Consents and Preferences field group

Consents and Preferences is a standard field group for the XDM Individual Profile class that captures consent and preference information for an individual customer.

Field group structure structure

The Consents and Preferences field group provides a single object-type field, consents, to capture consent and preference information. This field extends the Consent for Privacy, Personalization and Marketing Preferences data type, removing the adID field and adding an idSpecific map field.

The following JSON shows an example of the type of data that the Consents and Preferences field group can process. For information on how to use most of the fields provided by the field group, refer to the guide on the Consents and Preferences data type. The subsections below focus on the unique attributes that the field group adds to the data type.

{
  "consents": {
    "collect": {
      "val": "VI"
    },
    "share": {
      "val": "y"
    },
    "personalize": {
      "content": {
        "val": "y"
      }
    },
    "marketing": {
      "preferred": "email",
      "any": {
        "val": "y"
      },
      "email": {
        "val": "y"
      }
    },
    "idSpecific": {
      "ECID": {
        "37784337855396895622558625508046772577": {
          "adID": {
            "val": "n",
          },
          "share": {
            "val": "n"
          },
          "marketing": {
            "push": {
              "val": "n",
              "time": "2020-09-30T01:02:33+00:00",
              "reason": "not relevant"
            }
          }
        }
      },
      "email": {
        "john@xyz.com": {
          "marketing": {
            "email": {
              "val": "y"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "metadata": {
      "time": "2019-01-01T15:52:25+00:00"
    }
  }
}

idSpecific

idSpecific can be used when a particular consent or preference does not universally apply to a customer, but is restricted to a single device or ID. For example, a customer can opt out of receiving emails to one address, while potentially allowing emails on another.

Each key in the idSpecific object represents a specific identity namespace recognized by Adobe Experience Platform Identity Service. While you can define your own custom namespaces to categorize different identifiers, it is recommended that you use one of the standard namespaces provided by Identity Service to reduce storage sizes for Real-Time Customer Profile. For more information on identity namespaces, see the identity namespace overview in the Identity Service documentation.

The keys for each namespace object represent the unique identity values that the customer has set preferences for. Each identity value can contain a complete set of consents and preferences, formatted in the same way as consents.

"idSpecific": {
  "email": {
    "jdoe@example.com": {
      "marketing": {
        "email": {
          "val": "n"
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "ECID": {
    "37784337855396895622558625508046772577": {
      "collect": {
        "val": "y"
      },
      "adID": {
        "val": "n"
      },
      "marketing": {
        "push": {
          "val": "n"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Within marketing objects provided in the idSpecific section, the any and preferred fields are not supported. These fields can only be configured at the user level. In addition, the idSpecific marketing preferences for email, sms, and push do not support subscriptions fields.

There is also a consent that can only be provided in the idSpecific section: adID. This field is covered in the subsection below.

adID

The adID consent represents the customer’s consent for whether an advertiser ID (IDFA or GAID) can be used to link the customer across apps on this device. This value can only be configured under the ECID identity namespace in the idSpecific section, and cannot be set for other namespaces or at the user level for this field group.

"idSpecific": {
  "ECID": {
    "37784337855396895622558625508046772577": {
      "collect": {
        "val": "y"
      },
      "adID": {
        "val": "n"
      },
      "marketing": {
        "push": {
          "val": "n"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Ingesting data using the field group ingest

In order to use the Consents and Preferences field group to ingest consent data from your customers, you must create a dataset based on a schema that contains that field group.

See the tutorial on creating a schema in the UI for steps on how to assign field groups to fields. Once you have created a schema containing a field with the Consents and Preferences field group, refer to the section on creating a dataset in the dataset user guide, following the steps to create a dataset with an existing schema.

Handling consent and preference changes

When a customer changes their consents or preferences on your website, these changes should be collected and immediately enforced using the Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK. If a customer opts out of data collection, all data collection must immediately cease. If a customer opts out of personalization, then there should be no personalization present on the next page they visit.

Next steps

This document covered the structure and use of the Consents and Preferences field group. For more information on the other fields provided by the field group, see the document on the Consent for Privacy, Personalization and Marketing Preferences data type.