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I understand that lists are one of the property types associated with event data. The example given is usually of a flat list, eg
{'groceries': ['milk', 'eggs', 'bananas']}
However what we'd like to do is associate a SKU with each item, eg:
{'groceries': [
{'sku': 123, 'name': 'milk'},
 {'sku': 456, 'name': 'eggs'},
 {'sku': 789, 'name': 'bananas'}
]
}
Is that possible?
While you can include this property data as dictionaries (objects) and store it in this structure in Mixpanel, there are some things to consider.
As of now, the standard interface reports can only show one layer of properties, and you wouldn't be able to fully report on the objects with Mixpanel's built in reports (Insights, Funnels, Retention, etc.). Instead, you would have to use JQL (Mixpanel's custom query language) for flexible reports on that object data.
As such I would recommend a hybrid version of this tracking including some properties that can be used in the core reporting, while still tracking the property information that you would need regarding the SKU with each item.
The way you could capture the data would look like this:
mixpanel.track('Purchase',{
 'Products':['milk','eggs','bananas'], //accessible in core reports
 'Product-details': [          //NOT accessible in core reports as contains more than one value
 {'name': 'milk', 'sku': 123},
 {'name': 'eggs', 'sku': 456},
 {'name': 'bananas', 'sku': 789},
 ]
});Additionally, if these product names and SKUs do not need to be paired, and your ultimate goal is just to have all this information on the event (so that you can segment and filter that a purchase contains a given SKU or product name) then you could also track these as separate list properties.
mixpanel.track('Purchase',{
 'Products':['milk','eggs','bananas'],    //accessible in core reports
 'SKUs':[123,456,789],           //accessible in core reports
});Anyone else have a different creative way to solve this problem?
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