[Mentor Abhinav Balooni] Adobe Real-Time CDP Community Mentorship Program 2024

[NimashaJain]

Hello Team,

Welcome to the Adobe Real-Time CDP Community Mentorship Program 2024! This is the featured Community Discussion/Contextual thread for your Adobe Real-Time CDP Community Mentor, Abhinav Balooni!

Abhinav will be your dedicated mentor, providing valuable support and guidance on your Adobe Real-Time CDP queries as you upskill yourself and prepare for Real-Time CDP certification throughout the program.

Know your Mentor Abhinav Balooni (aka @abhinavbalooni   )

Abhinav is a martech industry leader with more than a decade of experience across the entire Adobe stack, He is certified on all the Adobe tools and an Adobe SME for RT-CDP too. He is keen to grow mutually by exchange of ideas during the program. 

He is excited to add value to the program by enabling his peers to get certified in RT-CDP.

Aspirants mapped to Abhinav Balooni

1) Shashi Chennachar aka @shashi_c23 

2) Abhishek Agarwal aka @AbhishekAg2 

3) Carlos Rojas aka @crojasm 

4) Navin Agarwalla aka @nagarwalla 

5) Ashish Gandhi aka @ag0531 

6) Martin Liu aka @pengfeil3410424 

7) Jeeva Ravi aka @JeevaRavi 

Shruti Kulkarni  aka @shrutikulkarni 

9) Emmylou Jordan aka @emjordan 

10) Young Min Lee aka @yabc7 

11) Kartikay Sharma aka @kartikays313099 

How to participate in the program

• Post your Questions in this thread to connect with your Mentor, Abhinav Balooni, and fellow Aspirant peers.
• Stand a chance to win the ‘Most Engaging Aspirant’ recognition from your mentor by participating in a weekly quiz.
• Test your knowledge by replying to the unresolved questions in the Real-Time CDP and AEP community and tag your Mentor to get recognized as an ‘Exceptional Contributor’ by your mentor.
• Stick to the schedule to cover one module/week and clear Adobe Real-Time CDP Certification during the program: July 15 – Aug 30

Suggested Next Steps for Aspirants:

• Update your Community Profile photo with your latest headshot to stand out to your Mentor and Peer Aspirants.
• "Like" this thread to confirm your participation in the program.
• Introduce yourself to Abhinav Balooni and your Aspirant peers by Replying to this Thread! Break the ice by introducing yourself (location, org/ company, etc.) and your experience with/ interest in Adobe DX stack. 
• Post your Questions to this thread as you begin learning more about the Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform Developer Expert certification (Exam ID: AD0-E605)
• Stick to schedule and ensure you track your progress in the exam prep guide.
• Test your learning by replying to weekly quiz by your mentor
• Practice the modules by replying to unresolved queries in the AEP community & RTCDP Community and tag your mentor. 

Remember that every post / like / comment you make in your contextual thread and the Real-time CDP Community throughout the program helps increase your chance to be recognized by your Mentor and win exclusive Adobe swag, so bring your best efforts!

We wish you all the best as you embark on this learning experience!

[abhinavbalooni]

Thanks @NimashaJain for mapping the aspirants for so many mentors !

Hi All,

This is Abhinav, currently working as a Principal Architect with Anchora, based out of Sydney. 

I am certified as a RT-CDP developer and a Business Practitioner and I have also been part of the team helping set questions for the certification.

Looking forward to connecting with each one of you. Let's get everyone in this thread certified as a developer !

Cheers,

Abhinav

[ag0531]

Nice to connect with you, @abhinavbalooni. Looking forward to learn and evolve. Thanks @NimashaJain for the initiative.

My name is Ashish Gandhi. I am working as Adobe Multi Solution Architect and based out of Toronto, Canada.

Let me break the ice with a question. I have a sandbox access and I have started practicing hands-on on AEP/AJO by following the reference videos on SPP. Do you have a recommendation or suggestions how to go about the learning journey from scratch to reach the certification level and eventually be job ready?

Looking forward to hearing from you. Cheers! 

[abhinavbalooni]

@ag0531 Hey Ashish ! Nice to e-meet you.

I would suggest starting with  exam prep guide.that @NimashaJain shared above. It has a very structured approach to each topic module wise ! This is a great resource for all the aspirants and was rolled out a couple of months ago.

Have a look and feel free to come back with any further queries.

