Data sources connect your data to Fluency, enabling dynamic updates to account information across your portfolio. When you update a data source, Fluency pulls in the new data based on your set frequency.
Data sources are read-only, meaning you cannot edit or change the information from within the Fluency platform. All data must be updated at the data location. Fluency supports formats such as CSV, TSV, JSON, text, and XML.
Types of data sources
Fluency has three main types of data sources:
Global Data Sources: Data sources with data made available to all accounts.
Account-Mapped Data Sources: Data sources connected to multiple accounts. Specific data is mapped and sent to the right account(s).
Data Sources in Manage: Data sources connected to a single account in Manage
🚨 Caution: The more data you have, the more computing power is required to process it. Choosing a larger data source than necessary, like a global data source for a single account, may lead to excessive storage use and longer processing and sync times.
Where to find your data sources
Global and account-mapped data sources
Go to Settings & Tools (gear icon) in the top menu.
Select Data Sources from the dropdown.
Scroll down to either Global Data Sources or Account-Mapped Data Sources.
Note: Global data sources may require additional engineering support to optimize the configuration. Check with your Advertising Engineer if this is necessary.
Data sources in Manage
Go to Manage in the top menu.
Click on an account from the list.
Select Settings in the top toolbar.
Go to the Blueprints tab and then the External Data Sources tab.
Note: In Manage, you can see all the data sources connected to an account, including global data sources and account-mapped data sources. You will see a Read Only label next to those data sources.
Linking your data to Fluency
Step #1: Create a data location
Create a data location with the data you want to use in your campaigns, such as an inventory feed. In this example, we'll use Google Sheets. Tip: You can target specific locations using Fluency's location-targeting syntax when setting up a data feed.
Make sure your data source has given access to anyone on the web to ensure that Fluency can pull the data.
Within the Google Sheet, go to File > Share > Publish to web.
Under Link, choose the specific tab you want to link.
To the right of that field, select Comma-separated values (.csv).
Click Publish.
Using RSS feeds as a data location
Using RSS feeds as a data location
RSS feeds publish in XML format and can be used as a data source to bring in blog content for advertising. For RSS feeds, Fluency provides an HTML Cleanser tool that removes HTML tags and forms unique pieces of data within the feed. This separation allows you to use images and text separately in your campaigns.
Step #2: Add a new data source to Fluency
Note: All data sources share basic setup instructions.
Once you've located where your data source will live in Fluency (see the instructions above), click + Add New.
Give the data source a Name according to the data it contains (e.g., inventory, search logos, specials).
Note: The name is case-sensitive, so watch for misspellings and unintended spaces and capitalized letters. If you plan to use this data source in a Blueprint, make sure the naming convention is the same.
Enter a Data Location by pasting in the data source’s published web URL (see above for instructions on publishing data sources to the web). The URL protocol (e.g., gdrive://, https://) will update automatically.
Confirm the Final URL beneath the field to ensure there is no double protocol (e.g., https://https://).
Choose a Refresh Rate (in hours). The default is 24 hours, but you can manually refresh by clicking Refresh Data.
For account-mapped data sources, select an Update Frequency (how often your data is refreshed; the default is 24 hours if left blank).
Click Save.
Connecting assets stored in a Google Drive
For the data location, enter only the folder ID for the Google Drive folder where your assets are stored. Auto Detect should be on as the default and will automatically populate the protocol.
The folder ID is the string of letters and numbers at the end of the URL. For example:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_Nynz19-Bi0mApqe61B9hPDIjqylGejL.If the folder is in a shared drive, use the format shared_drive_ID/folder_id. For example:
https://drive.google.dcom/drive/folders/0AIime5lD2pAtBUk7PWT/1_Nynz19-Bi0mApqe61B9hPDIjqylGejL.
Advanced settings
Data collection source eligibility
Data collection source eligibility
Template Use Only: Advanced feature
Eligible for Account Filters (Account-mapped data sources only): Select an account filter to send the data to a specific set of accounts.
Data access (advanced features)
Data access (advanced features)
Requires custom headers
Paging Key
Paging Merge Key
Data interpretation
Data interpretation
Data Format: Leave the default on Auto Detect or select a different format (e.g., CSV, JSON, etc.)
Extract found media for special use: Toggle on if you're pulling images from data sources other than Google Drive (e.g., CSV). This will create another media collection for all the images.
Filters and transformations
Filters and transformations
Filtering Rules: Add a filter if you want to exclude data. A data filter is necessary to associate the information contained in each row of the data source with the account in Fluency. A simple way to do this would be for the data source to include a column with the Fluency UUID. Assuming the column name is UUID, the data filter would look like this: UUID={owneruuid}.
Custom Transformations: Select a Transform option.
Advanced Transformations: Advanced feature
Advanced storage
Advanced storage
Special Use Destination: Advanced feature
Notifications
Notifications
Stale Data Threshold: If your data updates regularly, inputting a number of days will result in Fluency checking to make sure the updates are happening. Note: You can set stale data thresholds in your account ingest sheet by adding a new column with a header. Example: feed:24:Inventory:720. In this example, your data will be updated every 24 hours. If your data has not changed in over 720 hours, you will receive a stale data notification.
Refreshing data sources
Data sources refreshes automatically based on the selected frequency. To refresh them manually, click Refresh Data under Refresh Rate (in hours).