About connectors

How it works

A connector is an integration that transmits data between Tealium and another vendor in real-time. A connector offers actions that represent vendor-supported APIs. An action is triggered in real-time by an incoming event from a feed or a visitor joining or leaving an audience. An action sends data based on mappings that associate Tealium attributes to the expected vendor parameters.

Terminology

• Connector
  A connector represents the connection to your vendor account. This is configured using credentials such as an account ID, username and password, or an API key.
• Action
  An action is a vendor operation, such as triggering an email, building a custom audience, or managing leads. Actions vary depending on the vendor service. Multiple actions can be associated with a single connector.
• Frequency Cap
  A connector action performs in real-time, but some actions are designed to have a wait period before they are triggered. The frequency cap allows you to set a downtime period for actions so that they do not trigger immediately. Learn more about Frequency Capping and Prioritization
• Source
  Source indicates the origin of the data being acted upon. A source can be an audience or an event feed.

Consent categories

Each connector in the marketplace has one or more consent categories assigned for each available action. To view the consent category for a specific connector, click the Information icon next to the connector action.

AudienceStream is categorized in the CDP consent category and DataAccess is categorized in the Big Data consent category. For additional information about server-side consent, see Consent Preferences Manager.

Retries

If a connector action fails, it is retried three times at 1 minute, 5 minute, and 30 minute intervals. If the request is successful on any of the subsequent retry attempts, the request is reported as a success in the UI. If all three retries fail, the request is dropped and reported as an error in the UI.

A retry is attempted when any of the following error codes occur:

• 408 – Forbidden
• 429 – Too Many Requests
• 500 – Internal Server Error
• 502 – Bad Gateway
• 503 – Service Unavailable
• 504 – Gateway Timeout

A retry is not attempted when a Response Timeout - Vendor API did not respond within 5000 milliseconds response is received. The request payload was sent, but the vendor did not send a response within our allowed time of 5 seconds. The request may have succeeded on the vendor’s side, but because it took longer than 5 seconds to get a response, we treat it as a failure.

Overload protection

Connectors perform actions through multiple instances of a data handler. Sometimes, data handlers encounter transmission errors with vendors. If errors exceed a configured threshold, Tealium can pause or throttle data transmission to vendors until the error rate drops.

For example, if the overall rate of failure for an instance exceeds 40% per 100 attempts, that instance will pause processing actions for 1 minute. The instance then attempts to process half of the actions in the queue. If the failure rate for these 50 attempts remains above 20%, the instance pauses for another 60 seconds before trying again. Otherwise, the instance resumes full operation.

Tealium activates and adjusts the thresholds at the various levels as needed to ensure maximum success and performance for customers.

Restricted data

Restricted data settings do not apply to connectors. Attributes marked as restricted data are always included, whether you are sending them through mappings or as part of the visitor profile. This cannot be changed. Learn more about Restricted Data.

IP whitelists

If a connector you use has strict rules about which systems it accepts requests from, you can whitelist the IP addresses of the Customer Data Hub. The IP addresses that make connector requests can be found in the IP Addresses for Customer Data Hub.

Screen navigation

Overview screen

The connector overview screen summary displays the following metrics as columns:

• Total
  Total actions triggered. Click the Information (i) icon to display the timeline for the total in this column.
• Success
  Number of action successes.
• Error
  Number of action errors.
• Data Source (EventStream) or Audience (AudienceStream)
  Data source or audience associated with the connector.
• Feed (EventStream) or Trigger (AudienceStream)
  Name of the feed or trigger for the action.

Expand the Add Action menu to quickly access the Edit, Duplicate, Get Connector ID, or Remove features.

Deprecated connectors and actions

Connectors and actions can be deprecated, which means they may be unsupported or removed in the future. Deprecation typically occurs when a connector or an action has been replaced with a newer version or a new connector or action that should be used instead.

There are two types of deprecation, as follows:

• Functional Deprecation – The connector or action is deprecated, and may be removed in the future, but is still working.
• Full Deprecation – The connector or action is deprecated and no longer works. Actions for a fully deprecated connector are not executed.

When a connector or an action is deprecated, an icon is shown next to the connector or action in the connector list. When you hover over the icon, a message is displayed that specifies whether the deprecated connector or action still works.

Reporting chart for actions

The following sections describe how to view the reporting chart, view error details, and download error reports.

View the chart

When you click on a connector action, the chart displays the number of times the action executed each day. You can view the graph for a rolling day, week, or month. Successful actions are shown in gray and errors are shown in red. Click any part of the chart to view a summary of the data for that display.

View sampled errors

Use the following steps to view sampled errors for a connector:

1. Click an action for the connector you want to view.
2. From the connector summary, select Rolling Day, Rolling Week, or Rolling Month.
3. Below the graph, a list view of error messages is shown. Each entry in the list displays the error category, the number of sampled errors included in the report, a message with a description of the error, and the total number of occurrences of the error.
4. To view the details for an error, click the right arrow next to the category to expand.
   The detailed view includes a sample of the affected code with a timestamp containing the day of the week, the date, and the time.

Download sampled errors

Use the following steps to download sampled errors for a connector:

1. Click an action for the connector you want to view.
2. From the connector summary, select Rolling Day, Rolling Week, or Rolling Month.
3. Click Download Sampled Errors.
   A CSV file is saved to your default download location.
4. Open the CSV file to examine the details or share the file with others for further collaboration.