Cheers,

Abhinav

[Crojasm77]

Hi @NimashaJain ,

Thank you so much for the initiative. I'm excited and glad to get this opportunity.

Hi @abhinavbalooni 

Nice to connect with you as a mentor and with the team.

This is Carlos. I have been working as an Adobe Senior Data Architect for the ACS Latam team since October 2021, based in Santiago, Chile.

I have worked on projects in both Latam and the US, not only as a Data Architect but also as an RTCP consultant and AJO consultant. This experience has given me a good understanding of AEP and its components.

In terms of experience with the Adobe stack, I am confident with ACC and ACS, thanks to various projects I have participated in. These experiences have pointed me toward growth and thinking in a multisolution role.

I've been interested in obtaining the RTCDP developer certification for a few months, so this program you provide is a great opportunity for me to get prepared and achieve it.

I will start going through the exam prep guide as you suggested. Looking forward to working with you.

Best regards, Carlos

[shrutikulkarni]

Thanks @NimashaJain.
Pleasure connecting with you @abhinavbalooni. 

I am Shruti Kulkarni, a Adobe Multi Solution Architect, based out of Toronto, Canada.

I have been working as an AEP & Data Architect for the past year and towards implementing journeys with RTCDP, CJA & AJO. My experience has been in Marketing Analytics and Customer Data Platforms. 
I have come across a lot of questions through the process as the product evolves. Hoping to have some nice exchange of thoughts with you and the community. 

I am interested in getting the RTCDP developer certification and will go through the exam prep guide as you suggested earlier as well. 
Looking forward to connecting more. 

Cheers,

Shruti

[abhinavbalooni]

It's amazing to see that almost everyone out here who has commented on the thread is already exposed to AEP as a platform.

With your kind of experience, it should be relatively easier to clear the certification  

Also, I will be posting a relatively easy weekly quiz tomorrow just to gauge the familiarity with the platform and then from next week we start module wise quizzes and doubts.

If you have already started looking at the documentation, feel free to post your queries in here and I will be glad to answer.

Cheers,

Abhinav

[abhinavbalooni]

@shashi_c23 @AbhishekAg2 @nagarwalla @pengfeil3410424 @JeevaRavi @emjordan @yabc7 @kartikays313099 Hey guys ! Hope you are well ! 

Feel free to introduce yourselves so that we can get started with the learning from your end too.

Cheers,

Abhinav

[shashi_c23]

Hi @abhinavbalooni  @NimashaJain and others,

I'm a Multi Solution Architect & Hands-On Developer based out of Detroit USA. Being a SME on AEM and Java, engaged in solving use cases on RTCDP and AJO platform. That's me in a nutshell.

This is a great initiative and opportunity to sharpen up the skills and deliver the best to solve the real world challenges.

Quick Question, Are you planning for a meeting dedicate for this audience  monthly/quarterly? Also could you please engage me on AJO as well if we have any such enrollments going on.

[emjordan]

Hi all!

I'm Emmylou (you can call me Emmy). I've been working in data development and analysis for 5 years now. My specialty is in statistics, but now I work with everything on Hanesbrands' global websites that has to do with data. That encompasses: data layer development, tag management, data architecture, consumer journey analysis, AB testing, and reporting. 

I just completed our AEP implementation in December of 2023 and I'm really eager to learn more about scaling our activations. I probably have the least experience with actual use of the RTCDP, but I'm a quick and excited learner!

[abhinavbalooni]

Hi All,

RTCDP MP 24 | Weekly Quiz | Quiz 1

Here’s a quiz to get started ! This is more of a mixed one just to check all the topics at a macro level. Feel free to answer with a comment.

1. What two ways can we set identities while implementing web sdk ? Is there any advantage to using one over the other ?
2. I have some additional product related metadata from my backend systems that I want to use to enrich the purchase behavior data coming in from my website. How do I go about achieving it ?
3. We have some CRM data like address, name etc about customers that we would like to onboard, what class would we use to build a schema for this scenario ?
4. There are different sources of information to bring in a customer’s marital status. Source 1 mentions ‘Single’ for customer A and Source 2 mentions ‘Married’ for customer A. What are the possible ways we can resolve this conflict?
5. I have different batches of data feeding into a dataset during the day from different CRM tables. I observe, later during the day that my profile information that was showing up after the first load, is no more appearing for the profile after a couple of more dataflows which ran during the day. What might be causing this issue? How can we resolve it ?
6. I have created an audience but I am not able to activate that audience to a Meta destination. What might be the possible reason for it ?
7. What kind of audiences would help me achieve same page and next page personalisation?

