Tabular Data Schema

To ingest data via file upload or snowflake sources, you must follow the established schema so that the ingestion process is seamless.

By conforming your data to the proper schema, you will be able to bring your first-party data into your node which is the first step to start collaborating with your partners.

Formatting Your XLSX, CSV, TSV File or Table

Prior to uploading a XLSX CSV or TSV file or connecting to your Snowflake database, you must format your data using a predefined convention so your DCN can ingest it successfully. There are three column types that are processed: identifier, scope and trait. Each column type will require a specific header format to be properly processed.

Identifiers

There are 2 classes of identifiers: matchable and custom. For more information on what the values of each type could look like, head over to identifier types.

• The identifier column must match one of the following headers in order for your node to recognize the values.

Identifier	Header	Format (Value)
Email address	id_e	Raw email or pre-normalized (lowercase + space trimmed) and SHA256 hashed
Phone number	id_p	Raw phone or pre-normalized (E.164) and SHA256 hashed
IPv4 address	id_i4	Four period (.) separated octets, each of which contains a number from 0 to 255
IPv6 address	id_i6	Eight colon (:) separated segments, each of which contains 4 hexadecimal digits, lowercase
Apple IDFA	id_a	Down-cased alphanumeric value, including dashes if any
Google GAID	id_g	Down-cased alphanumeric value, including dashes if any
Roku RIDA	id_r	Down-cased alphanumeric value, including dashes if any
Samsung TV TIFA	id_s	Down-cased alphanumeric value, including dashes if any
Amazon Fire AFAI	id_f	Down-cased alphanumeric value, including dashes if any
NetID	id_n	Base64 web-safe encoded value with 70 characters (TPID)
Custom ID	id_c, id_c1, id_c2, id_c3, id_c4, id_c5, id_c6, id_c7, id_c8, id_c9	Free form text, case sensitive. Cannot be used for matching, for any subsequent ids, +1 at the end of the header name (from 1 to 9)
Optable VID	id_v	Alphanumeric string.
Identifier (catch-all)	id	Any type-prefixed ID. If we do not successfully detect a valid prefix (for example "e:", "i4:", "a:", etc.) for the identifier, we will attempt to auto-detect raw email addresses and phone numbers and automatically encode and type-prefix them at import time

Scope

• The scope column indicates either person or household scope. It defaults to person if unspecified.

• The scope is applied on the primary ID.

Traits

• All trait columns are prefixed with trait_ followed by the trait key name.

  • For example, columns named trait_age, trait_gender and trait_owns_house would map to traits age, gender and owns_house, respectively.

• All traits are associated to the primary identifier and not the neighbouring IDs

• Trait values are optional.

While a trait can be associated to a household-scoped identifier, the trait itself is scope-less. See Identity Resolution for more details.

Ingestion Rules

If header formatting conventions are followed and the DCN can properly ingest all profiles, there are a set of rules that will be applied upon ingestion:

• The first ID column is treated as the primary ID in the associated ID profile

• The value specified for the first ID column must be valid, otherwise the entire row is ignored

• Additional ID columns (if any) are treated as neighbouring IDs

  • Neighbouring identifiers are considered of scope "person". To change it to "household", insert a subsequent row with that identifier as primary ID and with the scope "household".

• The values specified for additional ID columns are optional. If no value is provided, that specific neighbour ID will be ignored but the remaining data specified in the row will still be ingested.

The DCN allows identifier columns to share the same name or include a suffix such as _suffix. For example, the following are identical to the DCN:

• id,id,id_e,id_e

• id,id_1,id_e,id_e_1

Tabular Data Schema Examples

In the following section, you can find examples of how your data should be structured with varying parameters:

Example 1: A simple list of emails

id_e
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

In the example above, 2 distinct person clusters will be created with their respective email identifiers.

Example 2: Two profiles with multiple emails and some traits.

id_e	id_e_1	trait_income	trait_ownscat
[e-mail]	[e-mail]	25000	yes
[e-mail]			no

In the example above, 2 distinct person clusters will be created but only the first will have 2 email identifiers.

