Create or edit a connection

The connection creation and edit workflow experience brings all the dataset and connection configuration settings to the center of the screen with assistive workflow. It provides detailed dataset selection, configuration, and review experience with critical information like dataset type, size, schema, dataset id, batch status, backfill status, Person IDs, and much more to reduce the risk of wrong connection configuration. Here is an overview of the capabilities:

  • You can enable a rolling data retention window when you create the connection.
  • You can add to and remove datasets from a connection. (Removing a dataset removes it from the connection and impacts any associated data views and underlying Analysis Workspace projects.)
  • You can enable and request backfill data per dataset.
  • You can edit datasets, for example to request another backfill.
  • You can import existing data per dataset.

Prerequisites

You must have the Select package in order to add unlimited numbers of event datasets to a connection. The Foundation package is limited to one event dataset. You can add unlimited numbers of profile or lookup datasets to a connection. Contact your administrator if you’re unsure what Customer Journey Analytics package you have.​

Create and configure the connection create-connection

  1. In Customer Journey Analytics, click the Connections tab.

  2. Click Create new connection.

    Untitled connection settings

  3. Configure the connection settings.

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    Setting Description
    Connection name Enter a unique name for the connection.
    Connection description Describe the purpose of this connection.
    Sandbox

    Choose a sandbox in Experience Platform that contains the dataset/s to which you want to create a connection.

    Adobe Experience Platform provides sandboxes which partition a single Platform instance into separate virtual environments to help develop and evolve digital experience applications. You can think of sandboxes as “data silos” that contain datasets. Sandboxes are used to control access to datasets.

    Once you have selected the sandbox, the left rail shows all the datasets in that sandbox that you can pull from.

    Enable rolling data window

    This checkbox, if checked, lets you define Customer Journey Analytics data retention as a rolling window in months (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and so on), at the connection level.

    Data retention is based on event dataset timestamps and applies to event datasets only. No rolling data window setting exists for profile or lookup datasets, since there are no applicable timestamps. However, if your connection includes any profile or lookup datasets (besides one or more event datasets), that data is retained for the same time period.

    The main benefit is that you store or report only on data that is applicable and useful and delete older data that is no longer useful. It helps you stay under your contract limits and reduces the risk of overage cost.

    If you leave the default (unchecked), the retention period is superseded by the Adobe Experience Platform data retention setting. If you have 25 months’ worth of data in Experience Platform, Customer Journey Analytics gets 25 months of data through backfill. If you deleted 10 of those months in Platform, Customer Journey Analytics would retain the remaining 15 months.

    Add datasets (see below) Add datasets if no datasets appear in your dataset listing.
    Dataset name

    Select one or more datasets that you want to pull into Customer Journey Analytics and click Add.

    (If you have many datasets to choose from, you can search for the right one(s) using the Search datasets search bar above the list of datasets.)

    Last updated For event datasets only, this setting is automatically set to the default timestamp field from event-based schemas in Experience Platform. “N/A” means that this dataset contains no data.
    Schema The schema based on which the dataset was created in Adobe Experience Platform.
    Dataset type For each dataset that you added to this connection, Customer Journey Analytics automatically sets the dataset type based on the data coming in. There are 3 different dataset types: Event data, Profile data, and Lookup data. See the table below for an explanation of dataset types.
    Person ID

    Select a person ID from the drop-down list of available identities. These identities were defined in the dataset schema in the Experience Platform. See below for information on how to use Identity Map as a Person ID.

    IMPORTANT: If there are no person IDs to choose from, that means one or more person IDs have not been defined in the schema. View this video on how to define an identity in Experience Platform.

    Key For lookup datasets only (such as _id).
    Matching Key For lookup datasets only (such as _id).
    Import new data Set to On or Off.
    Backfill data

    You can request to backfill the data in a dataset based on event timestamps. For example, you can request to backfill the last 7 days worth of data, configure the right Person ID and test your connection for correct configuration. If everything looks good, you can backfill all the remaining data with ease.

    In addition, you can enable the import of new data by dataset. For example, you can enable the import of new data for lookup data only.

    Backfill status Indicates whether any backfill data is processing.

Add and configure datasets add-dataset

The new workflow lets you add an Experience Platform dataset when you create a connection.

  1. In the Connection settings dialog, select Add datasets.

  2. In the Select datasets step, select one or more datasets and select Next. At least one event dataset must be part of the connection.

