brainCloud 4.6 is mostly an under-the-covers technology refresh:

• We have reworked our database access layer to be compatible with MongoDB 4.0 and beyond – all while maintaining API compatibility for our customers, of course.
• We have moved our reporting services from our API Servers to our Datastream Servers for improved performance and stability for larger exports.
• We have improved the RTT connection handling code in our client libraries.
• We have removed a slew of older deprecated calls from our client libraries.

On top of all that, we did add a few new features – so read on for the details!

Release Highlights

Script API Usage Stats

We have added a new feature to our API Explorer and Script Editor to help you assess and tune the performance of your scripts.

The new API Usage log lists the API calls (by service and operation) that your script made, and calculates the API Count that will be used for billing purposes. Handy!

(Remember, the first 3 calls from a script are free – and each call after that is 1/2 count).

Fewer calls = lower server utilization = lower costs = faster scripts. It’s win-win-win folks!

SAML End-user Authentication

brainCloud has been enhanced to support SAML for end-user authentication. This is mostly relevant for non-gaming* customers who want to integrate their brainCloud app with a corporate directory.

Our SAML authentication builds upon the External Authentication feature, providing several key endpoints that can be used for initiating calls and receiving callback from the SAML identity provider.

See the SAML Authentication knowledge-base article for more information.

Random Custom Entities

We have added a new API that supports the retrieval of random custom entities.

The new API is called GetRandomEntitiesMatching() and takes as parameters the entityType, a JSON query filter, and the number of entities to return. 

API Keys

We are developing a new Builder API mechanism for developers. This will enable API-driven management of teams, apps, and scripts via external services and tools.

We are hopeful that this, together with Cloud Code folders (coming soon), will allow devs to more efficiently integrate brainCloud with their build processes.

Our new API keys system is a foundational building block. To access any Builder API method, the following conditions must be met:

• Builder API access must be enabled for the Team itself
• Builder API access must be enabled for the User who owns the key (on the target Team)
• The Builder API key must be valid and not expired

We will provide more information on the Builder API in the coming months.

RTT Connection Handling

As mentioned above, we have made significant improvements to RTT Connection Handling in the client libraries.

The improvements across all libraries include:

• Refactored the underlying code to keep track of RTT connection state via a new RTTConnectionStatus enum with the following values – CONNECTED, DISCONNECTED, CONNECTING and DISCONNECTING.
• Added a new GetConnectionStatus() method to return this status. 
• The existing IsRTTEnabled() call still works – but now simply returns true if the status is CONNECTED.

In Unity and Unreal, we have also:

• Added a new WebsocketStatus enum (with values OPEN, CLOSED, MESSAGE, ERROR, and NONE) which is used internally to keep track of the WebSocket status. This allows the library to catch an annoying Android background app bug where the RTT connection closes because of the WebSocket closing — and notify the client app to re-establish its RTT connection.
• Improved error handling in Unity RTT now gives more information about what happened with the RTT connection.

Portal Changes

We have made the following portal changes:

Team

• Manage | Members
  • Added a column to show which users have API Keys defined for this team
  • Also added a new Builder API Access option to the Permissions tab of the user settings
• Manage | Team Info
  • Added a toggle for enabling Builder API Access

Design

• Cloud Code | API Explorer
  • The new API Usage Stats log is now added to response when cloud code scripts are called.
• Cloud Code | Scripts, Script Editor
  • The new API Usage Stats log is also appended to the responses in the Run tab of the Script Editor.
• Cloud Data | Custom Entities
  • The index list screen now displays the index key fields – providing a much better overview of index coverage.
• Integrations | Manage Integrations
  • A new SAML Settings section has been added to the integrations screen.

Monitor

• Group Monitoring | Groups
  • We have added a new feature that allows Portal users to remove members from groups.
• User Monitoring | Recent Users
  • We now capture and display the version of the client app that users are using to login. 
• User Monitoring | Logs
  • A new [Refresh] button has been added. Very useful when viewing the live logs of a user while debugging.

App Version now displayed in Recent Users list…

Reporting

• API Usage
  • We now break down custom entity operations by entity type – providing better insight into the performance of individual entity types.

General

• Edit Profile | API Keys 
  • You can now create API Keys for use with our Builder API – coming soon! 

API Changes

The following changes/additions have affected the brainCloud API:

• Custom Entity
  • (New!) GetRandomEntitiesMatching() call added for returning a set of random entities from a filtered list of candidates.
• File
  • (New!) FileUploadFromMemory() call added to allow uploads to happen in situations where local file access is not possible or convenient. For example, screenshots from Unity-based WebGL apps. Note – Unity client only.
• Group
  • (Improved!) Sys APIs for Groups and Group Entities are now available from S2S
• RTT
  • (New!) GetConnectionStatus() call returns the status of the RTT WebSocket connection ( CONNECTED, DISCONNECTED, CONNECTING and DISCONNECTING).

The following methods are newly marked as deprecated:

• PlayerState
  • UpdateName() deprecated – use UpdateUserName() instead… (which is no longer marked as deprecated – it was a mistake!)

The following previously deprecated methods have been removed from the 4.6+ client libraries:

• Authentication
  • GenerateGUID() and GenerateNewAnonymousId() removed – use GenerateAnonymousId() instead.
• Client
  • GetGameId() removed – use GetAppId() instead.
  • GetGameVersion() and GetVersion() removed – use GetAppVersion() instead.
• Entity
  • GetSharedEntityForPlayerId() removed – use GetSharedEntityForProfileId() instead.
  • GetSharedEntitiesForPlayerId() removed – use GetSharedEntitiesForProfileId() instead.
  • GetSharedEntititesListforPlayerId() removed – use GetSharedEntitiesListForProfileId() instead.
• Friend
  • FindPlayerByUniversalId() and FindUserByUniversalId() removed – use FindUserByExactUniversalId() or instead.
  • ReadFriendPlayerState() removed – use ReadFriendUserState() instead.
• Gamification
  • ResetMilestones() removed from client libs – still available from cloud code.
• PlaybackStream
  • GetStreamSummariesForInitiatingPlayer() removed – use GetRecentStreamsForInitiatingPlayer() instead.
  • GetStreamSummariesForTargetPlayer() removed – use GetRecentStreamsForTargetPlayer() instead.
• PlayerState
  • DeletePlayer() removed – use DeleteUser() instead.
  • ReadPlayerState() removed – use ReadUserState() instead.
  • ResetPlayer() removed – use ResetUser() instead.
  • UpdatePlayerName() removed – use UpdateUserName() instead.
  • UpdatePlayerPictureUrl() removed – use UpdateUserPictureUrl() instead.
• PlayerStatistics
  • IncrementPlayerStats() removed – use IncrementUserStats() instead.
  • ReadAllPlayerStats() removed – use ReadAllUserStats() instead.
  • ReadPlayerStatsForCategory() removed – use ReadUserStatsForCategory() instead.
  • ReadPlayerStatsSubset() removed – use ReadUserStatsSubset() instead.
  • ResetAllPlayerStats() removed – use ResetAllUserStats() instead.
• PlayerStatisticsEvent
  • TriggerPlayerStatisticsEvent() removed – use TriggerStatsEvent() instead.
  • TriggerPlayerStatisticsEvents() removed – use TriggerStatsEvents() instead.
• Product
  • This legacy Product service has been been removed. Use the replacement AppStore or VirtualCurrency services instead.

Miscellaneous Changes / Fixes

• Updated libraries
  • All libraries have been updated. Go get ’em!
• Documentation updates
  • Added new knowledgebase articles for dozens of portal screens. Look for the Learn More links!
• Important Fixes
  • BCLD-6427 – In API Explorer/Scripts/S2S Explorer the up/down arrows in the log are not working
  • BCLD-6389 – Restore Checkpoint now properly deletes new custom collections (created or imported) since the selected checkpoint
  • BCLD-6344 – When viewing indexes, the index fields box is not pretty printed
  • BCLD-6352 – ADHOC Division Set Leaderboard Template with Tournament in progress is losing required tournament data on import/deploy
  • BCLD-6320 – C++ cannot tear down WebSocket on Win32
  • BCLD-6343 – Deleting custom indexes shows wrong text – asks if you want to delete the “entity type” instead
  • BCLD-6327 – Import/Deploy custom entity configs (and migratable custom entities) only if target app has applicable billing plan
  • BCLD-6251 – Added support to manage groups and group entities from S2S
  • BCLD-6304 – Identity – GET_EXPIRED_IDENTITIES throwing exception for expired/invalidated Facebook identities
  • BCLD-6322 – Reporting | Analytics page not showing session graph if between 7-8 pm Eastern
  • BCLD-5969 – Added null check for “push content” call in Unity for Abandon/Complete Match with summary data
  • BCLD-6283 – VerifyReceipt() for product that is “Not for Sale” should still work
  • BCLD-6183 – User Items not being exported as part of user data export/archive
  • BCLD-6184 – User Items not being deleted when the user is deleted
  • BCLD-6294 – UpdateGroupData and UpdateGroupName methods not updating UpdatedAt field
  • BCLD-6246 – GoogleOpenId identity cannot be detached
• Plus miscellaneous fixes and performance enhancements…

brainCloud 4.5.6 is a very focused release – but much more significant than the version number would imply.

