OfflineUserDataJobOperation - sequence of execution and cancelation

[Kaloyana Manova]

Hello,

I have two questions regarding OfflineUserDataJobOperation.

The documentation for Customer match audiences (see here) clearly states:

* you should not mix create and remove operations in the same job

* you should avoid simultaneously running multiple jobs on the same user list

We have the following use case - we are maintaining user lists with daily (sometimes a couple of times per day) updates of adding and removing people. As a workaround to not allowing remove and create operations in the same job we decided to fully re-fill an audience when we need to update it using remove_all and create operations. However, we still cannot guarantee correctness.

As executing those jobs asynchronously is completely understandable we still need to guarantee that the updates are running in the sequence we triggered them. Otherwise our most fresh update may get executed before another that was triggered earlier. We cannot find any information in the documentation for such a guarantee or a way to enforce it. We thought of using a job cancellation as a work-around so we can cancel earlier updates that did not complete but there is no such option either.

Could you let us know if either a sequence can be guaranteed or a job can be canceled? Any other advice on our use case will be mostly appreciated.

Best regards,

Kaloyana Manova

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hello Kaloyana,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

Since you've mentioned about Customer Match audiences, please also keep in mind on the following points mentioned on this guide.

Though the jobs are running asynchronously, it should still follow the sequence as to how the job was triggered. You can also check the status of those jobs via this view (offline_user_data_job).

Looking on the OfflineUserDataJobOperation, I'm afraid that there is no way to cancel the job. Only the operations mentioned here can be cancel via this Usage flow (under Canceling a batch job section).

Regards,

Mark Kevin Albios Google Ads API Team

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[Kaloyana Manova]

Hello Mark, 

Thank you for your reply. No where in the documentation it was mentioned that the jobs will be executed in the sequence they were triggered, that is why I needed to confirm. But even if they are started in sequence will Job 2 wait for Job 1 to finish before it starts if they work on the same user list? Because if they start in sequence but they don't wait for one another, then there may be users added in Job 2 which Job 1 deletes if it runs longer and completes second.

As for deletion - is there a place we can create a feature request? (To be able to cancel jobs that have not started yet)

Thanks,

Kaloyana Manova

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Kaloyana,

To avoid any complications, we recommend using the Customer Match code sample provided in the client libraries that handles the sequence of jobs. 

As for cancelling a created OfflineUserDataJob, you should be able to use CancelOperationRequest.

Regards,
Matt
Google Ads API Team

Matt Google Ads API Team

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