Overview
Test the Unified Data Model Prior to Release
IMPORTANT: Test the Unified Data Model Prior to Release
Changes for SAS® 360 Discover Customers
Changes for SAS® 360 Engage Customers
Deprecation of Ad Hoc Export API
Updated Download Programs
Changes to the Data Model
Statement of Support
Overview/Explanation: The March 2020 release of SAS® Customer Intelligence 360 will include changes to the data model and the user interface. The changes will introduce a comprehensive data model and enable customers to use any event across CI360.
Our customers have routinely requested the ability to use any event, including those previously only available in SAS® 360 Discover, for task targeting, metrics, triggers, and segmentation/data views within SAS® 360 Engage. In addition, the ability to stream event data into other applications for use in real-time scenarios has been requested. Lastly, customers have wanted the ability to download SAS 360 Engage data and join it with SAS 360 Discover data in order to get a more comprehensive view of customer behavior and to have the ability to conduct further analysis and data integrations. To meet the demands of our customers, the March 2020 release of SAS Customer Intelligence 360 will enable the following:
- Provide previously configured SAS 360 Discover events for use in SAS 360 Engage for targeting, metrics, triggering, and segmentation/data views.
- Implement a unified UI known as “Events” as a single place to configure any event.
- Provide the ability to download a rich set of SAS 360 Engage tables and metadata, in addition to SAS 360 Discover tables, to create a unified data model.
- Stream almost all events in real time, including previously configured SAS 360 Discover events.
These new capabilities will result in changes to the UI, the unified data model, and the download programs used to retrieve data from the cloud.
Testing the Unified Data Model Prior to Release
Prior to official release, customers can begin to familiarize themselves with the tables using the Test Mode API. This method of downloading new tables utilizes the existing SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Download API. With the release of the unified data mart, this API now has categories of tables that allow users to specify groupings of tables they want to download. These categories are enforced by the product licenses held by each customer. By default, not using any specific category yields SAS 360 Discover tables.
Customers are strongly advised to test the new release and tables prior to March 7, 2020, using the Test Mode API with the following parameters:
- schemaVersion=4
- code=PH4TESTMODE
- category=<see below>
Customers must have a license in order to download the categories of tables below. For example, in order to download SAS 360 Engage tables, the customer must have a license for SAS 360 Engage.
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Category
|
License Required
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DISCOVER
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SAS® 360 Discover
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ENGAGEDIGITAL
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SAS® 360 Engage: Digital
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ENGAGEWEB
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SAS® 360 Engage: Digital
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ENGAGEMOBILE
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SAS® 360 Engage: Digital
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ENGAGEMETADATA
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SAS® 360 Engage: Digital, SAS® 360 Engage: Direct, SAS® 360 Engage: Email
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ENGAGEDIRECT
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SAS® 360 Engage: Direct
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ENGAGEEMAIL
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SAS® 360 Engage: Digital
|
Example calls using the TEST MODE API
Requesting Discover only data using category:
https://extapigwservice-<server>/marketingGateway/discoverService/dataDownload/eventData/detail/partitioned?code=PH4TESTMODE&schemaVersion=4&category=discover
Downloading Email and Direct data:
https://extapigwservice-<server>/marketingGateway/discoverService/dataDownload/eventData/detail/partitioned?code=PH4TESTMODE&schemaVersion=4&category=engageemail,engagedirect
Requesting data using Engage Digital category and specific time window:
https://extapigwservice-<server>/marketingGateway/discoverService/dataDownload/eventData/detail/partitionedData?&dataRangeStartTimeStamp=2020-01-08T04:00:00.000Z&dataRangeEndTimeStamp=2020-01-08T04:59:59.999Z&includeAllHourStatus=true&code=PH4TESTMODE&schemaVersion=4&category=engagedigital
Requesting metadata using category:
https://extapigwservice-<server>/marketingGateway/discoverService/dataDownload/eventData/detail/nonPartitionedData?code=PH4TESTMODE&schemaVersion=4&category=engagemetadata
Important Note: A new column representing custom attributes is being added to the following SAS 360 Discover tables: GOAL_DETAILS, CART_ACTIVITY_DETAILS, ORDER_DETAILS, ORDER_SUMMARY, and PRODUCT_VIEWS but cannot be tested using the Test Mode API. However, customers can see the new tables.