This update brings the release of our new Version 2 Relay Servers – which are more reliable, more feature-rich, and faster to launch than our original Relay Servers.

Important: The RelayComms V2 Protocol (used by brainCloud 4.5.6 and newer libs) is not compatible with the RelayComms V1 Protocol (used by brainCloud 4.5.5 and older libs). The recommended migration process is described later in this document.

Release Highlights

Improved Relay Servers

As more and more apps use brainCloud’s Relay Servers, we have realized some limitations with our initial implementation:

1. Defect – reliable acknowledgments don’t consider all combinations of channel * reliable bit * ordered bit * net id (from user). Combinations of reliable/ordered would FAIL if used within the same channel Id. This issue would normally only happen with higher player counts – but it is definitely an issue.
2. Limitation – no way to send a message to a subset of players (e.g. your team in a competitive game). V1 only allowed for sending to all, or to a single specified user
3. Limitation – no protocol version embedded in the protocol – which makes it near impossible to modify/extend/correct the protocol and maintain compatibility with older clients.
4. Unoptimized – the Docker container used to launch the relay servers wasn’t properly optimized to improve launch times. 

The good news is that we have addressed these limitations with Version 2 of our RelayComms Protocol – and incorporated it into our new Relay Servers and 4.5.6 Client Libraries. 

The better news is that the Client APIs for the new RelayComms is almost completely compatible – that is, you don’t need to change your client code to use the new servers – other than:

• In C#-only, you need to adjust for the new netId parameter in the RelayCallback() method ← note, this was a defect. The other languages already had that parameter in their callback method.
• If migrating a Live application, you will need to substitute in the new lobby ids (see the migration procedure section below)

The bad news is that our new V2 Relay Servers are not compatible with our 4.5.5 and older client libraries – so they only work with brainCloud 4.5.6 libs and greater. Conversely – the new 4.5.6 libs do not work with the legacy Relay Servers – so migrating your apps to the new Relay Servers (which we highly recommend) must be done carefully. We provide the details on how to do this without interruption in a section below.

Note – The V1 RelayServers will continue to function for the foreseeable future (at least 1 year) – so you do not need to force a short-term upgrade to your app. It is highly recommended that apps upgrade when they get a chance however.

Matchmaking Optimizations

This release also includes some serious optimizations to brainCloud’s Online Matchmaking and Lobby System algorithms – resulting in:

• greater lobby queue scalability
• much faster best-case room/relay server launches

Note that these changes are completely under-the-hood – no API changes required.

Miscellaneous Changes

The following changes are also included in this release:

• Amazon Platform detection – has been added to all of the libs (except C++). Important – be sure to turn on the “Amazon” platform on the Design | Core App Info | Platforms page for your app. This is important even if you aren’t using Amazon IAP – otherwise, your Android app won’t launch on Amazon devices!
• Ability to clone Lobby and Server types – has been added to facilitate easier migration to the new Relay Servers
• Improved WebPurify integration – are servers are now properly encoding problematic text characters before sending them to WebPurify

Procedure: Relay Server Migration

The following approach is recommended for migrating your app from V1 Relay Servers → V2 Relay Servers. 

This approach has been designed to:

• ensure the app is available to all players throughout the migration
• support the various app store review processes 
• keep the developer in control of the timelines of the migration.

Approach

Benefits: This approach allows users of your old client to continue to play using the V1 Relay Servers – even as your updated client goes through app store reviews, soft launch, etc. using the new V2 Relay Servers. And then, after your release has been deployed globally and across all platforms, you can “force” users to upgrade to unite all players together again.

The executive summary of the recommended approach is:

• Clone the Lobby and Server definitions of your app – producing a new set of V2 Lobbies and V2 Servers that will be used by the updated versionof your app
  • Configure the V2 Server definitions to use Relay Protocol v2
  • Configure the V2 Lobby definitions to use the new V2 Server definitions
• Modify your Client App to use the new V2 Lobby definitions, as well as the appropriate 4.5.6 Client Library
• Optionally (but recommended), ensure that your Client App reacts to the Minimum Version setting from the Design | Core App Info | Platform page. This will allow you to “force” your users to upgrade to the new client when you are ready (see Version Enforcement)

Step-by-step

This section describes step-by-step how to modify your app to implement the recommended migration approach.

Design Portal

1. Go to Design | Cloud Code | My Servers – and clone the Relay Server entries to create new “V2” versions. A new [Clone Server] button has been added to assist with this. After cloning each entry, be sure to Edit it, and change the Relay Protocol to v2!
2. Go to Design | Multiplayer | Lobbies – and clone the Lobby entries to create new “V2” versions. A new Clone option has been added to the Action menu to assist with this. After cloning each entry, be sure to Edit it, and change it to refer to one of the V2 Servers that you created in Step 1.

App Code

1. Replace your brainCloud library with a new 4.5.6+ version of the client library.
2. Go into your source code, and change the names of the Lobbies that your client app references to the new V2 version of the lobby type name.
3. Rebuild and test your client app to ensure everything works.
4. (Optional – but highly recommended) If you haven’t already, enhance your app to pass the app version during the BrainCloudWrapper.Initialize() method, and display a “Client update required” dialog if it receives a 40322 – APP_VERSION_NOT_SUPPORTED error from the server during authentication. This will allow you to force users to upgrade to the new client when you are ready. Note – the required app versions are controlled via the Design | Core App Info | Platforms page.

For more information on implementing Version Enforcement in brainCloud, see the article at the link.

App Submission & Migration

1. Submit the updated app (which uses the V2 Relay Servers) to the various app stores for approval. Existing users will continue to play using the V1 Relay Servers.
2. Officially Release your app. During this stage of launch, your player liquidity is split – between the older and newer servers.
3. (Optional – but highly recommended) Once you are ready (and are confident that the app updated has been distributed globally to all appstores), you can update the minimum required versions on the Design | Core App Info | Platforms page to force users to upgrade, and re-unite your player base!

And voila – you have successfully migrated your app to the V2 Relay Servers without interruption!

Portal Changes

We have made the following portal changes:

Design

• Cloud Code | My Servers
  • Added new [Clone Server] button to make it easier to duplicate server configurations
• Messaging | Chat
  • The Replace Profanity with setting now properly defaults to “*”
• Multiplayer | Lobbies
  • Added a Clone option to the Action menu to make it easier to duplicate lobby configurations

API Changes

Reminder – The 4.5.6 client libs only work with the V2 Relay Servers.

If your app is live and using Relay Servers, do not upgrade to the 4.5.6 Client Libraries until you are ready to migrate your app according to the procedure described in these release notes.

Although the Client libraries have changed significantly to support RelayComms V2, the APIs themselves have not.

There is just one fix to the C# libraries that affect a method signature:

• The RelayCallback() method signature has changed. It now includes a netId parameter.public delegate void RelayCallback(short netId, byte[] data);

Miscellaneous Changes / Fixes

• Updated libraries
  • All libs have been updated to use RelayComms V2!
  • All libs (except C#) now include Amazon Platform detection. Important: If your app supports Android, and you want your Android apps to run on Amazon devices, remember to enable the Amazon platform on the Design | Core App Info | Platforms page!
• Documentation updates
  • The API Reference has been updated to include the updated C# RelayCallback
• Important Fixes
  • BCLD-6304 – Error sending certain chat messages with WebPurify support enabled
  • BCLD-6240 – Presence updates sometimes failing due to improper TTL setting
  • BCLD-6239 – Lobby matchmaking NPE
• Plus miscellaneous fixes and performance enhancements…

We have bad news and good news.

The bad news is that delivering the full 4.6 Release (with Cloud Code Folders support) is taking longer than expected. Our adjusted schedule puts that release in September. (boo!)

The good news is that there are a bunch of smaller features that we are finishing up now – and so instead of making you wait until 4.6 for everything, we are going to do an early 4.5.5 release instead! (yay!)

PS – Don’t let the .5 release number fool you – there is a lot here!

Important Compatibility alert! – Our C# 4.5.5 Unity Libs now recognize when they are being run on Amazon Fire devices, and set the “platform type” appropriately (for better analytics). As a side effect of this, you need to enable the new Amazon platform on the Design | Core App Info | Platforms page for it to run on Amazon devices! You will need to do this even if you aren’t using Amazon IAP.

Pricing alert! – This release includes a new feature for Auto-Deleting Dormant Users. This is in preparation for charging devs for storing Dormant Users – which will become effective in January 2021. Read on for more details!

Release Highlights

Amazon In-App Purchase Support

At long last, brainCloud brings support for Amazon AppStore In-app Purchase items. This includes support for both Consumable and Non-consumable items (i.e. Entitlements). Basic subscription support is in place as well.

