator is handling the rewarding it is unlikely you will need a callback from Tapjoy. Instead of sending zero rewards from fixed rewarded video units, the NO_CALLBACK can be provided for the currency callback URL which will avoid making this call.

4. Using Offerwall and Video

If you are using both our Offerwall and Video products we recommend using separate currencies: one for each type of content. This allows for easier debugging in case of errors. It is also useful in case you ever switch to using mediation for Video, in which case you may no longer need a callback.

5. Switching from Tapjoy Managed to Self-managed

If you haven’t launched your app yet, you can switch a Tapjoy Managed currency to a Self-Managed currency from the Edit Virtual Currency screen on the Tapjoy dashboard. Be sure to enter a properly formatted URL (or "NO_CALLBACK") into the callback URL field - otherwise the change will not actually take place.

If you have a live application that has currency managed by Tapjoy, the process of switching is more complex. Here are a few things to consider:

• You’ll need to create a new App with a new SDK Key. This ensures that users who are using an old version of your App that hasn’t upgraded to the latest version won’t be affected. If you use the same SDK Key for the Self-managed currency version of your app, all your users on the Tapjoy managed currency version won’t be rewarded for completing offers.
• You’ll need to disable any Advertising campaigns pointing to the old App ID, and recreate any Advertising campaigns to point to the new App ID.
• Switching to self-managed will require code changes in your app. You will not be able to use getCurrencyBalance, awardCurrency, or spendCurrency as they’re only available for Managed Currency.
• We recommend that you contact your Account Manager before considering making the change.
• It is not possible to switch from a Self-Managed Currency to a Tapjoy Managed Currency. So be certain you wish to make the change before doing so.

To migrate user’s balance, we recommend follow these steps:

1. On first launch, use the old SDK Key (with the Tapjoy Managed Currency) and call getCurrencyBalance to retrieve the balance.
2. Update your balance with the value returned by getCurrencyBalance.
3. On all subsequent launches, use the new SDK Key.

If you’re considering switching to self-managed, but aren’t sure how to implement your own virtual currency server we recommend checking out solutions by Parse or UrbanAirship.