Above are a few mix of questions around different aspects of RT-CDP/AEP which should get us started.

Let me know your responses in the comments below.

Cheers,

Abhinav

[shashi_c23]

1. Not explored much. 

2. Look up Schema with non person identities And Use audience composition feature the enrich and build audiences.

3. Its a class so XDM individual profile

4. By defining a merge policy (Time based?)

5. Dataset deleted OR data is over-ridden? Trouble shoot using a query on dataset?

6. Troubleshoot Destination configurations (could be authentication error)

7. Ofcourse, Edge Type audiences.

[shrutikulkarni]

1.  - One of the ways is to use the AEP XDM schema mapping. The AEP schema comes with Identity map that will have the Identities in the schema. In Data collection, data elements can be mapped to these identity namespaces. WebSDK automatically feeds the IDs into the AEP datastream. Haven't explored the other API based option. 
2. - Purchase related events from a website bring in some product data with the standard productListItems data type. To enrich more product detail fields, a new schema (to build a schema relationship with lookups) can be created. This schema can be of a third type 'Other' and have custom Product Class based field group. This can include fields from catalog, category, price, SKU, markdown date etc.

3. - For the mentioned customer attributes - XDM Individual Profile class

4. - Leverage Merge policy methods to utilize which dataset will have have to be prioritized for the conflict in the customer's status attribute. Merging can either be based on Dataset Precedence or based on the Timestamp order. This will be determined based on understanding the source of data - is one updated after the other in the business process, or is there a delayed update from one source, or is one more reliable over the other.
5. - This could be due to a few reasons like data getting overwritten, mismatched identities for the same customer, data expiration rule if set. To resolve, the dataflows have to be reviewed for merge/append, any filters used, matching identities and troubleshoot the profile.
6. - Check the Destination Configuration in AEP for issues in auth, Check Meta's Audience Ad Targeting Guidelines (to define the audience), Audience size for Meta Ads has minimum 2million and max limit of 10 million, so the audience has to be in the criteria, Also check if all necessary attributes are mapped between AEP audience and Meta fields.
7. - Edge audiences (for activation to Target)

[AbhishekAg2]

1. Using identityMap: This method embeds identities in the data, making them less visible. It is useful if there are a variable number of identities or if data sources store identities together.
Using individual identity fields within the schema: This method keeps identities visible and is preferred when ingesting raw data. It allows for better identity mapping and referencing in relationships.

2. We can create a dataset based on a lookup schema with appropriate relationship setup to store the product related metadata and then use the batch evaluation method to create audience.

3. XDM Individual Profile Class

4. Will have to leverage merge policies, and based on the source of data we'll need to decide on whether to use a timestamp ordered or a dataset precedence merge policy for this use case

5. This could be a case related to overwrite or merge policies, need to review the dataflow or merge policies to resolve

6. could be a access related case. the user activating might not have all the required rights.

7. Edge evaluated audiences

[abhinavbalooni]

Great to see the responses here from @shashi_c23 @shrutikulkarni @AbhishekAg2 !

I will post the last week quiz responses tomorrow. Others, please go ahead an attempt the above quiz.

I will also be putting in module 1 quiz on Thursday.

If you have any queries around module 1, please feel free to post them here.

Cheers,

Abhinav

[crojasm]

1. By using identity map giving you the capability to deal with multiple id's, or you can use ECID in case you want to identify non-logged users. 
2. LookUp Schema defining its Id as a non-person identity. You can ingest there the additional fields giving you the possibility of grow.
3. As CRM Data is related to a individual, it has to be Individual Profile Class.
4. Defining a merge policy, the kind of policy must vary depending on how the customer wants to deal with it. Time-based if they decide to keep the newest one or dataset prioritization in case one has priority over the other.
5. It can occur due to one batch ingesting profile data with null or empty values for the profile atts I checked after the first load. For the resolution, you could setup upsert functionality over the dataset or datasets sending that data to the pr
6. ofile, and relauch the batches.  
7. Double check your destination account configuration, credentials, etc, used to be auth errors.
8. Edge evaluated audiences.

[abhinavbalooni]

Great responses !

Most of you above answered them more or less correctly. A couple of them I left open ended on purpose. Response from my end in bold below. Feel free to ask any further questions around it.