Perform the following steps to add Amazon IAP support to your app:

• In the Amazon Developer Services portal
  • Register your app (and it’s IAP products). Create a Product for each price entry you wish to manage in brainCloud.
• In the brainCloud Design Portal
  • Configure the Shared Secret key on the Design | Core App Info | Application IDs page – Amazon tab of the brainCloud Design Portal. You can find your shared secret key here.
  • On the Design | Marketplace | Products page – configure the Amazon Product SKUs for the appropriate price entries.
• In your app
  • Integrate the latest brainCloud and Amazon libs into your app
  • Call AppStore.GetSalesInventory(), passing in the new “amazon” platform, to get a list of the products and their current prices (i.e. Amazon IAP SKUs)
  • Use the appropriate Amazon APIs to perform the purchase.
  • Verify the receipt that is returned via the AppStore.VerifyPurchase() call

Global Files V3 Portal Support

In 4.5.5, we have made the Global File service more accessible, by giving it its own page in the Design Portal. Simply navigate to Design | Custom Config | Global Files and start uploading your files!

From the Design Portal, you can:

• upload, move, copy and delete files
• create, move, and delete folders
• download an archive of all of an app’s global files
• restore an archive of an app’s global files

In addition, brainCloud 4.5.5 now migrates Global Files during deployment.

Slack Alerts (beta)

We have added our first cut of Slack integration to brainCloud!

With this integration, you can configure a custom channel (or channels) to receive alerts from selected categories, including:

• chat – profanity filter violations
• deploys – app deployments
• hosting – room servers spinning up / down
• integration – push notification expiry warnings
• jobs – background reporting jobs started / completed
• purchases – customer purchase notifications ← fun!

See this knowledge base article for instructions on configuring the slack webhooks for integration.

Custom Entity Singleton API

Here is an interesting statistic:

The UpdateSingleton() call for User Entities is by far the most heavily called client method. It is called >5X more often than it’s closest rival.

The reason is that it allows devs to bypass micromanaging ids. For example – You don’t need to know the entityId of the “CampaignSave” object to read and update. Your app just knows that there is only one of them per user – and updates them via the type (i.e. “CampaignSave”) instead of the id.

Given the popularity of the singleton pattern – we thought it fitting to bring a singleton API to Owned Custom Entities as well!

The following new methods have been added:

• UpdateSingleton() and UpdateSingletonFields() ← partial updates for singletons!
• ReadSingleton() and DeleteSingleton().

Note that the singleton API only works for owned Custom Entities.

Auto-Delete Dormant Users

At long last, brainCloud will now support the automatic deletion of Dormant Users.

brainCloud defines a dormant user as a user that has an account in an app, but hasn’t logged into it in the past 180 days (i.e. 6 months).

The evils of Dormant users:

The storage (and backups) of dormant users greatly adds to the costs of running brainCloud – and weighs down the performance of apps – with little or no benefit to developers (and their marketing teams) – as most users are anonymous and have probably already uninstallled your app!

brainCloud is making 3 key changes to combat the evils of dormant users:

1. Adding a new Auto-delete feature that devs can enable to automatically delete dormant users. This feature is safe and highly configurable – see details below.
2. Adding a new Dormant Users Fee to brainCloud’s monthly invoices. Devs will be charged $75 per Million dormant users (pro-rated). (Note – this line item is actually already on invoices – but the cost is currently set to $0 / million).
3. Finally, we will not start charging the fees until January 2021 – so that devs have the opportunity to delete their users first. Auto-deletion isn’t instantaneous – it works slowly in the background so as not to impact brainCloud system performance. Some brainCloud apps have over 100 million dormant users – it will take time to delete them!

Auto-deletion settings

The new Auto-deletion process is highly configurable. It allows you to set:

• # of days of inactivity – brainCloud considers an account dormant after 180 days – but you can decide to only delete accounts after 1 year, for example.
• exceptions – easily exclude users who have made purchases, have e-mail addresses, have XP levels greater than some threshold, have currency balances greater than a threshold, or are members of selected segments.
• (optional) email notifications – want to warn users (that you have email addresses for) that their accounts will be deleted soon? You can send two notices. Of course, any users that login after the notice and before the deletion date are automatically removed from the deletion queue.
• (optional) archive service – want to archive the users (temporarily) before deletion? We have that covered as well! Just configure an Owned Custom Entity type and we’ll temporarily store an archive of the user there – you decide for how long. Note that standard Custom Entity charges apply. Also – there is no automated way to restore an archived user – though it is certainly possible to manually do so – all the data is there in the archive JSON.

Note that the Auto-Deletion process does consume some API counts – in accordance to how it has been configured – namely:

• +1 Bulk API Count for each user deleted
• +1 Email Sent API Count for each email notification sent

We understand that this is a big change – and that deleting users can be scary – but we have worked hard to build a safe solution that keeps developers in control of their user data and infrastructure costs. We hope you agree!

This feature will not be enabled immediately upon 4.5.5 release. We have got a bit of final testing on the production hardware before we turn it on.
Plus – as a reminder – billing for Dormant User retention will not begin until January 2021.

Additional Feature and Improvements!

The following new features aren’t headliners – but they are worth a mention!

• Leaderboard Deployment Options – new options to allow deployment to production apps without touching or destroying dynamically created leaderboards.
• Custom Entity Deletion Queries – we have added some new deletion calls that support query filters. Much more efficient than individually calling delete for each entity!
• Product & Promotion Management APIs – we have added new S2S and cloud-code APIs for managing Products & Prices, and both Scheduled and Automated Promotions. These new APIs contain feature enhancements as well, including the ability to attach custom JSON objects to both Prices and Promotions.
• Segment, Currency, and Notification Queries – in support of the above APIs, we have added several utility methods that retrieve the current segments for a user, the overall segment list, the list of push notification templates, and the list of virtual currency types. We have also added a new method to dynamically refresh the user’s segment list (to recalculate the segments since they logged in).
• Unreal 4.25 Support! Technically, 4.25 support was added as a library patch for brainCloud 4.5 – but it’s totally worth mentioning.  
• RTT – we have added additional edge-case handling to prevent unnecessary disconnects – especially in regards to the Java client
• Room & Relay Server launches – are now handled more efficiently in the background
• RTT & Relay Comms – there are improvements in every client release. In particular, there are improvements in the Java Libraries this release

Portal Changes

We have made the following changed to the Design Portal:

Design

• Core App Info | Application IDs
  • Added a new Amazon tab where you can fill in the Shared Secret necessary for validating Amazon AppStore receipts
• (New!) Core App Info | Auto Delete Users
  • New screen for configuring the auto-deletion of dormant users
  • Note – this screen will not show up for a few weeks as we complete final testing.
• Cloud Code | My Servers
  • You can now pick a relay protocol to use for your Relay Servers. The only choice currently is V1 – but V2 is coming very soon with improved performance and reliability!
• (New!) Custom Config | Global Files
  • Manage the files and folders for the Global Files V3 service
• Integrations | Manage Integrations
  • Integrate brainCloud with your Slack instance
• Marketplace | Products
  • Configure Amazon IAP pricing for products
  • Expanded support for custom JSON on products
• Promotions | Automated
  • The UI for targeting segments align better with the Scheduled Promotions screen
  • Added the ability to attach custom JSON to promotions
• Promotions | Scheduled
  • Added the ability to attach custom JSON to promotions
  • Fixed an odd behavior where you had to set the start time to the future when editing scheduled promotions.

Also of note – user counts throughout the portal should now be more accurate – taking into account deleted and merged accounts (as well as accounts created directly via the User Service).

API Changes

The following changes/additions have affected the brainCloud API:

Client APIs

• Custom Entity
  • New! Singleton APIs – DeleteSingleton(), ReadSingleton(), UpdateSingleton(), and UpdateSingletonFields().
  • New! Delete multiple entities in a single call using DeleteEntities() & SysDeleteEntities().
    Note that apps are charged +1 Bulk API Count per entity deleted, in addition to the API Count for the call itself. 
  • New! IncrementData() call added to client libs
• Product Management
  • New! APIs for managing products and their associated prices
    • SysAddProductPrice()
    • SysCreateProduct()
    • SysDeleteProduct()
    • SysDeleteProductPrice()
    • SysGetProductList()
    • SysReadProduct()
    • SysSetDefaultProductPrice()
    • SysUpdateProduct()
    • SysUpdateProductPrice()
  • Note that all of the above methods are available via cloud-code and S2S only.
• Promotions
  • New! APIs for managing both scheduled and automated promotions
    • SysCreatePromotion()
    • SysDeletePromotion()
    • SysEnablePromotion()
    • SysGetPromotionList()
    • SysReadPromotion()
    • SysUpdatePromotion()
  • Note that all of the above methods are available via cloud-code and S2S only.
• Push Notification
  • New! SysGetNotificationTemplates() API to return the list of notification templates configured in the portal.
• Segment
  • New! Two methods have been added for retrieving the user’s segment, and the full list of segments respectively: GetMySegmentsLegacy() and SysGetSegmentList(). We have made these methods cloud-code only because we plan to introduce schema changes in this area in the future, and don’t want client apps to be caught flat-footed.
  • New! We have also added the RefreshMySegments() cloud-code call to allow dynamically refreshing of segments during a session. Note that segments are already automatically refreshed upon authentication – this method can be used to cause segments to refresh mid-session – for example, after completing a level. 
• Virtual Currency
  • New! The following methods have been added for retrieving the list of currency types that have been defined in the portal:
    • SysGetCurrencyTypes()
    • SysGetParentCurrencyTypes()
    • SysGetPeerCurrencyTypes()
  • Note that all of the above methods are available via cloud-code and S2S only.

