About Data Connect (Early Access) | Data Connect |Tealium Docs

Data Connect is currently in Early Access and is only available by request. If you are interested in trying this feature, contact your account team.

About Data Connect

Tealium Data Connect provides a fast, efficient, and scalable architecture to connect your internal systems, such as CRM, ERP, and billing, to Tealium. Data Connect is a flexible way to integrate data from your internal systems into Tealium for event and visitor enrichment.

Requirements

Tealium EventStream or Tealium AudienceStream
Tealium Platform Permissions

Data Connect uses third-party iPaaS technology that requires third-party cookies to be enabled in your browser.

How it works

Data Connect uses third-party iPaaS technology to provide integrations with commonly used systems. An integration consists of a connection to a system and a recipe that contains the rules and data mapping logic to extract data from the system.

For each integration that will send event data, you create a connection to the system using your credentials, which allows the integration to access the system. For more information, see Managing Data Connect Integrations.

The data extracted by an integration can be used as follows:

Events – Send event data to a Tealium Connect data source, which sends events to Tealium Collect. These events can be used in attribute enrichments or connectors in Tealium EventStream and Tealium AudienceStream.
Table Data (Reference, Lookup) – Populate tables with data that can be referenced with a lookup key to enrich event and visitor data.

Tables can also be populated by importing data from JSON files. The import method is best for data that does not change often. Use integrations to populate and update tables when the data source changes frequently.

The configuration of Data Connect integrations is managed by Tealium. To get started, contact. your account team.

The following figure shows the flow of data from internal systems to Tealium:

Data Connect is fully compliant with current data privacy regulations and includes a built-in data masking option to hide sensitive data. For more information, see Restricted Data.

Supported integrations

The following integrations are available:

Amazon S3
Azure Blob Storage
FTP/SFTP
Google BigQuery
HubSpot
Oracle
Redshift
Salesforce
Snowflake
Veeva

Data Connect events

Data Connect events capture real-time updates from one of your integrated internal systems. Events are triggered when an action or update occurs in your internal system that you want to track. The integration recipe determines when an event is triggered and how data from your internal system maps to the event attributes.

For example, you may want to use a Salesforce integration to capture a customer field whenever a contact object is updated. If you want to capture the Salesforce field customerStatusTypeID as a visitor attribute in Tealium AudienceStream, the integration recipe might produce the following Data Connect event:

{
  tealium_event   : "offline_account_update",
  customer_id     : "123456",
  customer_status : "Active"
}

The recipe maps the Salesforce fields to your event attributes. In this example, the Salesforce fields customerID and customerStatusTypeID are mapped to the event attributes customer_id and customer_status respectively. The event name "offline_account_update" can be customized for each integration.

To capture this event in Tealium AudienceStream, create a visitor attribute and enrichment to store customer_status when this event occurs.

Data source

To send events to Tealium Collect, and identify events that come from Data Connect, use a Tealium Connect data source for each integration.

After you decide which internal system to integrate with, create a Tealium Connect data source to use in the integration. Having a dedicated data source for each Data Connect integration makes it easy to see the related events in Live Events and to configure connectors in Tealium EventStream that only process Data Connect events.

Event specification

In addition to creating a Tealium Connect data source, it’s also helpful to create an event specification for each type of event you track from Data Connect. After you decide which activity to track from your internal system, create an event specification with a custom event name and a list of required and optional event attributes. Use event specifications to validate incoming events in Live Events.

Contact your Tealium account team to configure a Data Connect integration.

Data Connect tables

Data Connect tables store data imported from files or from an internal system, such as a product catalog database. Table data is synchronized with your internal system using an integration that checks for updates at regular intervals. This allows you to manage your data at the source and make it available in your Tealium configuration.

Table structure

A Data Connect table has rows of data, each containing a lookup key and a value. The row values are stored as JSON objects instead of as standard database columns.

Lookup key

A lookup key is a shared identifier between the Tealium Customer Data Hub and your internal system. The lookup key must be available as an event or visitor attribute and as a field in your internal database.

For example, in a table of product catalog data, you might have a column named pid that represents the product ID. When this data is imported, the values of pid would populate the lookup key in the Data Connect table.

This value must also be available as an event attribute, such as product_id. This attribute would be used to look up rows in the table for use with attribute enrichments.

Value (JSON object)

The value of each row in the table is a JSON object containing one or more name-value pairs, or fields. You can think of each name-value pair as a column in the table.

