Creating a Profile Table

To create a database, Admin and Advanced users can go to the 'Manage DB structures' app (Catalog > Profiles > Manage DB structures)

Adding a table

You can see the list of all existing databases within your licence.
Click on the '+Add' button to create a new database.

Step 1: Parameters

A database consists of 3 parameters:

• Its name, which cannot include any symbol or space.
• Its description, for information purposes.
• The entity in which the database will be saved. It defines the users' rights.

Once all the parameters are encoded, click on the 'Next' button.

Step 2: Attributes

A database is made of attributes. To add an attribute, click on the '+' symbol then choose your preferred option.

Depending on your needs, you have the choice between:

1. Directly adding one or more predefined attributes
2. Creating an attribute according to your own definition

We advise you to always prefer a predefined attribute to the creation of another attribute. We invite you go to 'Using predefined attributes' to learn more about them.

Step 2a: Adding predefined attributes

The list of all the predefined attributes that you do not have selected yet will be displayed. Select the ones you want to include in the structure of your database.

As soon as you click on the 'Add' button, you will go back to the list of attributes selected for the creation of your database.

You will find 3 icons in the 'Properties' column:

• optional
• multi-valued
• unique

If the icon is light grey colored, the attribute does not have this property. On the other hand, a black icon means that the property is applied to the attribute.

Please make sure to correctly define the properties of your attributes before finalizing your database.

Step 2b: Creating a new attribute

You can create the specific attribute that you want.
Please make sure to check beforehand if the desired attribute does not exist among the Actito predefined attributes that you have not selected yet.

You will need to complete two steps. To learn more about them, we invite you to read the 'Adding an attribute to the profile table' chapter.

• Step 1: Parameters
• Step 2: Value type

If you wish to delete an attribute before validating the database, click the '-' icon at the right end of the line of the attribute. You will then have to confirm the deletion.

After adding all the necessary attributes, click on the 'next' button.

Step 3: Confirm

This last step allows you to confirm the creation of your database. Your database will be launched as soon as you click the 'Finish' button.

You will receive confirmation as soon as your database is created.

Click on the 'Back' button to return to the management page of the structure of your databases.

Modifying the structure of a profile table

After the creation of a profile database, the 'Manage DB structures' app allows you to edit the properties of existing attributes.

caution

Once created, the type of an attribute cannot be modified.

Add possible values

Select an attribute and click on the 'Add possible values' button to update the list of values allowed for this attribute.

When you add possible values, you will see the list of currently allowed values and you will be able to add new options.

tip

If there are no possible values yet on an attribute, 'adding possible values' means adding a value restriction to the attribute: before it could take any value, but after the operation only the possible values are allowed.

'Adding possible values' on a table that already contains profiles is only possible if the values for all the existing profiles match the restrictions being implemented.
You will see a (non-exhaustive) sample of existing values found in the DB.

Update the properties of an attribute

By clicking on the 'More' button after clicking on an attribute, you can update its properties.

Edit layout

This operation impacts the whole table and does not require you to select a field.

It allows you to create subsections in the view of your profile table, as explained here.

Add shared data

By selecting 'Add shared data', you can extend an existing attribute with data from a repository table, just like you can do when you create a new attribute.

Rename

This allows you to update the display name and the description of the attribute.

info

The technical name of an attribute cannot be modified, as it is used in many processes (synchronizations, personalizations...)

Make (not) unique

You can update the unicity of a field and make it into a key, which can then be used to match profiles.

info

Modifying the unicity of a field is not a trivial matter. It can impact your synchronizations and the matching of your profile data. In case of doubt, please consult the Actito team.

Making a field unique is not possible if there are duplicate values in the existing profiles: make sure to deduplicate your DB before the operation.

Only non-unique fields can be made unique and only uniques keys can be made non-unique.

caution

For data integrity reasons, is not possible to make a field unique if there are more than 100 000 existing profiles in your DB.

Make (not) mandatory

You can make an optional field mandatory, and the other way round.

Making a field mandatory is only possible if all existing profiles have a value for this field.

tip

Making a field mandatory can have impacts on your synchronizations: make sure that the information is always provided in your data flows before doing the operation, or some lines might get rejected.

Make business key

Your Actito databases can hold multiple unique keys. While this is usually not recommended, this can be useful if you have data coming from multiple sources.

Defining a unique attribute as 'business key' makes it the primary key of your database. It does not take precedence in synchronizations and all keys can still be used to import data. But the business key is automatically included in all incremental data exports and webhooks pushes.

It therefore the main id of all the data you get out of Actito.

caution

After defining an attribute as business key, it is not possible to change it through any means. Please consider this carefully before undertaking this operation.

Remove

Removing an attribute deletes it permanently and removes all the data stored in this field for all profiles of the DB.

caution

Removing a attribute can break processes where it is used in their definition, such as:

• targetings
• personalizations
• synchronizations

Re creating a new attribute with the same technical name will not replace it in these processes, which will need to be corrected.
Please proceed with caution before deleting any attribute.