S2S APIs

All of the SYS calls described above are available via the Server-to-Server API as well.

Miscellaneous Changes / Fixes

• Updated libraries
  • All client libraries have been updated with the latest API enhancements – go get ’em!
  • The following client libraries have additional improvements:
    • Unreal Lib – now supports Unreal 4.25!
    • Java Libs – there are some good RelayComms fixes in there.
    • In general, it is always best to update to our latest client libs!
  • There have been no changes to the S2S libraries themselves. The generic mechanism employed by our S2S libs is API agnostic – and thus the 4.5 libs already support all 4.5.5 APIs.
• Documentation updates
  • All new methods are documented in our APIREF – https://getbraincloud.com/apidocs/apiref
  • You’ll find our new Amazon IAP tutorial here
• Important Fixes
  • BCLD-5722 – Unreal blueprint tutorial on website is out of date for UE 4.24. will crash on initialize app.
  • BCLD-5724 – Unreal C++ tutorial on website is out of date, method getInstance() doesn’t exist in BrainCloudClient class.
  • BCLD-6072 – Price entries can be created for products without an appstore defined with it
  • BCLD-5960 – Users should not be able to use ‘.’ (dot) in external auth type
  • BCLD-6105 – Should be able to edit Scheduled Promotion without setting it’s start time to the future
  • BCLD-6090 – brainCloud java client sends empty RTT ping packets that cause immediate disconnect from event server
  • BCLD-5922 – Matchmaking process is blocked by room/relay server spin-up
  • BCLD-5909 – User counts on Manage | Apps and Reporting | Analytics don’t exclude deleted users OR include users created via UserService
  • BCLD-5738 – Java RelayComms double queue UDP ordered relay packets
• Plus miscellaneous fixes and performance enhancements…

In Release 4.5.5 we added support for Amazon In-app Purchases. As part of that feature, we also expanded brainCloud to include Amazon devices as a separate Platform – essentially so that devs implementing Amazon IAP would be able to get a better feel of the monetization of users on that platform.

Regrettably, we neglected to properly anticipate and publicize the side effect of that change – with is that brainCloud apps using the 4.5.5+ libs running on Amazon now need to have the new “Amazon” platform enabled.

So – if you are building Android apps, and you want them to run on Amazon devices (whether you are using IAP or not), please go now and turn on Amazon platform support before upgrading to our 4.5.5 libs.

(Note – to be precise, only the Unity 4.5.5 libs have Amazon platform detection right now. The rest of the libs are getting a 4.5.6 update soon with it though.)

Apologies for the confusion!

Big things are happening with brainCloud in 2020. Here’s what you will find in 4.5.

The executive summary:

• Shared Cloud Code Scripts (beta)
• Global Files V3 API (beta)
• Custom Entities Official Release + Templates!
• Improved Room Server Support for Unity and Unreal!
• Facebook Graph API v3.2
• New (better!) Batch User Processing API
• Updated UTC-based calls in Client Libs (see note immediately below)
• and more!

Release Highlights

Shared Cloud Code Scripts (beta)

At long last, our initial version of shared scripts is available for use! No more copy-and-pasting functions from script-to-script or loading them into custom properties! 

Starting in Release 4.5, to include another script, you simply use the new bridge.include(“scriptname.ccjs”) operation.

For example – say you have this script:

MathFunctions script

function sumNums( num1, num2 ) {
  return (num1 + num2);  
}

function prodNums( num1, num2 ) {
  return (num1 * num2 );  
}

You can include it from another cloud code script very simply:

"use strict";

bridge.include("MathFunctions.ccjs");

function main() {
   var response = {};
   response.answer = sumNums(data.number1, data.number2);
   return response;
}

main();

The following rules apply:

• A script can import multiple scripts (of course!)
• The scripts must all be present within the app… (i.e. no including scripts from other apps)
• bridge.include() calls must come first in a script. The only lines allowed to be before bridge.include() are blank lines, // comments, and/or the ”use strict”; directive
• The extension is ignored by the call – but we recommend you append .ccjs anyway ← this may be helpful in the future (we have plans!) 

Note – we consider this a beta release. The syntax is safe (feel free to use it!) – but there are a few more kinks to work out in future releases, namely:

• we don’t yet support arranging the scripts into sub-folders (coming soon!) 
• we haven’t yet determined the best way to adjust our cloud code pricing. This capability will change the way devs use our scripts – opening the door to larger, more powerful scripts. We will need to adjust our pricing to accommodate the changes to server resource utilization. As always, anything we do will be cost-effective and elastic for our customers!

Global Files V3 API (beta)

We’ve got a new version of our Global Files API, with some significant improvements:

• Support for Folders
• Support for Uploads (i.e. migrating uploaded User Files → Global Files)
• Full File Management API

Important notes:

• Uploading of files is accomplished by Uploading a User File, and then migrating it to V3 Global Files. Note that we also included a method for migrating to the legacy Global Files as well.
• The V3 API is a clean break from the older Global Files / S3 API – you can use either API (for now), but files are not shared between the two.
• The V3 API does not have Design Portal support yet – so, for now, you would need to use the APIs to upload files, create directories, etc.
• V3 Global Files are also not currently included in imports/exports and deploys.

Custom Entities – Official Release + Templates!

Custom Entities are now fully live in brainCloud (yay!) – which unfortunately means that we will now begin charging for them (boo!). For pricing details, see our Deep Data Pricing article.

Note – as part of this change, access to Custom Entities now requires a Plus plan. We needed to make this change due to the Custom Entity feature’s ability to handle very large datasets (even in Development) – which could incur very large storage and backup costs. Note that the $4.99 Development Plus plan does include support for Custom Entities.

As a refresher, Custom Entities are our new, super-charged improvement to both Global Entities and User Entities.

Custom Entities offer:

• Custom Indexes for super-fast lookups
• Deployment support for easy migration of entities between Dev and Prod apps
• Owned vs. Un-Owned variations
• ACL support
• Time-to-live (TTL) support
• Import / Export Support
• Both Global and User Data Editors

And now – JSON Templates! You can now add a template for the data section of your type, along with a convenient field description. You can even use markdown! Super convenient when manually creating / editing entities!

Misc Changes

But wait – there is more! Release 4.5 also includes the following:

• Improved Unity and Unreal Room Server support  –  Now with spiffy new S2S libraries. Check out the all-new docs for creating Room Servers using Unity and Unreal.
• Facebook Graph API upgrade – we have updated our backend to utilize Facebook Graph API v 3.2
• Batch Improvements – we have added a new Batch User Processing call that allows you to specify a script to run once all of the specified users have been processed. 
• RTT Optimizations – Improved Event and Disconnect handling
• Deep Data billing – usage billing for advanced data usage. Details in this article.

Portal Changes

We’ve made the following portal changes:

Design

• Core App Info | Application IDs
  • Removed the [x] Enable Facebook Scores setting from the Facebook Platform options. Facebook’s APIs no longer support this functionality.
• Cloud Data | Custom Entities
  • Added the ability to define (and describe) custom JSON templates for entity data.
  • Important: A Plus Plan is now required to access this screen.
• Gamification | Achievements
  • Removed the [Facebook Register Achievements] button from the main screen, as well as the Facebook specifics from the sub-screens. Facebook’s APIs no longer support this functionality.

Monitoring

• Global Monitoring | Custom Entities
  • Updated the Create and Edit entity screens to support the new JSON templates.
  • Important: A Plus Plan is now required to access this screen.
• User Monitoring | Custom Entities
  • Updated the Create and Edit entity screens to support the new JSON templates.
  • Important: A Plus Plan is now required to access this screen.

Reporting

• Analytics
  • Split out and corrected the Total Users vs. Total Dormant Users stats.
• API Usage
  • Added a new Deep Data Usage section.

General

• Login / Registration
  • The Registration page is now more mobile-friendly.
• Personal Preferences
  • Timezones are now specified via a region/city – hopefully no more issues when Daylight Savings Time changes!
• Portal Version
  • We are now prefacing our Master Release versions with “R”. 

API Changes

As mentioned in the executive summary, we found inconsistencies in the client-implementation of some of our time-based calls. 

