Customer Data Platform (CDP) is built around several entities such as Customer and Product.
CDP data feeds provide a standard set of flat-file feeds to define how you can send relevant data into CDP. These feeds support all the use cases that are available with CDP.
CDP presents the feeds as a fixed set of entities and attributes. You can extend the feeds with client-specific attributes and entities. To configure such extensions, contact your CDP customer value manager (CVM).
Required and optional feeds
The following are the required standard feeds:
Feed | Feed name |
---|---|
Customer | Customer_[DateTime].csv |
Transaction | Transaction_[DateTime].csv |
TransactionItem | TransactionItem_[DateTime].csv |
Organization | Organization_[DateTime].csv |
Product | Product_[DateTime].csv |
ProductCategory | ProductCategory_[DateTime].csv |
The following are the optional feeds that you can use for specific use cases:
Feed | Feed name |
---|---|
Address | Address_[DateTime].csv |
CustomerAddressXRef | CustomerAddressXRef_[DateTime].csv |
ProductCategoryXRef | ProductCategoryXRef_[DateTime].csv |
Event | Event_[DateTime].csv |
PaymentMethod | PaymentMethod_[DateTime].csv |
TransactionPaymentMethodXRef | TransactionPaymentMethodXRef_[DateTime].csv |
Campaign | Campaign_[DateTime].csv |
Dispatch | Dispatch_[DateTime].csv |
Message | Message_[DateTime].csv |
Note
- Full feeds are not required every day. After an initial full feed, it is more efficient to send only the new or updated data to CDP as incremental feeds.
- Web and email events come in through other mechanisms. Therefore, they are not part of the required feeds.
Feed format
CDP feeds are designed to be source system-agnostic. If you cannot extract the necessary feeds from your existing systems, CDP offers integration services.
The following table lists the formatting requirements for feeds:
Requirement | Description |
---|---|
Name | Each file name must have the following naming convention:
For example, |
Format | The comma-separated values (CSV), with the conventions used by OpenCSV. |
Record delimiter | Line breaks ({CR}{LF} ). Record delimiters cannot be present within the fields and you must replace them with a whitespace character. |
Field delimiter | Comma (
|
Text qualifier (recommended) | Double quotes (“)
|
Escape character | backslash ()
|
Header | A header row that names the columns is required. Column names cannot begin or end with whitespace. |
Footer | A footer row is not supported. |
Encoding | Files must be encoded using UTF-8. |
Date/datetime formats | The following date/datetime formats are supported by default:
|
Timezone | The timezone of the file is communicated to the CDP integration team. |
Compression | Each file can be compressed through zip or gzip compression. Each file must be compressed separately as multiple files cannot be compressed together in a compressed directory. The compression method must be included in the file name. For example, customer_20201114232015.csv.zip or customer_20201114232015.csv.gz . |
Encryption | Each file can be encrypted through pgp or gpg encryption. Each file must be encrypted separately, and must not be signed. You must include the encryption method in the file name. For example, customer_20201114232015.csv.pgp or customer_20201114232015.csv.gpg . If you want to encrypt your files, contact your implementation consultant who provides you with a public key for encrypting the files. |
Each file must contain only one record per primary key, the latest and greatest version of that record. Since CDP is a distributed system, files are not processed top to bottom or bottom to top. Each file is split up and processed by multiple machines. If two records exist in one file with the same identifier, then CDP cannot guarantee which version of that record is recorded to CDP’s data warehouse.
Product and Product Category feeds
CDP supports having products mapped to the product categories within the product feed (1:1 or n:1 relationships). However, to support n:n relationships, a separate cross-reference feed is required. For more information, see Product Category XRef feed.