Changes to the UI
Changes for SAS® 360 Discover Customers
A single unified UI (Events) is being introduced for configuring all events that can be used by both SAS 360 Discover and SAS 360 Engage. SAS 360 Discover users will notice a variety of changes in the UI:
- All events and event configurations are either in Events or in General Settings. The Advanced Configuration Rules and Basic Collection Rules sections of the UI have been removed.
- Some events that were configured in the Advanced Collection Rules section of SAS 360 Discover are automatically migrated in Events. These previously configured events continue to work without any changes being required by the user, including Business Process, Goal, Internal Search, Promotion, and Custom Attribute.
- The remaining items in Advanced Collection Rules were automatically moved to the General Settings > Classification page and continue to work as previously configured, including Page Category, Form, Profile, and View.
- The items included in the Basic Collection Rules section have also been moved to the General Settings > Classification page and continue to work as previously configured, including Page URL and Document Download.
- In the General Settings > Classification page, Profile has become Visitor Profiles and View has become Page View.
- With the March 2020 release, most of the previously configured SAS 360 Discover events will be available to SAS 360 Engage for task targeting, metrics, data views, triggers, streaming, and starting activities. These events will be eligible for segmentation selection criteria in an upcoming release.
- Custom Attribute events must first be converted to Custom Events in order to use them in SAS 360 Engage. If a user does not want to use any Custom Attribute events in SAS 360 Engage, there is no need to convert them, and the events will continue to work as is. The UI has a button that provides users with an option to convert.
- If a user converts a Custom Attribute event to a Custom Event, that event will no longer populate the Custom_Attributes table in the data model, nor appear in custom attribute reporting. If converted, this event will populate the GOALS_DETAILS and CUSTOM_EVENTS tables.
- Custom Events are a new event type that allows users to configure any events that do not already have a standard configuration type (such as Product View).
- SAS 360 Discover Goal events are automatically migrated to Custom Events, but the configuration remains the same.
- Users are no longer required to create Custom Attribute events to capture an attribute that is beyond the standard configuration. Instead, they can now add custom attributes to Product View, Add to Cart, Cart View, Checkout View, Purchase View, and Custom events.
There are some additional functionality differences in the new UI:
- Page Category and Visitor Profile (previously named Profile) cannot have special characters (for example, double-byte characters) or use spaces in names. This limitation has been in place since the latter part of 2019 (19.09). Migrated Page Categories and Profiles retain the original label but are concatenated with one of the 14 page category slots. New Page Categories or Visitor Profiles cannot use special characters.
- For Business Process, new configurations of events do not contain step errors or step limits, and previous configurations continue to work.
- For Promotion, the conversion event (previously named Promotion Use) must be defined on the same page as Promotion Displayed. This limitation has been in place since the latter part of 2019 (19.09). The UI now only allows the conversion event to be on the same page.
Changes for SAS® 360 Engage Customers
Changes for SAS 360 Engage customers are as follows:
- Previous SAS 360 Engage events that were defined using as a Page View, Click, or Form submit are being migrated to Custom Events.
- In the targeting, triggering, and metrics interfaces, SAS 360 Discover events now show up as options.
- Previously, the only way to download SAS 360 Engage data was to use the Ad Hoc Export API. Customers that have a SAS 360 Engage license can now download structured tables associated with SAS 360 Engage events, such as impression_viewable and conversions.
- SAS plans on deprecating the Ad Hoc Export API and urges customers to start using the SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Download API to retrieve SAS 360 Engage tables instead.
Upcoming releases will include more metadata tables that show cross-associations between objects.
Deprecation of Ad Hoc Export API
Due to an architectural change in how data is to be stored and provided, the Ad Hoc Export API is being deprecated by mid-2020 and is being replaced by the unified data mart. With the new SAS 360 Engage tables, organizations can now create custom ad hoc queries and joins once data has been downloaded into a data warehouse. This allows organizations to replicate and expand upon the functionality previously found in the Ad Hoc Export API. In upcoming releases, SAS will introduce the ability to specify tables to make it easier to obtain the specific data required by users.
Updated Download Programs
Prior to release, new download programs will be released for SAS software and Python. SAS has begun to add these download programs in GitHub so that customers can subscribe to notifications for program updates. The SAS software version of the download program can be found at https://github.com/sassoftware/ci360-download-client-sas, while the Python version is at https://github.com/sassoftware/ci360-download-client-python.