1. What two ways can we set identities while implementing web sdk ? Is there any advantage to using one over the other ? Most of you answered it correctly. There are two ways of doing it - One by mapping fields to identity namespaces in the schema. Another approach and more flexible is using an Identity Map and mapping the identities in the Identity Map at runtime. This approach gives a flexibility of adding identities without the need to alter the schema.
2. I have some additional product related metadata from my backend systems that I want to use to enrich the purchase behavior data coming in from my website. How do I go about achieving it ? Again most of the responses were correct. You would make use of a lookup schema with a non-person identifier and have a schema relationship with the rest of the person based data.
3. We have some CRM data like address, name etc about customers that we would like to onboard, what class would we use to build a schema for this scenario ? Individual Profile Class Schema as it is a record based information. Correct response from pretty much everyone.
4. There are different sources of information to bring in a customer’s marital status. Source 1 mentions ‘Single’ for customer A and Source 2 mentions ‘Married’ for customer A. What are the possible ways we can resolve this conflict? By using merge policies and either using a timebased approach (if the latest record seems to contain the most up to date information irrespective of source) or a dataset precedence approach (where you defined the priority of the datasets based on the their relative reliability when there is same piece of information available across multiple sources mapped to the datasets)
5. I have different batches of data feeding into a dataset during the day from different CRM tables. I observe, later during the day that my profile information that was showing up after the first load, is no more appearing for the profile after a couple of more dataflows which ran during the day. What might be causing this issue? How can we resolve it ? @crojasm got this one spot on ! @AbhishekAg2 @shrutikulkarni Almost there. As @crojasm mentioned, due to the dataset not being enabled for upsert the later uploads ended up overwriting the earlier changes and set the earlier set values to null. To avoid this from happening, you need to enable the dataset for upsert. When this happens, the profiles will not remove the earlier set information but rather update+insert - meaning, it would update the piece of information available already or add any new information but anything else not available in later payloads still remains as is in the profile.
6. I have created an audience but I am not able to activate that audience to a Meta destination. What might be the possible reason for it ? This one I left open ended to see what all can come to mind of everyone here. Can be varied reasons, destination configuration errors, access related errors but a valid error would be an activation error when you go against a DULE marketing action policy.
7. What kind of audiences would help me achieve same page and next page personalisation? Edge evaluated audience

Thanks a lot to all those who are participating. As I mentioned earlier in the week, I will be posting module 1 quiz tomorrow and will also post a few important module 1 links at the same time if anyone hasn't had a chance to start prep just yet.

Happy learning guys !

Cheers,

Abhinav

[AbhishekAg2]

Thanks @NimashaJain for the initiative. @abhinavbalooni Glad to connect and looking forward to be mentored by you.

I am Abhishek Agarwal, an Adobe Multi Solution Architect based in Lucknow, India.

I have extensive experience with Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, Adobe Campaign Classic, and have recently expanded my expertise to include Adobe Experience Platform, Customer Journey Analytics, and Adobe Journey Optimizer. My primary focus has been in Marketing Automation and Analytics.

I am particularly interested in learning the RTCDP to deliver comprehensive and integrated solutions for my clients. This program presents a great opportunity for me to deepen my knowledge and achieve the RTCDP developer certification.

I look forward to engaging with all of you, learning from your experiences, and contributing to our shared knowledge. Let's make the most of this journey together.

Cheers,

Abhishek

[abhinavbalooni]

Hi All,

Hope you all are preparing well for the certification as we start to delve into specific topics. Here is the quiz from module 1 - Data Architecture.

RTCDP MP 24 | Weekly Quiz | Module 1 | Quiz 2

1. What is a union schema and where can you find it ?

2. What is an identity namespace ? How does it help ?

3. What functions do identities serve in the platform ?

4. Identity fields have to be defined as string - True or False ?

5. Which field group do you use to capture values in eVars and props when using web SDK ?

6. What is a profile fragment ?

7. How can you handle consent of a user while creating segments?

8. What is the cardinality of a customer and cart checkouts relationship ? What kind of entity would be involved in this relationship ?

9.  A company tracks active subscriptions for their customers, where one customer can have many subscriptions. The company also wants to include subscriptions for segmentation use cases, such as finding all users with active subscriptions.

In this scenario, the company has two potential options for representing a customer’s subscriptions in their data model. What are they and the pros and cons of each option?

10. What is _id field used for ? Should you use it as an identity ?

I might add more to the above questions in the coming few days.

