Data Sources

Data Schema

Click Data Schema to view the schema. The following screen is displayed:

In this tab, you can do the following:

• Edit a field name.
• Check the Hide box against any fields that you want to hide. Hidden fields do not appear under View Data and cannot be used in any communication using this data source.
• Click the Data standard option to see a dropdown that allows you to select a locale. This setting determines how the data is interpreted, specifically the formatting of date/time and numeric values. See Formatting variables for more information.
• Check the Include in Reporting CSV option against all fields that you want to appear in the Reporting CSV file (see Reporting). Any fields without this box checked will not be included in the Reporting CSV file. Note that you should not check this box for hidden fields. See below for a list of points to consider when including a field for reporting.

When selecting a field for inclusion in the Reporting CSV file, note the following:

Local File

The following types of file are supported: CSV, JSON, XLS, XLSX or XML.

CSV files

If you import data from a CSV file:

• The first row must be the field names, separated by commas. All spaces are replaced by underscores.
• Each record must be on a separate line within the file.

If the imported CSV file has blank columns, Communicate will automatically remove them and close up the gaps. For example, the following CSV file has blank columns (denoted by adjacent commas in the first row):

name,surname,,,country,,,testcolumn,,,
Joe,Bloggs,test1,test2,test3,test4
Jane,Smith,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19

This CSV file would be tidied up on input to look like this:

Id,name,surname,country,testcolumn
0d789cef-99xy,Jane,Smith,3,6
0c5678ab-88ab,Joe,Bloggs,test3,none

JSON files

[
{
	"firstname": "John",
	"lastname": "Smith",
	"email": "john.smith@mycompany.com",
	"order_number": "5555",
	"delivery_address": [
			"Appartment 234",
			"High Road North",
			"Some Town"
	],	
	"order_items": [
		{
			"description":"Complete Puppy Food",
			"price":"3.49",
			"qty":"2",
			"total":"6.98"
		},
		{
			"description":"Chunky Dog Treats",
			"price":"0.99",
			"qty":"5",
			"total":"4.95"
		}
	],
	"subtotal": "27.55",
	"salestax": "6.88",
	"total": "34.43",
	"est_del_date":"September 12 2019"
}
]

Spectrum

To retrieve up-to-date information from third-party sources for your communications, use EngageOne™ Communicate's connection with Spectrum OnDemand. For more information, see Spectrum OnDemand.

Enter your Spectrum OnDemand credentials, then click Connect to view the datasets.

Compose

The EngageOne™ Compose datasource functionality allows you to use the same data with a Compose and Communicate template.

Before you can use Compose templates in Communicate:

1. Your Communicate team must be integrated with Compose. This can be enabled by contacting Support. If your team is not integrated, Compose related functions will not be displayed.
2. You must have published some Compose assets to Communicate. For details of how to do this, see EngageOne™ Compose/Communicate: Integrated Features User's Guide.

To specify a Compose template as a data source, click Compose, select the appropriate template from the dropdown list, then click Add Data Source.

Using Data Sources for Video communications

For video communications, Data Sources can have a flat data structure or a nested data structure.

This example shows a flat data structure:

{
 var1: 1,
 var2: 2
}

This example shows a nested data structure:

{
 node1: {
 var1: 1,
 var2: 2
 }
}

Downloading Data Sources

There may be occasions when you need to download a data source from EngageOne™Communicate to a file. To do this, on the Data Sources screen, click the download button () on the right of the screen against the appropriate data source.

EngageOne™Communicate will create and download a file of a type that depends on the original data source (the type of file that was imported). The rules are as follows: