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Setting and Retrieving Priority.

The virtual waiting room service allows you to group users into different tiers. For example, you can configure the service to group users based on location, returning customers, or urgency and assign them different priority levels while in the waiting room. Setting these priority levels helps group your customer requests, allowing you to attend to the ones with the highest priority, thus improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Sample Use Case for Setting Priorities​

Consider a service with users residing at different geographical locations. You can assign priority levels to these locations based on their revenue generated. For example:

  • Users in location A: 1
  • Users in location B: 2

With a priority configuration set, when two users from locations A and B try to access the webpage and are directed to the waiting room, the service admits the location A user first since they occupy a higher priority.

Configuring Priority​

You can customize a waiting room with up to ten priorities, the priorities being positive numbers from 1 through 255. Configure these priorities using the virtual waiting room API.

For instance, the following curl PATCH API request updates the waiting room by configuring three priority levels with values of 1, 20, and 255. 

curl -X 'PATCH' \
   https://api-vwr-service.gdn-akamai.com/api/vwr/v1/origins/example3.com \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'authorization: test_key.12345678abcdefghijklABCDEFGHIJKL' \
  -d '{
  "priority": [1, 20, 255]
}'

This successfully configures the waiting room to support priorities.

To prioritize the traffic, you must pass the priority to the handleVwrsRequest() and handleVwrsResponse() functions. Here's a template demonstrating how to include a priority with the request in the handleVwrsRequest() call:

export async function onClientRequest(request: EW.IngressClientRequest) {
  await client.handleVwrsRequest(request, { priority: 1 });
}

The above template sets the priority of this request to 1.

Retrieving Priority Levels​

Several methods are available to retrieve the actual priority, such as query parameters, headers, or cookies. Choosing a method depends on the specific implementation needs of the application.

Retrieving with Query Parameters​

GET /checkout?waiting-room-priority=20

The example adds the request to the waiting room with a priority of 20.

export async function onClientRequest(request: EW.IngressClientRequest) {
  const queryParams = new URLSearchParams(request.query);
  const reqPriority = parseInt(queryParams.get("waiting-room-priority"), 10);
  await client.handleVwrsRequest(request, { priority: reqPriority });
}

Retrieving with HTTP Header​

GET /checkout
x-waiting-room-priority: 20

The example adds the request to the waiting room with a priority of 20.

export async function onClientRequest(request: EW.IngressClientRequest) {
   const reqPriorityStr = request.getHeader("x-waiting-room-priority")[0];
   Const reqPriority = parseInt(reqPriorityStr, 10);
   await client.handleVwrsRequest(request, {priority: reqPriority});
}
GET /checkout
Cookie: waiting-room-priority=20

The example adds the request to the waiting room with a priority of 20.

export async function onClientRequest(request: EW.IngressClientRequest) {
   const cookies = new Cookies(request.getHeader("Cookie"));
   const reqPriority = parseInt(cookies.get("waiting-room-priority"), 10);
   await client.handleVwrsRequest(request, {priority: reqPriority});
}