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Create an Activation for File Storage Target
After you create a segment in Data 360, you can publish the segment to an activation target.
Required Editions
| Available in: All Editions supported by Data 360. See Data 360 edition availability. |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To create an activation | One of these permission sets:
|
- Segments with over 10 million records and related attributes won't activate. This limit doesn't apply to segments with only direct attributes.
- You can have a maximum of 1000 activations that use related attributes.
Initiate Activation
- In Data 360, click Segments.
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Select the segment you need to activate.
The segment size is checked at the time of an activation. The time it takes to activate a segment varies on the segment size and the data in related attributes.
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In Activations, click New.
You can also create an activation on the Activations tab in Data Cloud.
- Select a file storage activation target (Amazon S3, SFTP, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage).
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Select an object from Activation Membership, and click
Continue.
Tip Use Activation Membership to add fields from different DMOs than your segment is built on to send to your activation target. For example, a Loyalty Cloud user creates a segment of top-tier customers from the Individual object so they can target their customers with a special promotion. In Loyalty Cloud though, each customer is identified by their Loyalty Program Member Id. So when creating an activation, the Loyalty Cloud user can add the Loyalty Program Member Id field to the segment by selecting the Loyalty Program Member DMO in Activation Membership. Now Loyalty Cloud can identify segment members by their Loyalty Member Program Id to target with the Loyalty Cloud promotion. -
Select your contact points.
Selecting contact points is optional for S3, SFTP, Google Cloud Storage, and Microsoft Azure activations. The order of attributes in the activation doesn’t match the order in the CSV file output.
- When contact points are mapped, select an existing path or click Edit to add, reorder, or delete sources and change source types and priority for each contact point.
- Click Next.
Configure Activation Attributes
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To activate more attributes, click Add Attributes.
You can add up to 100 additional attributes to your activation.
- Direct Attribute—Attributes of the Activation Membership DMO.
- Related Attribute—Attributes from any object in the DMO if a path to that object from the Activated On object exists and all the relationships along that path are either 1:1 or N:1.
- Calculated Insights—Add your Calculated Insights metrics to the activation, and apply dimension filters for more granular insights.
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Drag additional attributes to the canvas. If you select different columns with
similar information, all the unique combinations are added to the output.
To provide a unique attribute name in the output file, click the edit icon.
When activating additional attributes, primary or foreign key fields aren’t available as an option because they aren’t exposed for activation. To see primary or foreign key fields during activation, create a formula field that copies those fields. The formula field is included as an additional attribute for activation. In the lakehouse, number data type fields are stored as decimals, not integers. Therefore in activation, the fields appear as decimals, except for primary keys.
- Save your changes.
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For SFTP, Google Cloud Storage, and Microsoft Azure activation targets, you can remove
the default attribute that's included automatically based on the Activation Membership
object chosen during activation creation.
When activating to file storage targets like Amazon S3, SFTP, GCS, or Azure,
- Use the column headers to identify and match the corresponding column data at the
destination. If an activation is run multiple times, the order of attributes or columns
in the activated file is consistent.
Note For activations created prior to January 2026, you must edit and save your activation to ensure its future runs have consistent order of attributes or columns. - If you edit an activation, the order of attributes or columns is reset in the activated file. However, the subsequent runs will have the same order of attributes or columns.
- The Update Action field in the activation file in your file storage target corresponds to the Delta Type field in the Audience DMO Schema Attributes. Additionally, a Version field is added to the activation file by default, but it can be ignored.
- Use the column headers to identify and match the corresponding column data at the
destination. If an activation is run multiple times, the order of attributes or columns
in the activated file is consistent.
(Optional) Refine the Audience
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To include campaign-specific data, expand Campaign Data, and click Add
Data.
You can include details such as campaign ID and description, target audience characteristics, products flagged for promotions, and geographic distribution. You can add up to 20 unique name-value pairs. Each campaign attribute forms a new column in the activated payload and the data extension in Marketing Cloud Engagement.
- You can modify or remove campaign attributes when editing an activation. To remove all campaign attributes, choose the Remove All option from the Add Data dropdown menu.
You can also manage campaign-specific data through the Activation Connect APIs. -
Expand Provisional Audience Limiting, then click Rank
Attributes to use the same audience for multiple fixed-size campaigns across
different channels with varying budgets.
- Drag up to three attributes to the canvas in your preferred hierarchy for ranking. You can rearrange the attributes by dragging them up or down.
- Select the sorting order (ascending or descending) for each attribute and the attribute path, then click Save.
- To remove an attribute, select the dropdown menu, then click Remove Attribute.
For ranking attributes, you can include direct attributes and calculated insights. - To limit the audience for this activation, enter a number from 1–10,000. The audience is selected randomly. If you’ve ranked attributes, the audience is prioritized based on the ranking. To extend the audience limit to a maximum of 1 million, contact Salesforce Customer Support.
- Click Next.
Save the Activation
- Enter a name and description for your activation.
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Choose a refresh type for the segment publish.
A full refresh publishes all records in the segment. An incremental refresh publishes only the added, updated, and deleted records since the last successful refresh. You can exclude modified or deleted records from the payload if they’re not needed.
- Click Save.
Your segment publishes on the next publish scheduled for the selected activation target.
- File Name Examples for File Storage Activation
Based on the values configured for the fields of your activation target (Amazon S3, SFTP, GCS, Azure), here are some examples of file names for Data 360 external activations.
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