Changes to the Data Model
With the introduction of the Unified Data Model, there have been changes to some existing SAS 360 Discover tables, as well as additional tables for SAS 360 Discover and SAS 360 Engage.
Changes for SAS® 360 Discover Customers
New SAS 360 Discover tables include the following:
- CUSTOM_EVENTS: captures user-defined custom events. This table will eventually replace the GOAL_DETAILS table. Initially, both tables will be populated by Custom Events.
- CUSTOM_EVENTS_EXT: extension table for custom events
- DATA_VIEW_DETAILS: captures data view events
- EXTERNAL EVENT: captures events that are coming from outside of SAS Customer Intelligence 360 through the API gateway
- MOBILE_FOCUS_DEFOCUS: captures mobile focus and defocus events
New columns are being added to existing SAS 360 Discover tables to represent the custom attributes for events. The following tables will have the new column properties_map_doc added to the end of the table as the last column:
- GOAL_DETAILS
- CART_ACTIVITY_DETAILS
- ORDER_DETAILS
- ORDER_SUMMARY
- PRODUCT_VIEWS
As described, Custom Attribute events continue to go to the CUSTOMER_ATTRIBUTES table unless a user converts them to a Custom Event. When the conversion occurs, these events no longer populate the CUSTOMER_ATTRIBUTES table and instead populate the CUSTOM_EVENTS and GOAL_DETAILS tables.
Previously configured goal events go to both CUSTOM_EVENTS and GOAL_DETAILS. Newly created Custom Events also go to both CUSTOM_EVENTS and GOAL_DETAILS tables.
Changes for SAS® 360 Engage Customers
New SAS 360 Engage tables include the following:
- AB_TEST_PATH_ASSIGNMENT: captures which A/B path individuals are assigned to in an activity
- ACTIVITY_FLOW_IN: captures the movement of individuals through nodes in an activity
- ACTIVITY_START: captures the start of an activity
- ACTIVITY_CONVERSION: captures the primary and secondary metrics for the activity
- CONTACT_HISTORY: captures contacts made
- CONVERSION_MILESTONE: captures conversion and milestone events of tasks
- DIRECT_CONTACT: captures when someone is contacted in a direct marketing task
- EMAIL_BOUNCE: captures email bounces
- EMAIL_CLICK: captures email clicks
- EMAIL_COMPLAINTS: captures email complaints
- EMAIL_OPEN: captures email opens
- EMAIL_OPTOUT: captures email opt-outs
- EMAIL_REPLY: captures email reply events
- EMAIL_SEND: captures email sends
- EMAIL_VIEW: captures views of an email on a webpage
- IMPRESSION_SPOT_VIEWABLE: captures impression viewable events
- IN_APP_FAILED: captures in-app failed events
- IN_APP_MESSAGE: captures in-app message interactions
- IN_APP_SEND: captures in-app send events
- MOBILE_SPOTS: captures mobile system events (spot_failed, spot_closed, and spot_default_delivered)
- NOTIFICATION_FAILED: captures push notifications that failed
- NOTIFICATION_OPENED: captures push notifications that were opened
- NOTIFICATION_SEND: captures push notifications being sent
- OUTBOUND_SYSTEM: captures trigger-action events for external system tasks
- RESPONSE_HISTORY: captures responses
- SPOT_CLICKED: captures spot-clicked events
In addition to the tables above, the Unified Data Model introduces metadata about the objects used in tasks and activities. The following metadata tables will be available:
- md_activity – metadata for all activities
- md_activity_custom_prop – custom properties of activities
- md_activity_x_task – cross table that associates activities and tasks
- md_creative - metadata for all creatives
- md_creative_custom_prop – custom properties of creatives
- md_dataview - metadata for all data views
- md_event - metadata for all event objects
- md_message - metadata for all messages
- md_message_custom_prop – custom properties of messages
- md_segment - metadata for all segments
- md_segment_custom_prop – custom properties of segments
- md_segment_map - metadata for all segment maps
- md_segment_map_custom_prop – custom properties of segment maps
- md_spot - metadata for all spots
- md_task - metadata for all tasks
- md_task_custom_prop – custom properties of tasks
Statement of Support
The SAS product functionality described above is provided for informational purposes only based on SAS’ current product roadmap. It does not represent nor alter official SAS product documentation nor is it a guarantee as to the timing of the availability of any product functionality or that such functionality will be made available.