The following methods have thus been deprecated in the 4.5 libraries:

• Leaderboard
  • PostScoreToDynamicGroupLeaderboard() – deprecated in favor of PostScoreToDynamicGroupLeaderboardUTC()
  • PostScoreToDynamicLeaderboard() – deprecated in favor of PostScoreToDynamicLeaderboardUTC()
  • PostScoreToDynamicLeaderboardDays() – deprecated in favor of PostScoreToDynamicLeaderboardDaysUTC()
• Tournament
  • PostTournamentScore() – deprecated in favor of PostTournamentScoreUTC().
  • PostTournamentScoreWithResults() – deprecated in favor of PostTournamentScoreWithResultsUTC()
• Script
  • ScheduleRunScriptUTC() – deprecated in favor of ScheduleRunScriptMillisUTC()

In addition, the following new methods have been added to brainCloud API:

• Bridge
  • There is a new GetAppVersion() call in the bridge to retrieve the version of your app (as provided by your app to the client library). Handy!
• GlobalFile (New V3!)
  • Client APIs – GetFileInfo(), GetFileInfoSimple(), GetGlobalCDNUrl(), GetGlobalFileList(), 
  • The following methods are available from cloud-code only:
    • File retrieval – SysGetGlobalCDNUrl(), SysGetGlobalFileList(), SysGetFileInfo(), SysGetFileInfoSimple()
    • File management – SysCopyGlobalFile(), SysDeleteGlobalFile(), SysDeleteGlobalFiles(), SysMoveGlobalFile()
    • Folder management – SysCreateFolder(),  SysDeleteFolder(), SysLookupFolder(), SysMoveFolder(), SysRenameFolder()
  • Special mention – the SysMoveToGlobalFile() method can be used to copy/move a UserFile to a GlobalFileV3 file.
• S3 Handling
  • We’ve added SysMoveToLegacyGlobalFile() to support moving a User File to the Legacy Global File system.
• Script
  • There are 3 new S2S APIs for running batch scripts on users with a completion scriptat the end:
    • RunBatchUserScriptAndCompletionScript() targets all users
    • RunBatchUserScriptForProfilesAndCompletionScript() targets specific users (specified via profileId)
    • RunBatchUserScriptForSegmentsAndCompletionScript() targets the users in specific segments.

Miscellaneous Changes / Fixes

• Updated Client Libraries
  • All supported libraries have been updated with the latest API enhancements. Go get ’em!
  • Important Client Library Fixes
    • BCLD-5686 – Automatically remove the trailing “/” if set by the client in serverURL
    • BCLD-5718 – UTC fixes for all libs
    • BCLD-5772 – Change the comms packet timeouts from 15,10,10 to 15, 20, 35, 50
• New S2S Libraries
  • New C#/Unity and Unreal S2S Libraries
• Documentation updates
  • All new 4.5 APIs added to API Ref
  • New Knowledgebase Articles:
    • Custom Multiplayer Server with Unity
    • Custom Multiplayer Server with Unreal
    • Custom Entities
• Important Server Fixes
  • BCLD-5749 – Special characters in email or universal ID addresses were not being encoded correctly during URL creation
  • BCLD-5748 – Both “identifier” and index keys (keysJson keys) need to allow period (.) in the Custom Entity configs
  • BCLD-5787 – ‘Reference Price’ displayed in the Transaction screen is incorrect
  • BCLD-5743 – Update APIServer containers to Tomcat 8.5.51 to fix Ghostcat vulnerability
  • BCLD-5620 – Add cloud code support for various PushNotificationService methods
  • BCLD-5779 – Remove double logging of tournament service errors
  • BCLD-5763 – Optimized RTT Event Handling
• Plus miscellaneous fixes and performance enhancements…

brainCloud 4.4 kicks off a year of big updates to brainCloud. We hope you like where we’re headed!

Release Highlights

Custom Entities

Release 4.4 brings the full power of Custom Entities to brainCloud. As you may recall, Custom Entities are like Global Entities + User Entities combined, and then super-charged! You get all the features of our standard entity systems (with ownership, ACL, time-to-live, and concurrency versioning) – plus support for Custom Indexes (i.e. much faster!) and Deployment Migration (i.e. more convenient!). 

New features in 4.4 include:

• New Custom Entity Editor available under Global Monitoring
  • With full searching and Import/Export functionality
• Bonus Custom Entity Editor available under User Monitoring
  • Easily view/edit the entities owned by a specific user!

In addition, you’ll find the Custom Entity configuration screens have moved. We have created a new section called Cloud Data for them under Design – to give them better overall visibility.

Note – in the future Custom Entities will be a Plus Plan feature – but for now, Custom Entities are available to everyone!

Cloud Code Improvements

We have big plans for Cloud Code in 2020 – but to start things off, we have a few small improvements:

• Upgraded JavaScript Engine – we’ve updated to Rhino Engine 1.7.12 for additional features, performance, and stability.
• EcmaScript 6 Support – the updated Rhino engine enables new language features. Rhino isn’t fully ES6 compliant, but it’s miles ahead of the level of support that we had before. 

Note – for compatibility reasons, the new ES6 support is disabled by default for existing apps. You can enable this feature by going to the new Cloud Code settings section of the Design | Core App Info page.

Sign in with Apple

We have added Sign in with Apple support to brainCloud. This works similarly to all of our other authentication types.

To take advantage of this feature, be sure to grab the latest brainCloud 4.4 Client Libs.

Faster API Reference

This one is a big quality-of-life improvement.

As you know, as the brainCloud API has grown (over 400+ API calls and counting!) – the time to load our API Reference had gotten slower and slower.

We put the devs on it – and they were able to optimize it for a huge performance improvement. Now instead of taking 60+ seconds to load – it opens in 5-10 seconds from cold – even faster if you have it cached. 

Check it out – you’ll find it in the usual location here. 

Misc

As usual, a few additional requests have made it into this release:

• Google OpenID Support – we have added support for Google’s new (modern) OpenID authentication system
• Item Catalog Deployment Option – you can now opt-out of updating your Item Catalog during an app deployment. This feature allows you to maintain a more dynamic marketplace where your Item Catalog is managed directly in your live app, instead of strictly publishing updates from dev → prod.
• New and fixed API calls – we have fulfilled a bunch of customer requests for specific API calls. Check the API Changes sections – we hope your favorites are there!

Portal Changes

We’ve made the following portal changes:

Design

• Core App Info | Advanced Settings
  • We have added a new Cloud Code section, where you can enable the new ES6-level JavaScript support
  • We have also added a new compatibility flag, Return legacy-format Multi Social Leaderboard results, to preserve the old behavior for the GetMultiSocialLeaderboard() call for existing apps.
• Cloud Data | Custom Entities
  • We’ve moved the Custom Entities configuration screen out from under Custom Config.
  • You can now specify an identifier field to use to label your objects when viewing them in the Entity Editor lists.
  • There is also a new Monitor option on the Action menu, that jumps you into Global Monitoring to view the entities of that type.

Monitoring

• Global Monitoring | Custom Entities
  • The new Custom Entity Editor screens in Global Monitoring allow you to view and edit all of the custom entities of your application.
  • You can search for entities using the Filter dropdown.
  • You can import and export entities from JSON files.
• User Monitoring | Custom Entities
  • We also allow you to view Custom Entities at the user level
  • In this view, you only see owned collections – and specifically, only entities that are owned by the selected user.

General

• We have re-ordered the screens under Global Monitoring to be alphabetical.

API Changes

The following calls have been added to the brainCloud API:

• Authentication
  • New AuthenticateApple() call for Sign in with Apple support.
  • New AuthenticateGoogleOpenId() call for Google’s OpenID authentication.
  • Improved Password Reset calls (with control over when the URL links expire)
    • ResetEmailPasswordWithExpiry()
    • ResetEmailPasswordAdvancedWithExpiry()
    • ResetUniversalIdPasswordWithExpiry()
    • ResetUniversalIdPasswordAdvancedWithExpiry()
  • Note that we have deprecated the older password reset calls where you do not explicitly set an expiry.
• CustomEntity
  • Added SysUpdateEntityOwner() call to migrate custom entities between users. 
• GlobalApp
  • SysUpdatePropertyString() and SysUpdatePropertyJSON() have been added to both Client and S2S Cloud Code interfaces for devs building offboard tools.
• GlobalEntity
  • Added S2S Cloud Codeimplementations for the following missing calls
    • DeleteEntity()
    • GetRandomEntitiesMatching()
    • IncrementGlobalEntityData()
    • MakeSystemEntity()
    • UpdateEntity()
    • UpdateEntityAcl()
    • UpdateEntityOwnerAndAcl()
    • UpdateEntityTimeToLive()
• Identity
  • New AttachAppleIdentity(), DetachAppleIdentity() and MergeAppleIdentity() calls
  • New AttachGoogleOpenId(), DetachGoogleOpenId() and MergeGoogleOpenId() calls
• Leaderboard
  • Fixed GetMultiSocialLeaderboard() so that it doesn’t return friends that haven’t played on any of the leaderboards requested. There is a new compatibility flag to preserve the old behaviour.
  • Added SysResetNeverLeaderboard() to arbitrarily reset/rotate leaderboards. 
• PlayerState
  • New UpdateTimeZoneOffset() and UpdateLanguageCode() calls – useful in certain scenarios. 
• PushNotifications
  • Added the following missing methods to the S2S Cloud Code proxy:
    • DeregisterPushNotificationDeviceToken()
    • ScheduleNormalizedPushNotificationUTC()
    • ScheduleNormalizedPushNotificationMinutes()
    • ScheduleRawPushNotificationUTC()
    • ScheduleRawPushNotificationMinutes()
    • ScheduleRichPushNotificationUTC()
    • ScheduleRichPushNotificationMinutes()
    • SendNormalizedPushNotification()
    • SendRawPushNotification()
    • SendRichPushNotification()
    • SendRichPushNotificationWithParams()
• Script
  • Added GetScheduledCloudScripts() to the Client libs – it was previously Cloud Code only. 
  • Added GetRunningOrQueuedCloudScripts() call (to both Client and Cloud Code) 
• User
  • New password reset calls with better control over when the URLs expire:
    • SysSendPasswordResetEmailWithExpiry()
    • SysSendPasswordResetEmailAdvancedWithExpiry()
    • SysSendPasswordResetUniversalIdWithExpiry() 
    • SysSendPasswordResetUniversalIdAdvancedWithExpiry()

Bonus API

In addition, we’ve added a new Cloud Code Utility method that can be used to efficiently create RSA signatures (since doing so through raw Javascript is pretty slow).