Example of table row data:

Lookup Key	Value (JSON Object)
`1234567890`	`{ "pid" : "1234567890", "in_stock" : true, "msrp_amount" : 123.45, "est_ship_time" : "7-10 days" }`

Restricted data

Tables support the restricted data setting. If a table contains sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII), those fields can be masked so that their values are not displayed in the interface. Access to tables with restricted data is controlled by the PII permission setting.

When a table field is marked as restricted, its values are masked with a series of asterisks (*****) if the user does not have permission to view PII.

Expiration time

Tables support an expiration time setting that determines how long the table data will be retained. Use this setting for sensitive table data or for volatile data that is only valid for a short period of time. When the expiration time elapses, all data in the table is purged.

Import JSON files

You can populate tables manually by importing data from a JSON file. When you import a JSON file, the table is updated based on whether the lookup keys in the file match the lookup keys in the table:

Lookup key found
If the lookup key in the file is found in the table, then the data from the file is used to replace the matching row in the table.
Lookup key not found
If the lookup key from the file is not found in the table, then the data from the file is inserted as a new row in the table.

Lookup keys cannot be changed during file import. Only data in the Value column of the table can be updated.

You can insert and replace data in a table in the following ways:

Using integrations
Use an integration to establish a persistent connection between your external database and a table. An integration uses a recipe to transform the data and update a table automatically. For more information, see Managing Data Connect Integrations.
Contact your Tealium account team for assistance with Data Connect table integrations.
Importing JSON Files
Use the Import option for a table to upload a JSON file and add data to the table.
Using the Data Connect API
Use the Data Connect API to create a custom integration with your internal system.

JSON file format

The file must be formatted as a JSON object with the following requirements:

An object with a key named items which contains an array of objects.
Each object in the items array inserts or updates one row in the table.
{ "items" : [ {}, {}, ... ] }
Each object in the array is a single name-value pair where the name is the lookup value and the value is an object of row data. Each name-value pair in the object represents a column of the table that is populated with the value.
{ "LOOKUP_VALUE": { "FIELD_NAME" : "VALUE" } }
The lookup key must also be specified as the one of the name-value pairs.
The value for a name-value pair can be a string, a number, an array, or an object.

JSON template

{
  "items":
  [
    {
      "LOOKUP_VALUE":
      {
        "LOOKUP_FIELD" : "LOOKUP_VALUE",
        "FIELD_NAME1"  : "VALUE1",
        "FIELD_NAME2"  : "VALUE2",
        ...
      }
    },
    ...
  ]
}

Example JSON file

The following JSON file example shows an array of two items that contains product catalog information. In this case, the lookup key is the product_id.

{
  "items":
  [
    {
      "416":
      {
        "product_id"            : "416",
        "product_name"          : "Plaid Cotton Shirt",
        "product_img_url"       : "//product_416.img",
        "product_in_stock"      : "yes",
        "ready_to_ship"         : "yes",
        "eligbile_for_discount" : "yes",
        "product_type"          : ["clothing", "shirt"]
      }
    },
    {
      "417":
      {
        "product_id"            : "417",
        "product_name"          : "NoLita Cami",
        "product_img_url"       : "//product_417.img",
        "product_in_stock"      : "no",
        "ready_to_ship"         : "no",
        "eligbile_for_discount" : "yes",
        "product_type"          : ["clothing", "camisole"]
      }
    }
  ]
}

Enabling Data Connect

Tealium manages the creation of integrations, modifying integration templates for popular data sources and enabling you to start using features with fewer configuration steps.

Before you can get started with Data Connect, you need to do the following:

Configure PII permissions
Turn on Data Connect

After you turn on Data Connect for your profile, Data Connect is shown in the left navigation panel.

The following sections provide information on configuring PII permissions, enabling Data Connect, and configuring a Tealium Connect data source.

Configure PII permissions and enable Data Connect

Before configuring Data Connect data sources, you need to configure user permissions and enable Data Connect.

Use the following steps to configure PII permissions and turn on Data Connect:

On the server-side user menu, click Manage Users.
Toggle PII Permissions Enforcement to ON.
Do the following for each user that needs to manage Data Connect configuration.
Locate the user name in the list of users.
You may need to search for the user name.
Click the user name to view User Details, then click Next.
Select all four of the PII Permissions options, then click Save.
On the server-side user menu, click Server-Side Settings.
Click Data Connect, then toggle Enable iPaaS to ON.
Click Save, then click Save/Publish.