201802 API : parallelTrackingEnabled is set to false in non testing Customers pulled by get, hits OperationAccessDenied error on mutate.

[Matthew Wawrin]

Hi,

I hit a small issue with the 201802 API level, which is probably mainly because I'm not following best practices by sending a sparse object to mutate.  I figured I'd share my issue and finding anyways incase someone else hits something similar.  I also have a follow up question at the end.... :)

 When setting up a new managed customer account, we get the Customer from the API and verify that auto-tagging flag is set and if not set it.   What I found last night with the new API (201802) what that the new field parallelTrackingEnabled is set to false in the Customer object being returned from get.  If I set auto-tagging to true and mutate this Customer object I get the OperationAccessDenied error due to parallelTrackingEnabled being set.   

The API changes (https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/reference/release-notes/v201802#upgraded_urls_test_accounts_only)  outline this error, however say that this field is only available for test accounts (testAccount = false for my particular Customer). 

From the link above:

Upgraded URLs (test accounts only)

The new fields in this section are only available in test accounts. Attempts to set these fields in a non-test account will fail with an OperationAccessDenied error with reason ACTION_NOT_PERMITTED.

• The new parallelTrackingEnabled field was added to Customer to indicate whether parallel tracking is enabled for an account.

• The finalUrlSuffix field was added to Customer, Campaign, AdGroup, AdGroupCriterion, and Ad for future use.

To appease the new API, I'm working around this in our code by setting the parallelTrackingEnabled value to null before mutating the Customer to set auto-tagging to true.  If I had created the Customer object as opposed to using the one returned, setting auto-tagging only, then parallelTrackingEnabled would not have been set and the error would have been avoided.

My confusion was with the docs stating that this field was only available with test accounts, when in fact it's set for non-test accounts.

Follow up question for the AdWords API experts on this forum.   When parallelTracking is rolled out, is the plan to allow API access to enable or disable this feature?  

Thank you for the ongoing support here on this forum. 

Matt.

[Milind Sankeshware (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Matthew,

As you are already doing, you will need to make sure that the parallelTrackingEnabled is set to null in the customer object to set the auto-tagging flag via CustomerService.mutate() API call. The documentation means that you are only allowed to set the value of parallelTrackingEnabled attribute in test accounts and not in production accounts. As you have observed, you will see this attribute being returned for both test and non test accounts. Let me know if you have any further questions. 

Thanks,
Milind, AdWords API Team.

[Matthew Wawrin]

Hi Milind,

Thank you for the reply, the change caught me and we're handling now. 

Are you able to expand on my question about what we'll be able to do with theparallelTrackingEnabled flag once this is rolled out to production accounts?   Can this flag be used to turn on/off the behaviour at the customer level? 

Thanks,

Matt.

[Milind Sankeshware (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Matthew,

Please check the guide for more details about the Parallel tracking. If you haven't already, please keep an eye on our blogs for any updates and announcements about the API.

[Matthew Wawrin]

Thank you Milind,

I'm aware of that guide on parallel tracking but it looks like it's been updated since my last visit and now says there will be the availability to opt out.   

Our tracking will break with this change.  I'm looking forward to having API ability to opt-out as doing so manually on thousands of managed accounts will not be possible .

Marking this post answered.

Thanks,

Matt

[Matthew Wawrin]

Actually doesn't say these's the ability to opt-out (I read it wrong... ), just the potential to opt-in early.   We'll keep watching this post.  

It's cutting if very close between the roll-out of this feature and details on how we'll be able to control it both manually and through the API.   If it rolls out as opted-in and affects all thousand+ accounts we manage it will break all our tracking.  

Matt.

[Milind Sankeshware (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

You are only allowed to set the value of parallelTrackingEnabled attribute in test accounts and not in production accounts. To clarify, are you saying if you are passing null to parallelTrackingEnabled attribute in your code, the C# library is treating it as false? If so, could you share your code snippet and the SOAP request and response logs?

If you are performing a get operation followed by a mutate operation, you could create a new instance of the customer object with the required attributes only.