The new method can be found in the Bridge Utility service – i.e. bridge.utils().signRSASha256(). See the APIRef for more info!

Miscellaneous Changes / Fixes

• Updated libraries
  • We’ve been busy adding our Relay Comms APIs to all the missing libraries. Unity/C#, Unreal, Java, and JavaScript are now good. C++ / Objective-C / Swift support is still outstanding, but coming soon.
  • The libraries have otherwise been updated with the latest 4.4 APIs. Grab them while they’re hot! 
• Documentation updates
  • New Faster API Reference!
  • Plus we’ve documented all the latest APIs
• Important Fixes
  • To-be-compiled
• Plus miscellaneous fixes and performance enhancements…

This is a small release that addresses some specific customer requests.

Release Highlights

Quest Management API

We’ve added an API for managing Quests. The API is available directly via S2S, and also via cloud-code.

In doing this work, we cleaned up two aspects of Quests:

• We added a new title field to Quests – to make them easier to manage
• We have also made the new APIs return the embedded milestones (which we call tasks) in an array field called tasks now instead of the old milestones field. 

To prevent issues with existing apps, a new compatibility flag has been added to control this behavior (accessible from the Design | Core App Info | Advanced Settings) page. The compatibility flag defaults to on for existing apps.

The Quest Management API methods are part of the Gamification service.

Milestone Management API

And, if you can edit Quests, it only makes sense that you can edit Milestones as well! So there is now an API for that as well.

The Milestone Management API methods are part of the Gamification service.

Reset Password APIs

We have added some new cloud-code accessible APIs for triggering password reset emails. These APIs are mostly useful if you are building a management portal for your app.

You’ll find these new APIs in the User service.

Custom Entity Paging

Finally, we’ve tweaked our Custom Entity paging APIs to be more consistent with the other Entity APIs. They now take a single context object instead of requiring each of the component parts to be sent in separately.

Since Custom Entities are still in beta, we’re being more aggressive than usual about replacing those old methods. The old methods are being removed immediately from the 4.3.5 libraries. That said, moving to the new versions is super simple, and the old libs will continue to work for you for now.

Portal Changes

There aren’t a lot of portal changes in this release.

Design

• Core App Info | Advanced Settings
  • A new compatibility flag, Return milestones field instead of tasks field for older client Quest APIs, has been added. As usual, this flag defaults to enabled for existing apps, and disabled for new apps.
• Gamification | Quests
  • Quests now have a separate title from the description field
  • When editing pre-existing Quests, the title will default to the questId.

API Changes

The following changes/additions have affected the brainCloud API:

• CustomEntity
  • New Paging calls – GetEntityPage(), GetEntityPageOffset(), SysGetEntityPage(), SysGetEntityPageOffset()
• Gamification
  • New Quest Management API calls – SysCreateQuest(), SysReadQuest(), SysUpdateQuest(), SysDeleteQuest(), SysAddQuestTask(), SysUpdateQuestTask(), SysDeleteQuestTask(), SysReorderQuestTasks(), SysGetQuestPage(), SysGetQuestPageOffset()
  • New Milestone Management APIs calls – SysCreateMilestone(), SysReadMilestone(), SysUpdateMilestone(), SysDeleteMilestone(), SysGetMilestonePage(), SysGetMilestonePageOffset()
• User Service
  • New APIs for triggering Password Reset emails – SysSendPasswordResetEmail(), SysSendPasswordResetEmailAdvanced(), SysSendPasswordResetUniversalId(), SysSendPasswordResetUniversalIdAdvanced()

We have deprecated the following methods:

• CustomEntity
  • GetPage(), GetPageOffset(), SysGetPage(), SysGetPageOffset() – replaced with the new versions described above, which are more consistent with our other Entity APIs.

Miscellaneous Changes / Fixes

• Updated libraries
  • There are only two new Client-library API calls – the new GetEntityPage() and GetEntityPageOffset() calls of the CustomEntity service. All other calls are cloud-code only.
• Documentation updates
  • The new API calls have been added to the APIRef
• Important Fixes
  • Uploaded File Types – we have enhanced brainCloud to automatically assign content types based on file extensions when uploaded via the portal, instead of blindly setting everything to the generic application/octet-stream content type. The old behavior was problematic for some devs when dealing with apps running in Internet Explorer. 
• Plus miscellaneous fixes and performance enhancements…

Release 4.3 fulfills a bunch of community requests – there is something for everyone!

Release Highlights

Geo Matchmaking

We have enhanced our Online Matchmaking support to automatically match players up into lobbies in the best server regions (for them).

The process is simple, and works like this:

• When a lobby is first created, it is assigned to the region closest to the user that initiated it
• As users look for lobbies (i.e. online matchmaking), the lobby’s rating and region location (i.e. ping data) are automatically considered

Essentially, the best matching (rating-wise) lobby in an acceptable region will be automatically selected.

To utilize geo matchmaking:

• Create lobby types with servers in multiple regions
• Specify both ping data and rating in the compound matchmaking algorithm (see below)

Example algo json object for geo matchmaking:

{
  "strategy":"compound",
  "algos":[
    { "criteria":"ping", "strategy":"absolute", "alignment":"absolute" },
    { "criteria":"rating", "strategy":"ranged-percent", "alignment":"center" }
  ],
  "compound-ranges":[
    [ 40, [ 10, 20.5, 80 ] ],
    [ 70, [ 20, 20.5, 80, 160 ] ],
    [ 140, [ 80, 160 ] ],
    [ 210, [ 80, 160 ] ]
  ]
}

Custom Entity (Beta) Migration

We continue to improve our support for custom entities.

As you may-or-may-not-know, Custom Entities are an improved version of Global Entities and are available to users of our Plus Plans. 

Custom Entities allow developers to build data-rich applications with much larger and more complex data-sets. The power comes from storing each entity type in its database collection and allowing the developer to define custom indexes unique to that entity type.

This release adds several new features to the mix:

• New screen under Design | Custom Config | Custom Entities for defining custom entity types, and the indexes associated with them. (Before this you had to use the API to do this)
• You can now mark a Custom Entity to be migrated automatically during app deployment (i.e. when pushing an updated configuration from the development version of your app to the production version). Note that only un-owned entities can be migrated.

Next up: we’ll be editing a Custom Entity editor screen to Global Monitoring soon, so you’ll be able to create and edit custom entities directly.

Set-top Handoff API

We have added a second, more flexible hand-off API that can be used for authenticating brainCloud apps on devices with limited inputs (like the Apple TV or a VR headset).

The API enables a use case where:

• the user can log into a brainCloud app via a normal smartphone login
• the smartphone app generates a simple set-top handoff code via CreateSettopHandoffCode() cloud code API. The handoff code’s composition, length, and duration that it’s enabled is specified by the app.
• the user then enters the code into the Apple TV app or VR headset, which authenticates the user via the new AuthenticateSettopHandoff() API call

User Service

By popular request, we’ve added a new User service to brainCloud.

This service provides the following advanced, cloud-code only APIs:

• SysCreateUser*() – useful in certain app scenarios. Allows an app to dynamically pre-create a user account (separate from the normal account during user login/registration)
• SysGetPage() / SysGetPageOffset() – allows a cloud code script to iterate through the users in an app.

Note that for system performance reasons, we have restricted the fields that can be used when querying the users to iterate through. These restrictions can be lifted in special circumstances for apps that will have constrained user sets (i.e. a few thousand users or less).

Pro-tip: Apps with a need to iterate through larger groups of users in more interesting ways are encouraged to create an owned Custom Entity for each user.

Misc Additions

The following additional tweaks (mostly from customer requests) have made it into release 4.3:

• User Items screen – we’ve added a new screen to User Monitoring to view the contents of the user’s inventory.
• Dynamic group leaderboards – we’ve added a new PostScoreToDynamicGroupLeaderboard() call to allow group leaderboards to be created on the fly
• Autojoin across multiple group types – the new AutoJoinGroupMulti() call allows you to specify a list of group types to choose from
• Reset quests – we’ve added ResetQuests() and ResetAllQuestsAndMilestones() API calls
• Counts APIs – we’ve added two methods to the GlobalApp service to retrieve some raw metric data about your app (DAU, MAU, that sort of thing). These APIs are cloud-code only.
• Updated client timeouts – the client libs automatically retry operations if they timeout – but the default timeouts were a bit low for some long-running scripts (which can go up to 60 seconds or more). So we have adjusted them to better we’ve updated the default client library retry timeouts from [15s, 10s, 10s] to [15s, 20s, 30s, 50s]. This change should be transparent to your app.
• Bundle compression – we have added optional bundle compression to our Unity libraries. It is currently off-by-default but can be enabled by the developer.
• OKTA authentication support – you can now write apps that implement OKTA authentication via our External Auth mechanism. To validate the JWT token passed in, simply use the new verifyOktaJwt() method that we have added to the Identity service. 
• Cloud code editor extension change – we’ve changed the default extension for our cloud code scripts from .js to .ccjs (i.e.  cloud code javascript) – this mostly makes it easier for our sites and support teams to share example script. Pro-tip – configure your IDE to treat .ccjs files as javascript!
• Facebook Graph API v 2.11 – support was added as a patch to 4.2 actually… (added previously as a 4.2.X patch)
• Google Play Service V3 – the system is now using latest (V3) APIs… (added previously as a 4.2.X patch)

Portal Changes

The following changes have been made to the portal:

General

• Branding/Themes
  • Pretty! We’ve greatly improved the customizability of the working area of the portal. You will see the impact of this with more varied themes as we go from release to release… (and more branding flexibility for our private instance licensees)

Design

• Custom Config | Custom Entities
  • This new screen allows you to define Custom Entity types, and the custom indexes that go along with them.

