Transactional vs Embedded Data in Contact Import Automations | XM Community
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Michael_Cooksey
Administrator
24 days ago

Transactional vs Embedded Data in Contact Import Automations

  • January 14, 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 986 views
A
QPN Level 2 ●●
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  • AxelS
  • QPN Level 2 ●●
  • 35 replies
Is there any advantage to setting a field as Embedded Data instead of as Transactional in the "Data Field Mapping" part? As far as I saw, from the Survey Flow you can add Transactional Data as if it were Embedded Data fields, so it doesn't make a difference in that aspect.

5 replies

MattBroffman_Orlando
Level 2 ●●
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The advantage to transactional data is how it's tied to the contact. Each transaction can add more and more data to the contact. For example Transaction 1: - Date: 1/1/19 - Service: Purchase - Store: 123 Transaction 2: - Date: 1/15/19 - Service: Return - Store: 456 Both of those transactions will be on the contact record. It's not easy to retrieve transaction data as it is embedded data but it's there. If you do embedded data all you will have is: - Date: 1/15/19 - Service: Return - Store: 456 I assume there will be more features using the transaction data in the future. It would be nice for example on the Return survey to be able to pull in the original store it was purchased at. We're currently adding transaction data as embedded data because it's not available to add in the Actions tab. However, I think a good way to think about it is that transaction data should be tied to an interaction you have with a contact whereas embedded data is tied to the contact themselves and if it changes there is little value in the old data (e.g. customer ID, Favorite Store, Number of Transactions, etc.) That's how we've been trying to think about it.
A
QPN Level 2 ●●
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  • AxelS
  • Author
  • QPN Level 2 ●●
  • 35 replies
  • January 15, 2020
> The advantage to transactional data is how it's tied to the contact. Each transaction can add more and more data to the contact. For example > > Transaction 1: > - Date: 1/1/19 > - Service: Purchase > - Store: 123 > > Transaction 2: > - Date: 1/15/19 > - Service: Return > - Store: 456 > > Both of those transactions will be on the contact record. It's not easy to retrieve transaction data as it is embedded data but it's there. If you do embedded data all you will have is: > > - Date: 1/15/19 > - Service: Return > - Store: 456 > > I assume there will be more features using the transaction data in the future. It would be nice for example on the Return survey to be able to pull in the original store it was purchased at. But does it have any advantage the other way around? I mean setting them as embedded data instead of transactional. > We're currently adding transaction data as embedded data because it's not available to add in the Actions tab. But if you add it in the survey flow, then you can add it in Actions, right? Although you would have only the last transaction.
MattBroffman_Orlando
Level 2 ●●
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Embedded data has been around in qualtrics longer as is available in more features.

Yes you can set in the survey. In our case we have a web service (think user fills out a form not in qualtrics) that is what triggers that action and then sends out a survey. Right now there is no way to add the data in the from as a transaction so we have to add as embedded data.

Another example I could think of is if you used an authenticator, you could then add contact embedded data but not transaction data.

R
Level 4 ●●●●
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  • Rod_Pestell
  • Level 4 ●●●●
  • 334 replies
  • May 13, 2021

HI AxelS MattBroffman_Orlando ,
Just cane across your thread and thought I'd reply with some of my learnings....

Transaction data is now available via an email task (I think it's right this wasn't working early / mid 2020 but is now).

Transaction data is hard to use when using an authenticator (eg. you want to pull in some additional data in a survey - like a attribute list for example - it is possible you just have to use 'clean / unused' and be very careful is how you set it up).

I've also discovered one thing in that you can't search within transaction data in the directory of contacts, not even using the advanced filters. It only seems possible to search embedded data. I've actually raised this with Qualtrics Support today to see if there is a work around - my problem being occasionally a number of rows in an automation don't load (you get an error report but it doesn't tell you which ones!) meaning you see in the directory iteration part that the invite has been skipped. What I'd like to know how to do is find all of these by their Q_RunID.

Here's a pic showing the logo:
image.png
Thanks

Rod Pestell

K
Level 2 ●●
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  • kevinmc
  • Level 2 ●●
  • 13 replies
  • August 8, 2022

Hi Rod_Pestell - how do you save data at transaction level versus contact level when uploading a file for an email survey? I can't figure this out.

And then what do you mean transaction data is hard with an authenticator? Any tips there?

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