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Data Extensions in Contact Builder
Data extensions in Contact Builder form the basis of contact information in Marketing Cloud Engagement. By creating and linking data extensions, you can access information about contacts and use that information to segment, filter, and target contacts with relevant sends. You can also use this data to target contacts across multiple channels, such as email, social, and mobile messaging. Finally, you can use data extensions to hold information imported from external sources and use that information as part of your segmenting, filtering, and targeting activities.
Data extensions represent tables containing attributes and related values pertaining to Contact Builder. Data extensions contain either information entered manually or imported through an import definition. Attributes and values contain specific contact record information or related information, such as sales or shipping information. Each data extension contains this information:
- Name - used to identify the data extension within the system
- External Key - used to identify the data extension within API calls
- Description - used to identify the type and purpose of information contained within the data extension
- A collection of attributes, each with these properties:
- Name - used to identify the data values contained in the attribute
- Data type - type of data included in the attribute, such as text, numerical, or Boolean
- Length - number of characters allowed for that attribute
You can designate a single attribute as a primary key, or a unique value used within a data extension. Use this value to identify a contact, such as an email address or a mobile number. You can also use fields such as Product_ID for a product lookup table or ZipCode for a region lookup table. Set up the primary key value when you create the data extension. You can also indicate whether an attribute can contain a default value or a required value. Finally, you can indicate whether the attribute contains a range of values or whether that attribute can’t contain certain values.
You can establish relationships between data extensions to provide flexible and powerful access to contact data. An attribute in one data extension links to another attribute on another data extension with a specified cardinality. Review the Data Designer documentation for more information.
The Data Extension Grid
The data extension grid in the Contact Builder app displays all data extensions contained within an account. To review information specific to a data extension, select an individual data extension. Display columns are configurable in the grid by clicking the icon in the upper right corner.
Data Retention
You can determine the length of time you keep data in a data extension using a data retention policy. Data extensions with a data retention policy delete information older than a given date from the data extension. Each account uses a default period of 6 months for data retention, and you can modify that value. Data retention helps you use the most recent and valid data for your sends and can speed up sending because less data is used.
Contact your account executive regarding the data retention feature for your account.
Data Extension Contents
Each data extension displays this information.
- Properties Tab
- Name—used to identify the data extension within the system
- Description—used to identify the type and purpose of information contained within the data extension
- External Key—used to identify the data extension within API calls
- Created—date on which the data extension was created
- Last Modified—date on which an account user saved the most recent change to the data extension
- Location—place in the account at which the data extension resides
- Type—indicates the type of data stored in the data extension
- Data Retention
- Period—the amount of time after which the application deletes unmodified data
- Fixed Date—the date after which the application deletes unmodified data
- Data Records—the number of records contained within the data extension, displayed as rows in a table
- Attributes—indicates the types of data contained within the data extension, displayed as columns in a table
- Name—name of the attribute
- Data Type—icon indicating the type of data contained by the attribute, such as text or numeric
- Default Value—indicates the value contained by an attribute without a specified value
- Length—indicates the maximum number of characters contained within a single value
- Required—indicates whether the attribute permits a blank value
- Records Tab
- All attributes within the data extension
- All listed values for each record in the data extension
- Manage Data Extensions
In Marketing Cloud Engagement, a data extension is a table that contains data that you provide. Use data extensions to hold customer data, track loyalty points, collect tracking and usage data, and any other use case that requires you to store information in a table. - Manage Data Extension Records
A record is a row of data in a data extension. You can use Contact Builder to create, edit, remove, or restore data extension records. - Manage Data Extension Policies
Follow these steps to manage policies for data extensions in Contact Builder. Data extension policies govern which users and processes can modify or delete a data extension, including attributes and information. Only administrators can make changes. - Enable and Modify Data Extension Retention Policies
Manage data retention policies for data extensions in Contact Builder. Use these policies to manage high-volume temporary data, comply with data retention policies, and maintain clean customer profiles by removing outdated data. - Importing to a Data Extension
To use updated data across channels in Marketing Cloud Engagement, perform imports on a data extension from Contact Builder. - Create an Email Send Logging Data Extension
Follow these steps to create an email send logging data extension in Contact Builder. - Create an SMS Send Logging Data Extension
Follow these steps to create an SMS send logging data extension in Contact Builder. - Data Extensions for Data 360
The Data 360 activation workflow creates audiences in Marketing Cloud Engagement as Sendable Data Extensions.
