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Receiving health data updates (events)

Learn how to receive data update events to your app as soon as the user's data syncs to the cloud

Terra API simplifies health & fitness data syncing: once you connect a user, Terra automatically manages token refreshes, authentication updates, and delivers all health and fitness data directly to your Webhook/DB as soon as it’s available.

Requesting data is not required unless you need to backfill historical data, to debug, or as a fallback. This lets you focus on your app while Terra handles the data flow and reliability.

In this section, you will learn about:

  1. Health Data Events: sent to your destination when new data is available on the user's account.

  2. How to test your Destination: Terra sends events to your destination, learn how to test this.

  3. Common errors and troubleshooting: when not receiving expected data.

Prerequisites

In order to receive Data as Events, you'll need to:

  1. API Key: Obtain your API Key from your Terra Dashboard

  2. Destination Configured: Set up a data destination where Terra will send event and data updates.

  3. Data Sources Enabled: Enable the specific data sources your app requires (e.g., oura, garmin, etc).

  4. Connected at least a user.

    1. If not, then no worries, you can use the Payload Simulator to test sending data to your destination!

    2. However, make sure to familiarize yourself with Authentication Events.

1. Types of Health Data Events

Whenever a User has new data available on the respective platform they use, Terra will send a Data Event to your Data Destination.

Data Events fall under one of the following categories:

(1) Activity: A tracked workout, with a defined start and end time.

Unique identifier (per User): metadata.summary_id

For example, an End User pressing "start run" on their watch, going for a 5k run, and pressing "end run"

See GET activity for the full Schema & descriptions of each field

(2) Daily: the total daily summary of the user's activity up to the point in time of the event

Unique identifier (per User): metadata.start_time

This can be the cumulative number of steps, calories burned, etc. daily payloads are always relevant to a given 24 hour period, defined by the start_time and end_time of the metadata key. When parsing, only consider the date part of the field, and ignore the time.

See GET daily for the full Schema & descriptions of each field

(3) Body: the recorded body metrics for the user for a given day

Unique identifier (per User): metadata.start_time

body payloads are always relevant to a given 24 hour period, defined by the start_time and end_time of the metadata key.

See GET body for the full Schema & descriptions of each field

(4) Sleep: a tracked sleep session, with a defined start and end time.

Unique identifier (per User): metadata.summary_id

This can include time spent in bed while awake, if recorded by the wearable.

See GET sleep for the full Schema, example, & descriptions of each field

(5) Menstruation: menstrual metrics for the user for a given day

Unique identifier (per User): metadata.start_time

E.g. the phase they're currently on, their blood flow for the day, etc. menstruation payloads are always relevant to a given 24 hour period, defined by the start_time and end_time of the metadata key.

See GET menstruation for the full Schema, example, & descriptions of each field

(6) Planned Workout: a step by step workout plan for the end user

Unique identifier (per User): metadata.summary_id

A planned workout, with a defined set of steps/reps/sets to be followed. For example, 15 min running at 7:00 pace, followed by 3x repetitions of 100m sprints with 45s jog at 8:00 min pace in between. See here for more info

You can find more details about these Data Events in the Event Type reference.

You can find all your received events (payloads) in:

Overwriting/Updating data

  • Whenever you receive an event for a User which constitutes a duplicate, based on the data type's unique identifier (detailed in each section below), the received data will always be a superset of any previous data received.

  • This means you should always overwrite data stored on your end with the most up-to-date version.

  • Depending on the event type, use the unique identifier for each payload to overwrite data appropriately upon receiving an update (e.g. metadata.start_date, metadata.summary_id, etc). These unique identifiers are found in the category descriptions listed above.

Example of a Health & Fitness Payload

Data Events will take the following form:

ActivityPayload.json
{
    "type": "activity",
    "data": [
        {
          "metadata": {
                "type": 45,
                "start_time": "2024-10-03T18:17:45.000000+08:00",
                "city": null,
                "name": "MEDITATION",
                "state": null,
                "upload_type": 1,
                "country": null,
                "summary_id": "f09554ca56fde426de5d7f9c34fc0e1e3ff015c2ae253b39",
                "end_time": "2024-10-03T18:38:39.000000+08:00"
          },
          ..... ommitted for brevity
        }
    ],
    "user": {
        "reference_id": "2397",
        "active": true,
        "user_id": "9d5dc9eb-3e02-4b37-9a7b-b14b5a5a2b93",
        "last_webhook_update": "2024-10-03T11:13:43.360227+00:00",
        "created_at": null,
        "scopes": "fitness.sleep.read,fitness.body.read,fitness.body_temperature.read,fitness.activity.read,fitness.blood_pressure.read,fitness.location.read,calendar.settings.readonly,fitness.reproductive_health.read,userinfo.email,user.birthday.read,user.gender.read,fitness.oxygen_saturation.read,fitness.heart_rate.read,userinfo.profile,fitness.nutrition.read,fitness.blood_glucose.read",
        "provider": "GOOGLE"
    },
    "version": "2022-03-16"
}

2. How to test your Destination?

For testing out the different event types mentioned above, you may also use the payload simulator in the Terra Dashboard. See the tutorial below for a step by step guide.

3. FAQ: Common errors & troubleshooting

Found in Debugging FAQ.

✅ Checklist

Receiving data Updates

  1. Set-up: Have you tested that your destination can receive data payloads from Terra?

  2. Connect a User: Have you connect a user via Terra? Have you received an Authentication Event?

  3. Receiving Data: After completing an event (e.g. activity), did you receive a Data Event "Activity"?

If you didn't receive an expected payload after a long time, please refer to our Debugging FAQ to ensure the user's data is synced properly.

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