How to update a participant's business matching categories

Use this guide when you need to set or update a participant's activity categories (what they offer) and interest categories (what they're looking for), used by the platform's business matching engine.

What you'll need before starting

What you need	Where to get it
Activity / interest category IDs	`GET /api/v2/categories/get?event_id=`
Participant ID, External ID, or email	`GET /api/v2/account/get` or `GET /api/v2/participants/{eventId}/list`

Request — set both activity and interest categories

Bash

curl -X POST "https://your-event-domain.com/api/v2/account/set" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your_api_key_here" \
  -F "event_id=7" \
  -F "id=12345" \
  -F "activity_categories[]=10" \
  -F "activity_categories[]=11" \
  -F "interest_categories[]=20" \
  -F "interest_categories[]=21" \
  -F "interest_categories[]=22"

Response

JSON

{
  "code": 200,
  "errors": null,
  "data": {
    "id": 12345,
    "email": "john.doe@example.com",
    "status": "updated",
    "external_id": null,
    "info": ["Account match: id"],
    "errors": []
  },
  "response_id": "1700000000.12345"
}

Notes

activity_categories represents what the participant offers or provides
interest_categories represents what the participant is looking for or interested in
Invalid category IDs are recorded as non-fatal errors in data.errors — valid IDs are still applied
Both fields can be updated independently — you don't need to send both at the same time
To recalculate categories from custom registration field data instead of passing IDs directly, add rebuild_categories=true to the request