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Create a File Storage Activation Target
Create an activation target in Data 360 to publish segments and batch data model objects (DMOs) to external file storage activation platforms like Amazon S3, SFTP, Google Cloud Storage (GCS), or Microsoft Azure blob storage.
Required Editions
| Available in: All Editions supported by Data 360. See Data 360 edition availability. |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To create an activation target | One of these permission sets:
|
Prerequisites:
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As an admin, configure connection to your file storage target in Data 360. See, Data Target Configuration in Data 360.
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S3 (Legacy): Have your access key and secret key ready. Ensure the S3 credentials have these permissions: PutObject, GetObject, ListBucket, DeleteObject, and GetBucketLocation. It is recommended to enable Server-Side Encryption (SSE-S3). Learn more about enabling SSE-S3 encryption.
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Amazon S3: Provide Modify/Write permission for the folder or directory where the activated files reside.
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SFTP, GCS, Microsoft Azure: Provide Rename permission in the target system for the activated files and Modify/Write permission for the folder or directory where the activated files reside.
- Go to the Activation Targets tab and click New.
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In File Storage, choose your activation platform, and click
Next.
Note: A file storage target is present only if its respective target connection is set up. For more information, see Data Target Configuration in Data 360.
- Enter a unique name and an optional description.
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Configure your activation target platform-specific settings:
- S3 (Legacy)
- Enter the S3 bucket and folder details.
- Provide the S3 Access Key and Secret Key.
- Select the target file format.
- Select the data space you want to associate your activation target with and click Save.
- Amazon S3, SFTP, GCS, and Microsoft Azure Blob Storage
- Select the connector, the data space, and click Next.
- Parent Directory: Inherited from the target connection setup. It is mandatory to have a non-root parent directory. For more information, see Data Target Configuration in Data 360.
- Child Directory: The directory name is case-sensitive. For SFTP,
GCS, and Azure targets, the child directory you provide must
already exist in the target location, because Data 360 doesn’t
create a directory if it’s missing. For Amazon S3 targets, you can
enter any value for the child directory, and Data 360 creates the
folder during the activation process if it’s missing.
- Create a folder within child directory: If selected, activated files are added to a separate folder named <SegmentName_ActivationName>, else they remain in the child directory. The system automatically replaces folder names containing any character (except alphanumeric and underscore) with a hyphen (-). Folder names are limited to 200 characters if <SegmentName_ActivationName> exceeds 200 characters, with any additional characters automatically truncated.
- File Format: Select the activated file format and delimiter for CSV files.
- Compression Format: Select the compression format for the activated file. PGP encryption is supported only for CSV and JSON, but not Parquet.
- File Name Type: Choose Predetermined or Custom file name. For predetermined file names, any character (except alphanumeric and underscore) in SegmentName and ActivationName is replaced with a hyphen (-).
- Data/Time Suffix: Select the file name suffix format, it represents the segment refresh timestamp in UTC format. The timestamp ranges from a specific date to milliseconds of the day.
- Limit type: Activated data is automatically split into multiple
files when configured limits are reached, such as maximum records
per file (default: 100,000) or maximum file size (default: 500
MB).
For example,
- For an activation payload with 450,000 records and a 100,000 record limit, the payload is split into multiple files to ensure no single file exceeds 100,000 records.
- For an activation payload totalling 3 GB and a 500 MB limit, the payload is split into multiple files to ensure no single file exceeds the 500 MB size limit.
Note File splitting is non-deterministic, and the final number and size of output files may vary between runs based on data characteristics, file format, compression, encryption, and processing behavior.
- S3 (Legacy)
- Click Save.
Your activation target is created and these items are added to your file storage activation platform when the segment is activated:
- Data files that contain the segment members with additional attributes.
- For S3 (Legacy) targets, your data files are stored in a subfolder named
Salesforce-c360-Segmentswhich is automatically created when the first segment is activated.
- For S3 (Legacy) targets, your data files are stored in a subfolder named
- A segment metadata JSON file in the same directory as your activated data files.
- For Amazon S3 targets, this metadata JSON file serves as a confirmation that the write operation to your destination is complete and the data is ready for consumption.
- For SFTP, GCS, and Azure targets, the metadata file and the activated data files may arrive in any sequence. Hence, the presence of the metadata file doesn’t indicate that activation is complete.
The segment metadata JSON file includes:
- Segment ID and name
- Data space ID and name
- Record count
- Refresh ID and publish refresh type
- Attribute names and their corresponding data types
- If a field contains a comma or a new line character, the entire value is quoted. For example: value1,value2 → "value1,value2".
- If a field contains double quotes, each quote is escaped with a backslash (\). For example: "value1","value2" → "\"value1\",\"value2\""

