Getting Started: Introducing the Data Designer

Owned by Parker Hutcheson (Deactivated), created
Sept 19, 2023
3 min read

The Data Designer is Symend’s tool for the ingest of your data into the Symend Platform and the egress of your data to the engagement of your customers and to your internal systems. The Data Designer allows you to ingest business data to feed tools like Segmentation, Personalization, and more. Your system administrator users can configure exports to deliver Symend-generated engagement data to your own internal systems.

A consistent and unimpeded flow of your business data into the Platform enables you to create and update the data exchange automation to include:

  • The correct segmentation and entry of customers into Playbooks and Campaigns

  • Personalization of messaging in emails, SMS, and landing pages

  • The ongoing update of customers currently engaged by a Symend Playbook

  • Creation of new customers via the Customer Service

  • The correct filtration, transformation, and management of customers in the Platform via business logic configured by the Customer Service

Table of Contents

How is the Data Designer used?

This guide will help you understand the capabilities and configurations enabled by the Data Designer, with a focus on helping you get started in configuring your own organization.

The Data Designer has many capabilities.

 Sending and Receiving Data

 Sending and Receiving Data

 

Description

Option

 

Allowing for the regular transfer of data to-and-from the Symend Platform.

  • SFTP Configuration

  • Encryption and Decryption

  • Compression and Decompression

 

Data Ingestion

Data Ingestion

 

Description

Options

 

Enabling the ingestion of your business data (customer information, accounts, communication data, etc.) into the Symend Platform.

  • Creating file sources

  • Creating custom Attributes

  • Mapping business data to Symend Attributes

 

Activating an ingest mapping, making edits and ongoing management of your data ingestion (by the Data Designer).

  • Creating file sources

  • Creating custom attributes

  • Mapping business data to Symend Attributes

The main thing you should focus on first is ensuring that your data will be mapped correctly into the application (data ingestion). For more information on this topic refer to the Getting Started with Creating a Data Mapping article.

 

Data Egress

 

Description

Options

 

Design an export to deliver Symend engagement data to your business systems.

  • Creating a new export

  • Selecting the contents

  • Transforming the contents to map to your business data needs

 

Schedule your export for regular delivery.

  • Selecting an export cadence

  • Configuring the file format

  • Selecting a delivery method

Where to start?

To get started configuring the Data Designer, we recommend that you be prepared with the following information:

Data Designer

Data Designer

Topic

Description

Custom Unique Identifier

Your customers will need to be uniquely identified in all files sent to Symend. We recommend Users have a clear understanding of how customers will be uniquely identified in their files prior to configuring their ingestion.

Understanding of Business Data Fields

The Data Designer should have a good understanding of your organization's business data, the names of the fields, and the what fields will be available for ingest with each file.

Ideally, you should have an understanding of what data you wish to pass to the Platform for ongoing engagement.

Understanding of files being transferred to Symend

Symend’s data ingestion can handle customer updates across multiple files provided throughout the day. We ask that your Data Designer user have an understanding of how many files will be provided to Symend during ingest to completely update all data fields.

You should also know how each file will be identified (name, date-stamp, delimiter).

Using the Data Designer

You will need to understand how to configure the Data Designer to ingest business data into the Platform for use in Playbooks, Segmentation, and Personalization. This process includes:

  • Creating your first Mapping

  • Describing the Fields from your Data Source

  • Describing the Files that will make up your Data Source

  • Setting a Unique Identifier

  • Mapping into the Symend Customer Data Model for your Client Organization

  • Activating and managing your Mappings

When you’re ready to get started with the Data Designer you’ll be able to navigate to the tool:

  • Click Settings from the navigation menu

  • Select Data Automation

  • This will bring you to the main screen of the Data Designer, where you’ll be able to create a New Mapping or manage existing mappings.

  • Click the "New Mapping" button to create a new data mapping.