Best practice to handle data in CJA

[arpan-garg]

Hi Community Members,

I have a question about managing data in Customer Journey Analytics (CJA). Our client is planning to use CJA for analysis in the future. Currently, the setup involves sending all event data to a dataset in Adobe Experience Platform (AEP), which is then connected to CJA for reporting purposes.

Now, we’re considering applying a Time-to-Live (TTL) policy to this dataset (6 months). With TTL in place, data older than 6 months would be deleted from the dataset. My question is: If the data is deleted from the AEP dataset, will it also be deleted from CJA? or Will CJA pull in the data from data lake and not profile store?

Additionally, what are the best practices for handling this situation? The requirement is for CJA to retain all historical data, while the profile in AEP should only maintain data from the last 6 months.

One potential solution we’ve identified is to duplicate the data by creating two datasets:

1. One dataset enabled for profiles (with a 6-month TTL).
2. Another dataset not enabled for profiles (used exclusively for CJA and without a TTL).

In this setup, data would be ingested into both datasets separately. Is this approach recommended, or are there better alternatives?

Looking forward to your insights!

[FarazHusain]

Hey @arpan-garg AFAIK, If data is deleted from an AEP dataset (e.g., due to a TTL rule or manual deletion), it is also removed from the Data Lake. Consequently, this deleted data will no longer be available for CJA, as CJA depends on the Data Lake for its data. Connection is based on the dataset, so if the dataset is deleted, it will impact CJA data flow.

I think using two separate datasets shouldn't be the problem, but you can check this with Adobe Support as well. 

[arpan-garg]

Hi @FarazHusain  - This is where the confusion is , if you see the document https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-platform/profile/event-expirations#:~:text=Aut...

Its mentioned that event expiration deletes data from profile store. I am still not sure that whether data from data lake will also be deleted or not.

I believe CJA is linked to data lake and not to profile store. Can you please correct me?

[FarazHusain]

Hey @arpan-garg, Yes, even my understanding is that CJA does not directly pull data from the Profile Store.
CJA retrieves data from the Data Lake in AEP. This means CJA is independent of profile TTL rules, as long as the data exists in the Data Lake. 

I was checking this internally as well and found TTL currently applies ONLY for Experience Event on the Profile Store, not the lake; CJA is linked to the lake. But I think you should get this double-checked by the CJA Support team just to be on the safer side.