Have a great weekend ahead !

Cheers,

Abhinav

[AbhishekAg2]

1. A union schema in Adobe Experience Platform is a combination of multiple schemas that share the same XDM class and are enabled for Profile. It merges fields from these schemas to create a centralized, comprehensive profile of each customer, reflecting all their interactions across integrated systems. Union Schema can be found under Customer - Profiles > Union Schema
2. An identity namespace in Adobe Experience Platform provides context to identity values, distinguishing types like email addresses, phone numbers, or CRM IDs. It helps by ensuring accurate matching and merging of profile data across fragments. For Real-Time Customer Profile to consolidate profiles, both the identity value and the namespace must align, enabling the system to accurately identify and combine data for the same individual, thus creating a unified customer profile.
3. Identities enable data integration, unify profiles for personalization, resolve multiple identifiers into a single customer, and help coordinate customer experiences across channels.
4. True, identity fields must be defined as strings
5. Adobe Analytics ExperienceEvent Template or Adobe Analytics ExperienceEvent Full Extension
6. Profile fragment is a piece of customer data that represents a part of a customer's profile in AEP. These fragments come from various data sources and contain information such as customer attributes and behaviours. Using merge policies, these fragments form a complete, unified customer profile that provides a holistic view of the customer's interactions and experiences across different touchpoints.
7. To handle user consent while creating segments in AEP, special fields must be added to segment definitions to ensure opted-out profiles are excluded. This involves integrating consent data into segment criteria and including these fields in both existing and new segment definitions. By doing so, only profiles with the necessary consent are included in the segments, ensuring compliance with user preferences.
8. Customer and Cart Checkouts relationship exhibits one to many cardinality as one customer could have multiple cart checkouts; in this case 2 entities would be involved, customer (profile entity) and cart checkout (event entity).
9. a. Array of Subscriptions within Customer Profile

• Pros: Unified view; Simplified querying and efficient excess without using joins
• Cons: Can result into large profile size if customers have multiple subscriptions; could have scalability issues

         b. Separate Subscription entity linked to customer profile

• Pros: Modularity; scalability; updating of individual subscriptions would be easy
• Cons: Queries on this would be slow as joins would be required; added segmentation complexity as we would need to refer separate entity

10._id field is typically used as a unique identifier for individual records within a dataset. The _id field should not be used as an identity for customer profiles. While it uniquely identifies records, it does not provide context about the type of identity.

[crojasm]

1) Union Schema is the graphic representation of each profile part merged by the defined identities included on them. Its really helpful to validate how your profile schema is being created. You can find it in the UI : Customer - Identities - Identiy Graph.

2) Namespaces helps you by giving context to your identities and letting Unified Profile know which identities must be merged for the Union schema definition.

Previously to identity creation, you needed to create namespaces to be assigned for each defined Id, being primary or secondary. All Identity must have one namespace, which doesn't mean it's a 1:1 relationship (a namespace with only one id doesn't make sense), The goal is to have more than one id, even with different names under the same nms for joining, 

3) The Identity Services is who created the identity graph and Unified profile, being the bridge for identities coming from multiple sources, additionally validate this process and provide support for compliance.

4) True, the best practice recommendation says that, in order to speed up merging.

5) Adobe analytics experience event, its the OOO field group for AA.(evar* is AA naming convention)

6) They are records from datasets enabled for profile, meaning they are part of the UP.

7) Applying data policies over profile-enabled datasets. They are going to be available for segmentation, so with policies you can label data, define what use is allowed with them, and what users can use them for x action.   

is a 1:M relationship, involving the customer as XDM individual profile and car checkouts sd XDM Experience Event entity.

9) You have 3 options, using subscriptions as EE, as a limited number of individual profile attributes for them, and with an array object inside the profile schema.

 a. - EE data can't be used as audience output, so you can not activate pointing to a specific subscription. 

    + its a supported and natural approach for AEP, so UI and data handling is quick and easy.

.b - Ruge alternative, impacting evolution of the model.

+ audience generation will be easy to follow

c. - Array data can't be used as audience output, so you can not activate pointing to a specific subscription. 

    - SQL manipulations harder than usual.

    + Audience generation will be easy to follow

10) _id is the id of the Experience Event ingested data, it's mandatory and can be generated by the source or by AEP.

Due to this is not recommended to define it as ID. 

We used to recommend customers to send it, so in the future, they can track ingested events by using this key.