    • To change the columns displayed for the list of datasets, select Column settings and select the columns to be displayed in the Customize table dialog.
    • To search for a specific dataset, use the Search search field.
    • To toggle between showing or hiding the selected datasets, select Select Hide selected or Show selected.
    • To remove a dataset from the list of selected datasets, use Close . To remove all selected datasets, select Clear all.

    Select datasets

  3. Now configure the datasets one by one.

    Configure datasets

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    Setting Description
    Person ID

    Only available for event and profile datasets. Select a person ID from the drop-down list of available identities. These identities were defined in the dataset schema in the Experience Platform. See below for information on how to use Identity Map as a Person ID.

    If there are no person IDs to choose from, that means one or more person IDs have not been defined in the schema. View this video on how to define an identity in Experience Platform.

    Timestamp For event datasets only, this setting is automatically set to the default timestamp field from event-based schemas in Experience Platform.
    Key Only available for lookup datasets. The key to use for a Lookup dataset.
    Matching key Only available for lookup datasets. The matching key to join on in one of the event datasets. If this list is empty you probably haven’t added or configured an event dataset.
    Data source type

    Select a type of data source.
    Types of data sources include:

    • Web data
    • Mobile App data
    • POS data
    • CRM data
    • Survey data
    • Call Center data
    • Product data
    • Accounts data
    • Transaction data
    • Customer Feedback data
    • Other

    This field is used to survey the types of data sources in use.

    Import new data Select this option if you want to establish an ongoing connection, so that any new data batches that get added to the datasets in this connection automatically flow into Workspace. Can be set to On or Off.
    Dataset backfill

    Select Request backfill to backfill historical data.

    • You can backfill each dataset individually.
    • You prioritize new data added to a dataset in the connection, so this new data has the lowest latency.
    • Any backfill (historical) data is imported at a slower rate. The latency is influenced by how much historical data that you have.
    • The Analytics source connector imports up to 13 months of data (irrespective of size) for production sandboxes. The backfill in non-production sandboxes is limited to 3 months.
    Backfill status

    Possible status indicators are:

    • Success
    • X backfill(s) processing
    • Off
    Dataset ID This ID is automatically generated.
    Description The description given to this dataset when it was created.
    Dataset size The dataset’s size.
    Schema The schema based on which the dataset was created in Adobe Experience Platform.
    Dataset The name of the dataset.
    Preview: dataset name Previews the dataset with date, my ID, and Identifier columns.
    Remove You can delete or remove the dataset and change the Person ID without deleting the whole connection. Deleting or removing reduces the costs involved in data ingestion and the cumbersome process of recreating the whole connection and associated data views.

Connection preview preview

To preview the connection that you have created, click Connection preview in the Connection settings dialog.

Connection preview

This preview contains some columns listing the connection configuration. What column types are shown depends on your individual datasets.

Dataset types dataset-types

For each dataset that you add to this connection, Customer Journey Analytics automatically sets the dataset type based on the data coming in.

IMPORTANT
You must add at least one event dataset as part of a connection.

There are three different dataset types: Event data, Profile data, and Lookup data.

Dataset Type
Description
Timestamp
Schema
Person ID
Event
Data that represents events in time (for example, web visits, interactions, transactions, POS data, survey data, ad impression data, and so on). For example, this data could be typical clickstream data, with a customer ID or a cookie ID, and a timestamp. With Event data, you have flexibility as to which ID is used as the Person ID.
Is automatically set to the default timestamp field from event-based schemas in Experience Platform.
Any built-in or custom schema that is based on an XDM class with the “Time Series” behavior. Examples include “XDM Experience Event” or “XDM Decision Event.”
You can pick which Person ID you want to include. Each dataset schema defined in the Experience Platform can have its own set of one or more identities defined and associated with an Identity Namespace. Any of these identities can be used as the Person ID. Examples include Cookie ID, Stitched ID, User ID, Tracking Code, and so on.
Lookup
You can now add datasets as lookups of fields within all dataset types: Profile, Lookup, and Event datasets (the latter was always supported). This additional capability expands CJA’s ability to support complex data models, including B2B CDP. This data is used to look up values or keys found in your Event, Profile, or Lookup data. You can add up to two levels of lookups. (Note that Derived Fields cannot be used as matching keys for lookups within Connections.) For example, you might upload lookup data that maps numeric IDs in your event data to product names. See B2B use case for an example.
N/A
Any built-in or custom schema that is based on an XDM class with the “Record” behavior, except for the “XDM Individual Profile” class.
N/A
Profile
Data that is applied to your persons, users, or customers in the Event data. For example, allows you to upload CRM data about your customers.
N/A
Any built-in or custom schema that is based on the “XDM Individual Profile” class.
You can pick which Person ID you want to include. Each dataset defined in the Experience Platform has its own set of one or more Person IDs defined, for example Cookie ID, Stitched ID, User ID, Tracking Code, and so on.
Person ID Note: If you create a connection that includes datasets with different IDs, the reporting reflects that. To really merge datasets, you need use the same Person ID.