Monitoring

• User Monitoring | User Items
  • New screen allows you to view and/or delete the items owned by a user
• User Monitoring | Logs
  • We’ve added an Elapsed Time column to the user logs to show how much server-time was spent processing a request bundle

API Changes

The following changes/additions have affected the brainCloud API:

• Authentication
  • AuthenticateSettopHandoff() call added – allows users to login using simple codes
• Gamification
  • Added new ResetQuests() and ResetAllQuestsAndMilestones() calls to cloud code – helpful for testing and debugging
• GlobalApp
  • Added SysGetDailyCounts() call to return the counts for your app for a single day
  • Added SysGetMonthlyCounts() call to return the counts for your app for the specified calendar month 
• Group
  • AutoJoinGroupMulti() call added – enables joining a random group selected from multiple group types
• Identity
  • CreateSettopHandoffCode() call added – creates a code that can be used to log the user in via AuthenticateSettopHandoff()
  • VerifyOktaJWT() call added for verifying OKTA JWT tokens
• Leaderboard
  • PostScoreToDynamicGroupLeaderboard() call added to allow group leaderboards to be dynamically allocated
• User
  • Create users in cloud-code via the new SysCreateUserEmailPassword(), SysCreateUserUniversalId() and SysCreateUserExternalAuth() calls
  • Page through your app’s users via the new SysGetPage() and SysGetPageOffset() calls

We have also deprecated the following methods:

• Gamification
  • Deprecated ResetMilestones() in the client libs – this method is now cloud-code only, like the new ResetQuests() and ResetAllQuestsAndMilestone() calls

Miscellaneous Changes / Fixes

• Updated libraries
  • All libraries have the new 4.3 client APIs
  • All libraries also have the new connection timeout values
  • The Java and C++ libs have been updated with geo/ping-data support – meaning that all libs except Objective-C/Swift and AS3 support this now.
  • The Unity library now supports bundle compression for sends and receives. It is disabled by default.
• Documentation updates
  • The docs have been enhanced with the latest API calls.
• Important Fixes
  • <to-be-compiled>
• Plus miscellaneous fixes and performance enhancements…

Release 4.2 contains the first versions of some new heavy-hitter features. Read on for details!

Release Highlights

Item Management

We are very pleased to introduce the first iteration of brainCloud’s new Item Management system – which incorporates both an ItemCatalog service to manage the master catalog of items, and a UserItems service to manage the list of items that users own.

Together with a new Catalog Editor, these services make it easy to create experiences where users can be awarded, purchase, sell, trade and consume a rich variety of items (with custom behaviours).

Key features of this system include:

• Localizable names and descriptions
• Item categories and tags for organization
• Item pricing (in multiple virtual currencies)
• Custom item meta-data
• Item “use” management
• Activate-able status effects
• Cool-down and recovery times
• Stackable items
• Upload images and assign resource/asset tags
• Publishing states – draft, published, retired and revoked
• Deployment integration
• And with brainCloud’s new Blockchain Framework, you can even trade items on the Blockchain! (see below!)

Custom Entities (beta!)

brainCloud already has some great APIs for managing data in your apps – but due to the challenges of keeping things light and scalable, none of them offer the true flexibility needed for heavy data-oriented applications.

Our existing Global Entity system, for example, only indexes entities by the fixed entityIndexedId. Although fine for simple applications – in most scenarios this means that Global Entities don’t scale efficiently past 1000 objects.

Our Custom Entities system is different, in that it allows the developer to define multiple, custom indexes per entity type. This totally opens the door to much richer applications, with more intense data needs.

Note – because it’s brainCloud, Custom Entities still include:

• ACL ownership
• TTL
• createdAt, updatedAt timestamps
• concurrency versioning

Note – this is a beta release, so there are some limitations:

• We don’t have a web UI yet – so you cannot view / edit / delete custom entities in our Design Portal. You can access them via the API Explorer, of course.
• We don’t yet support importing / exporting / pushing of custom entities. So basically custom entities are currently trapped within the apps that created them (for now).

We plan to address these limitations very soon. And also note, when Custom Entities is released it will be a premium feature with additional data storage charges. Details coming soon.

And that’s not all. We have big plans for Custom Entities going forward – so stay tuned!

Timed Status Effects

When building our Item Management system we thought it would be nice to include status effects – as in, when you use an item, you might trigger a status effect like “double-xp” or “invulnerability” for a period of time.

Once we got to implementing things though, we realized that this status system would be useful on its own as well – so we’ve made it accessible via new APIs in the PlayerState service.

It’s super-simple to use. Just apply a “named” status effect to the user via the SetUserStatus() call – specifying a duration that it should be applied for, and optionally some custom JSON. We’ll save that state – and return it if you call GetUserStatus() – as well as automatically when the user logs in.

Note – brainCloud won’t pro-actively notify you that a status has expired. The app should set it’s own timers based on the data returned by the APIs.

Blockchain Integration

We’ve been busy adding blockchain support deep into the heart of brainCloud.

This is part of our continuing efforts to ensure that brainCloud is the best foundation for your apps – both today and for the future! 

Elements of the blockChain integration in 4.2 include:

• Blockchain Integration Framework (BIF) – brainCloud has been enhanced with a new framework to allow connections to multiple blockChain technologies. Currently EOS integration is in place (more will come soon!)
• Blockchain configuration – attach a blockchain configuration to an app. Currently limited to a single blockchain per app, but we may enhance that in the future.
• Blockchain Identities – attach a users public key to a user’s profile – used to identify and modify items that the user owns on the blockchain ← note, it’s up to the client app to ensure that the user is who they say they are!
• Item Management Blockchain Sync – items can be published to and traded on the blockchain – with updates automatically synced in brainCloud
• Blockchain Entity Support – brainCloud’s new Custom Entities are built to support integration with the BIF for blockchain-based ownership management
• Blockchain Purchase Support – with the key Blockchain Integration and Blockchain Identity components now in place, brainCloud is now ready to support custom blockchain-based purchases (either via Item Trades or custom AppStores)

Obviously, this is just the beginning. Stay tuned as we evolve our blockchain support in future releases!

Kafka Integration

brainCloud now offers Kafka integration in addition to our pre-existing Segment integration for DataStream events.

With Kafka and Segment both supported out-of-the-box, there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of systems that you can hook up to your brainCloud apps for deeper data analytics, data mining, etc. 

Other Features

But wait – there is more! brainCloud 4.2 also includes these goodies:

• Crash Reporting – new API calls for sending crash reports to DataStream services like Segment and Kafka.
• New platforms! – brainCloud private instances now support both Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure.
• External lookups! – ability to lookup users via the External ID in User Monitoring

Portal Changes

We’ve made the following portal changes:

Design

• Integrations | Blockchain
  • A new screen where you can configure the blockchain integration settings for your app
• Integration | Manage Integrations
  • Kafka has been added as a new DataStream destination
• Item Management | Catalog
  • New screen for creating your app’s item catalog

Monitoring

• Group Monitoring | Group Entities
  • The group entity editor has been greatly improved!
• User Monitoring | Select User
  • You can now look-up users via their External Auth id (if they have one) 

API Changes

The following changes/additions have affected the brainCloud API:

• Authentication
  • AuthenticateExternal – We’ve added the ability for External Auth scripts to override the externalId that will be stored, and to even provide the specific profileId to load. More details in the Advanced section of the External Authentication overview page in API Docs.
• DataStream
  • New CrashReporting API has been added. Send crash reports to your back-end system for further analysis.
  • For more information, see the DataStream service documentation
• [New!] Item Catalog
  • These APIs allow devs to read and modify the central item catalog
  • Purchases and other operations are handled via the User Items Service (below)
  • For more information, see the ItemCatalog service documentation
• Player State
  • New Timed Status Effect API methods have been added to the Player State service
  • For more information, see the PlayerState service documentation
• [New!] User Items
  • This service provides the functionality for purchasing, selling, trading, and using items
  • For more information, see the UserItem service documentation

Miscellaneous Changes / Fixes

• Updated libraries
  • The 4.2 libraries have the latest APIs – and will be release very soon – stay tuned!
  • C#/Unity
    • Updated HTTP libraries (note, wrapped in the Braincloud namespace, so they shouldn’t conflict with anything)
    • Added BC_DEBUG_LOG_ENABLED macro for better log control, and improved profiler performance
    • Important: Unity folder structure has been changed. Clients will need to delete their brainCloud plug-in and re-import it to properly update the folder structure on older projects. The brainCloud Folder needs to be directly in the Assets folder. Changes were made because the plugin’s Resources folder was conflicting with the Unity Resources folder, and messing with some build systems. Thus we have restructured our assets and renamed our resources folder to BCResources to compensate.
  • Javascript
    • Ping data APIs now supported (for geo matchmaking)
  • AS3
    • 4.2 version coming soon.
• Plus miscellaneous fixes and performance enhancements…

Note – you can also view the highlights in our new Roadmap!

