Creating and populating the translation table

A translation table is required to support the IBM Digital Analytics and Unica Campaign integration. The translation table is typically created and populated by IBM Consulting, an IBM Business Partner, or the customer IT team as an initial step in configuring the integration.

About this task

A translation table typically consists of two columns: One for the online key (registrationid) from IBM Digital Analytics, and one for the corresponding offline key (audience ID) that is used by Unica Campaign. You must create the table and then populate it.

Procedure

  1. Create a translation table that adheres to the following guidelines:
    The table must be configured on the user data source (typically an Enterprise Data Warehouse or datamart) that will provide selections to Unica Campaign.
    The data source must allow table creation permission for the user, because Unica Campaign needs to create a temporary table on the data source at run-time, to hold the list of IDs that meet the segment definition.
    The first column must be called registrationid:
    • You must use this exact name.
    • This field holds the IBM Digital Analytics RegistrationID (online key).
    • The data type must be the same data type defined for the registrationID in IBM Digital Analytics. For example, they must both be VARCHAR.
    • The size of this field depends on what you are using for the registrationID. For example, if the registrationID includes the email address, 256 is a reasonable size.
    The second column holds the primary audience level ID (offline key) for Unica Campaign:
    • Use the audience name that is defined in Unica Campaign.
    • The audience ID and its data type are determined by the customer whose system is being integrated. For example, it might be CustomerID or AccountID, and the data type might be BIGINT.
    The table can include only one audience, but the audience can consist of multiple fields (columns):
    • For performance and storage reasons, best practice is to use single-key audiences.
    • If the primary audience consists of multiple physical keys (compound keys), the translation table must contain a column for each audience key plus a column for registrationID. For example, if your primary audience consists of the keys CustomerID and AccountID, then the translation table must include three columns: registrationid, CustomerID, AccountID. This requirement pertains only if you are mapping for a compound audience.
  2. Populate the translation table. For guidelines, see Translation table data sources.

    The method for populating the translation table depends on each customer's requirements and configuration:

    • Determine a common logic to identify which IBM Digital Analytics registration ID matches which Unica Campaign audience ID.
    • After an initial complete load of the translation table with the registrationid from IBM Digital Analytics and the audience information from the customer data, deltas can be loaded into the translation table based on a predefined schedule. This is customer-specific and varies per implementation.
      Important: If the translation table does not contain "registrationid to CustomerID" mapping information, then that particular record will be dropped from the selection during the flowchart run. Therefore, to avoid data loss, it is important to keep this table up-to-date.

What to do next

Perform the additional required steps to configure the integration. For example, you must map the translation table in Unica Campaign. For a complete list of steps, see Integrating IBM Digital Analytics and Unica Campaign.