Example 3: Two profiles with a neighbouring ID and some traits.

id_e	id_p	scope	trait_subscribed	trait_household_income
[e-mail]	555-555-5555	person	yes
[e-mail]		household	no	100000

In the example above, the email provided is the primary identifier and the phone number is a neighbouring ID within this profile. Any trait or scope definition is associated to the email.

Example 4: Four profiles with a mixture of ID types with multiple neighbours and traits.

id	id_p	trait_income	trait_age
i4:8.8.8.8	555-555-5555	50000	54
s:e0ef86a8-6ebf-4c9d-9127-e69407fe748d	[phone]	25000	24
f:6e853799-ef31-4a30-8706-9742be254d38		24000
i6:2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334	[phone]		56

In the example above, the primary identifier for a profile is the id column which allows for any type of ID. The email column is the neighbouring ID, the scope column and the traits columns are associated to the primary id.

There is a limit of 64 traits and 64 neighbours per identifier. Any record which exceeds those limits will be ignored. Note that the time to ingest the file will depend on the number rows, number of identifier columns and number of trait columns contained in the within.

Once the data has been formatted to the accepted convention, you will be able to proceed with your File Upload source setup or begin ingestion from your Snowflake database. When done, you can create an audience based off your source which can be used for Matching, Activation or to Export to a destination.

Errors

Upon initiating an ingestion, the DCN may reject the file or view due to one or more of the following errors:

1. Invalid Header(s)

All headers of CSV, TSV or XSLX files must be valid. Any invalid header will prevent the entire file from being ingested, and the last successfully ingested file (if any) will remain active.

Error	Description
Unrecognized header(s)	The header(s) do not follow Optable's convention and could not be recognized. All headers must be recognized. The unrecognized headers must be renamed to the accepted convention.
Could not find any valid ID header	No id or id_<type> header was found. The file must contain at least one id column, with either the id_<type> prefix or id as a catch-all column with type prefixes declared for each value.
Duplicate scope header(s)	There are at least two headers with the name scope. Only only scope column is supported.
Duplicate trait header(s)	There are at least two trait_ headers with the same name. Each trait_ header must have a unique suffix.
Empty header(s)	There is at least one header without any name. Headers with empty names (or only whitespace) are forbidden. You must name each column according to Optable's convention or discard it.
Trait header must start with "trait_" and must be followed by at least 1 character.	The trait header has no name - the prefix must be followed by any character to identify your trait. You must add at least 1 character after the prefix in order for your trait column to be recognized.

2. Row Validation

During file ingestion, if the file is a CSV, TSV or XSLX, your DCN validates the header first and if it passes validation, a schema is generated from it. Your DCN will check individual records & rows for errors that may cause an ingestion failure, there are three possible errors:

Error	Description
Line # has more (or less) columns than headers.	The number of columns does not match the number of defined headers. Typically this will be because of an extra field delimiter (, for CSV and tab for TSV).
Bare quotes found in unquoted field.	A " inside an unquoted field. Example: ...,to"[e-mail],..."
Extraneous or missing quote in quoted-field.	Either a " at the beginning or end of a field or an extra " inside a quoted field. Example 1: ...,"[e-mail],... Example 2: ...,[e-mail]",... Example 3: ...,"to"[e-mail]",...

3. Rejection Threshold

Your data is rejected if the DCN is unable to recognize more than 10% of the records within your data - nothing is ingested if this threshold is passed. The data must be formatted to ensure the accepted convention is followed.

The file will still be ingested as long as the error threshold is under 10%. If you want a lower threshold, you must fix rejected records and initiate ingestion again.

For example, if 5 records out of 10 have no identifier, the entire file will be rejected because the rejection rate is too high (50% - above the 10% threshold). The last successfully ingested file (if any) will remain active.

The same logic applies for any types of errors - the file will be rejected if more than 10% of them are invalid.