Release Highlights

Group Leaderboards

Although brainCloud has long supported filtering leaderboards to group members, it has not supported true Group Leaderboards – where each entry in the leaderboard represent’s a Group’s (not a Player’s) score. Until now that is.

Now, when creating a leaderboard, you will first choose whether it is a Player or a Group Leaderboard. 

Important notes regarding Group Leaderboards:

• Any member of a group can post a score on behalf of their team
• Post group scores via the new PostScoreToGroupLeaderboard() method. Additional new calls are described in the API section (below).
• Group Leaderboards cannot be used as the basis for Tournaments or Divisions

Note – we are considering adding Group Tournament and Division support in the future. If it is important to you, vote for it in our Roadmap!

Group Enhancements

We have made a bunch of enhancements to Groups and the Group APIs to go along with the new leaderboard support:

• Group Summary Data – we have added the concept of summary data to groups. This is an additional bit of custom JSON, associated with your groups, that can be read by non-members. This is useful when searching for groups with specific qualities and also when viewing group leaderboards ← the summary data gets returned in the leaderboard calls
• Enhanced Searching – when searching for groups, you can now include additional fields (isOpenGroup, updateAt, createdAt, and summaryData) in the filter and sorting clauses.
• Get Random Groups – we have added a new API call for retrieving a random selection of groups that fit the specified criteria. See GetRandomGroupsMatching().

Voting Leaderboards

Since we were already in the Leaderboard code, we thought we would cover another customer request.

Voting Leaderboards are special leaderboards where the user doesn’t post their own score – rather, a player increments the score of another player. This makes the most sense for a CUMULATIVE leaderboard (where posts from players increment a total). You can imagine using this system to allow players to vote on custom content created by other players – like custom maps layouts, etc.

Important notes:

• This technically isn’t a new type of leaderboard – it’s merely a new leaderboard call – PostScoreToLeaderboardOnBehalfOf(). Note that this call be made from Cloud Code only.
• The API does not prevent users from voting (i.e. posting on behalf of another user) multiple times. We leave that enforcement up to the app (if desired, of course).

Multi-Region Support

In V4 we introduced the ability to host Relay and Room Servers. When configuring your servers, you had the ability to choose which region to host them in.

This was a good start, but for global coverage developers would need to create individual server configurations for each of the regions they want to support. And if they’re using our matchmaking and lobby services, they would need to set up separate lobby configurations for each region as well.

Release 4.1 greatly improves things:

• You can now select multiple regions for a Room or Relay Server configuration in My Servers
• There are new Client APIs that allow you to retrieve the list of regions associated with lobby type(s), and calculate the latency (i.e. ping times) to them
• When launching a Room or Relay Server from a lobby, the Lobby Service will now automatically choose the best region for the members of that lobby

Dynamic Chat Channels

And last but not least, this release introduces a new type of chat channel.

Dynamic chat channels are special channels that any user can create and/or join. They exist only for as long as there is activity. Once the channel inactivity timeout expires (typically 30 days), the history (and the channel itself) are automatically deleted and cleaned up.

Note that developers need to manage the “membership” to the channels themselves. If a user of an app connects to a dynamic channel during a session, and you want them to reconnect the next time the app launches as well – you’ll need to save that information somewhere in your app (likely in a user entity).

Portal Changes

We have made the following portal changes:

Design

• Core App Info | Application IDs
  • Renamed “Facebook Secret” to “Facebook App Secret” to better clarify what it is
• Core App Info | Admin Tools
  • Added new options to the Deployment section to prevent overwriting the Lobbies and MyServers page settings. This is important because you very likely want to configure different performance + availability settings for dev vs. prod environments
• Cloud Code | My Servers
  • Enhanced the Room Server and Relay Server configuration screens to support multiple regions
  • Note that each region can use the default configuration settings (server size, # containers, etc); or you can override those settings on a region-by-region basis
• Leaderboards | Leaderboard Configs
  • When creating a new Leaderboard config, you can now choose between Player and Group entry types (default is Player).
  • Once the entry type has been set, it cannot be changed
  • Tournaments and Division Templates cannot be enabled for Group leaderboards
  • The entry type has been added to the Leaderboard Config list screen as well

Monitoring

• Global Monitoring | Leaderboards
  • Have been enhanced to show the results of Group Leaderboards
  • The column displayed now automatically change depending upon the leaderboard type being displayed
  • Clicking on a group id will bring you to the group.

General

• DOCS menu
  • Added a link to the new Roadmap site

API Changes

The following changes/additions have affected the brainCloud API:

• Chat Service
  • SysCreateChannel() can be used to create a new dynamic chat channel. Cloud code only.
  • SysDeleteChannel() is used to delete the specified chat channel. Cloud code only.
• Group Service
  • [New!] CreateGroupWithSummaryData() allows the creation of a group with summary data.
  • [New!] GetRandomGroupsMatching() returns a list of random groups that match the supplied criteria
  • [New!] SysChangeGroupType() changes the group type of a group. Useful for leveling up the maximum number of players in a group. Cloud code only.
  • [New!] UpdateGroupSummaryData() allows a member to update the summary data of the app. Note that the user must be the owner of the group; or the group’s data ACL must be set to “member”: 2 to perform the update.
  • [Update] ReadGroup(), GetMyGroups(), ListGroupsPage(), and ListGroupsPageByOffset() will now return the summaryData associated with groups
  • [Update] Additional fields (updatedAt, createdAt, isOpenGroup, and summaryData) can now be used as filter and sort criteria in group calls.
• Leaderboard Service
  • [New!] GetGroupLeaderboardView() and GetGroupLeaderboardViewByVersion() for retrieving the leaderboard results, relative to the specified group
  • [New!] PostScoreToGroupLeaderboard() for posting scores to group leaderboards. Note that the user must be a member of the specified group.
  • [New!] PostScoreToLeaderboardOnBehalfOf() for posting scores to a leaderboard on behalf of another player. Cloud code only.
  • [New!] RemoveGroupScore() for removing a group score.
• Lobby Service
  • [New!] GetRegionsForLobbies() retrieves a list of super-set of regions for the specified list of lobbies. Is used by the client app to determine with regions to ping test.
  • [New!] PingRegions() tells the client to ping the retrieved set of regions. Should be called after GetRegionsForLobbies() has completed.
  • [New!] CreateLobbyWithPingData(), FindLobbyWithPingData(), FindOrCreateLobbyWithPingData() and JoinLobbyWithPingData() are enhanced versions of the regular calls, with the obvious addition of ping data that the server will use to select the best region when launching a Room or Relay Server. Note that the library will automatically provide the ping data for those calls (there are no additional parameters)
  • [New!] SysSendSignal() allows cloud code scripts to send signals to members of a lobby.
  • [New!] SysDisbandLobby() allows cloud code scripts to disband a lobby.
• Tournament Service
  • [New!] PostTournamentScoreOnBehalfOf() for posting scores to a leaderboard on behalf of another player. Cloud code only.

Note that we have also made a small change to GetGlobalLeaderboardViewByVersion() and GetGlobalLeaderboardPageByVersion() to allow you to once again pass in -1 as the version id. That behaviour had regressed in 4.0. Apologies for the inconvenience!

Miscellaneous Changes / Fixes

• Updated libraries
  • All libraries have been updated for the 4.1 release! Go get ’em!
  • The Unreal Library now includes beta-level support for our Relay Communications protocol!
  • Warning – there is a known issue with Unity 2019 on IOS devices that affects brainCloud (and really any app making web requests). More info here!
• Documentation updates
  • New Roadmap Site – https://portal.productboard.com/braincloud/1-braincloud-baas-roadmap/tabs/35-coming-soon/tabs/4-coming-in-4-1
  • Significant updates to the S2S sections of the API Reference 
  • Docs updated with all 4.1 APIs
• Important Fixes
  • BCLD-4714 Mismatch of Service and Operation on API Explorer after quick authenticate
  • BCLD-4833 Importing an invalid script zip file and choosing “Full Sync” deletes all existing scripts
  • BCLD-4832 Facebook transactions – some transactions are being displayed as “null”
  • BCLD-4812 Need ability to preserve My Servers and Lobby configurations on Deploy and Import
  • BCLD-3193 SendEvent operations gives a positive response without entering profileID
  • BCLD-4751 Descriptive text on “Edit Lobby Type” popup is out-of-date
  • BCLD-4737 Can’t delete a group after using “Delete Users”
• Plus miscellaneous fixes and performance enhancements…