Use numeric fields as lookup keys and lookup values numeric

This lookup functionality is useful if you want to add a numeric field such as a cost or margin to a string-based key field. It allows numeric values to be part of lookups, either as keys or as values. In your lookup schema, you might have numeric values tied to, for example, your product names, COGS, campaign marketing cost, or margins. Here is an example lookup schema in Adobe Experience Platform:

Lookup schema

You now support bringing in these values as metrics or dimensions into Customer Journey Analytics reporting. When you set up your connection and pull in lookup datasets, you can edit the datasets to select the Key and Matching Key:

Edit-dataset

When you set up a data view based on this connection, you add the numeric values as components to the data view. Any project based on this data view can then report on these numeric values.

Use Identity Map as a Person ID id-map

Customer Journey Analytics supports the ability to use the Identity Map for its Person ID. Identity Map is a map data structure that allows you to upload key -> value pairs. The keys are identity namespaces and the value is a structure that holds the identity value. The Identity Map exists on each row/event uploaded and is populated for each row accordingly.

The Identity Map is available for any dataset that uses a schema based on the ExperienceEvent XDM class. When you select such a dataset to be included in a Customer Journey Analytics Connection, you have the option of selecting either a field as the primary ID or the Identity Map:

If you select Identity Map, you get two additional configuration options:

Option
Description
Use Primary ID Namespace
This option instructs Customer Journey Analytics, per row, to find the identity in the Identity Map that is marked with a primary=true attribute and use that as the Person ID for that row. This identity is the primary key that is used in Experience Platform for partitioning. And this identity is also the prime candidate for usage as Customer Journey Analytics person ID (depending on how the dataset is configured in a Customer Journey Analytics Connection).
Namespace
(This option is only available if you do not use the Primary ID Namespace.) Identity namespaces are a component of Experience Platform Identity Service that serve as indicators of the context to which an identity relates. If you specify a namespace, Customer Journey Analytics searches each row’s Identity Map for this namespace key and use the identity under that namespace as the person ID for that row. Since Customer Journey Analytics cannot do a full dataset scan of all rows to determine which namespaces are present, all possible namespaces are displayed in the drop-down list. You must know which namespaces are specified in the data; these namespaces are not auto-detected.

Identity Map edge cases id-map-edge

This table shows the two configuration options when edge cases are present and how they are handled:

Option
No IDs are present in Identity Map
Multiple IDs, none marked as primary
Multiple IDs are marked as primary
Single ID, marked as primary or not
Invalid namespace with an ID marked as primary
Use Primary ID Namespace checked
The row is dropped by Customer Journey Analytics.
The row is dropped by Customer Journey Analytics, as no primary ID is specified.
All IDs marked as primary, under all namespaces, are extracted into a list. They are then alphabetically sorted; with the new sorting, the first namespace with its first ID is used as the Person ID.
The single ID is used as the Person ID.
Even though the namespace may be invalid (not present in Adobe Experience Platform), Customer Journey Analytics uses the primary ID under that namespace as the Person ID.
Specific Identity Map namespace selected
The row is dropped by Customer Journey Analytics.
All IDs under the selected namespace are extracted into a list and the first is used as the Person ID.
All IDs under the selected namespace are extracted into a list and the first is used as the Person ID.
All IDs under the selected namespace are extracted into a list and the first is used as the Person ID.
All IDs under the selected namespace are extracted into a list and the first is used as the Person ID. (Only a valid namespace can be selected at Connection creation time, so it is not possible for an invalid namespace/ID to be used as Person ID)

Calculate the average number of daily events average-number

This calculation is done for every dataset in the connection.

  1. Go to Adobe Experience Platform Query Services and create a query.

    The query would look like this:

    code language-none
    Select AVG(A.total_events) from (Select DISTINCT COUNT (*) as total_events, date(TIMESTAMP) from analytics_demo_data GROUP BY 2 Having total_events>0) A;
    

    In this example, “analytics_demo_data” is the name of the dataset.

  2. To show all the datasets that exist in Adobe Experience Platform, perform the Show Tables query .

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