Destination Setup Troubleshooting

Information to help you set up destinations in Audience Manager and avoid common problems.

I set up a destination, but I don’t see any files. Where are they?

Common destination configuration problems include the following issues:

Misconfigured Destination

• Incorrect UserID Key: The UserID key is the MasterDPID of this destination and is the basis for the ID values that will be outbounded. Even if a UserID key is selectable via the drop-down list, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there are IDs/traits/segments mapped to this value. If the Outbound process (which runs after destinations are created) does not find any users mapped to this UserID key, no data will be outbounded.
• No In File Data Sources Selected: When choosing any destination type other than S2S, a section appears at the bottom of the screen labeled Configure Data Sources. When this section first appears, no values are selected. If you forget to click the All First Party checkbox or individually select data sources from the Available Data Sources window, no data will be outbounded.

Misconfigured Format

When selecting a format for your outbounded data, it’s best, if possible, to re-use an existing format. Using an already-proven format ensures that your outbound data will be generated successfully. To see exactly how an existing format is formatted, click the Formats option in the menu bar and search for your format either by name or by ID number. Malformed formats or macros used in formats will provide incorrectly formatted output or will prevent information from being output entirely.

For more information on setting up formats and using macros, see File Format Macros and HTTP Format Macros.

Misconfigured Server

• FTP

  • Domain
    • Do not enter any prefixes for hostnames. If you’re given an account ftp://hello.com, simply enter hello.com in this field.
  • Port/Type Combination
    • For an FTP transfer, the preferred transfer type is SFTP.
    • When selecting the SFTP type, the port is almost always 22.
    • When selecting the FTPs/TLS type, the port is almost always 21.
    • The FTPs/TLS type is not the same as a regular FTP transfer. We do not support regular (unsecured) FTP transfers.
  • Remote Path
    • When choosing a remote subpath, it should be entered with no leading slash.
    • If your transferred file is supposed to be placed in the (root)/inbound subfolder, simply add inbound for the remote path, not /inbound.
    • If you send your files multiple directories down the path, enter slashes in between each directory. If you’re given the location of /inbound/subdirectory1/subdirectory2, you should enter inbound/subdirectory1/subdirectory2 in this field.
    • If your file should be placed in the directory automatically routed to by the external server, you can leave this space blank. Do not enter a period ( . ), slash ( / ), or anything else.

• S3

  • S3 is the preferred transfer protocol (over FTP or HTTP).
    • Bucket
      • The bucket name should be listed with no slashes, prefixes, suffixes, etc. If you’re given the address s3://your-bucket you should simply add your-bucket to this field.
    • Directory
      • Leave this field blank unless you’re specifically given a subdirectory into which the data should be placed. If you’re given the address s3://your-bucket/your-subdirectory, enter your-bucket in the Bucket field and your-subdirectory should be added into the Directory field. Do not add preceding slashes.
      • If you have to travel multiple directories down the path, only then should you use slashes as separators. So a location of s3://your-bucket/your-subdirectory1/your-subdirectory2 would have your-bucket in the Bucket field and your-subdirectory1/your-subdirectory2 entered into the Directory field.
    • Access / Secret Keys
      • When TechOps creates a bucket and provides access/secret keys to a consultant, those credentials are usually READ-ONLY credentials that are meant to be handed off to the client. These credentials should not be entered into the Access / Secret Key fields, because this will cause the transfer to fail (because those credentials are read-only, not writable). In the case where TechOps creates a bucket and provides credentials, the consultant should also request an Adobe key pair - NOT TO BE GIVEN TO THE CLIENT - that will allow for writing files to this bucket. That key should be added into these fields.

• HTTP

  • Domain
    • Do enter prefix information for HTTP entries. If you’re given an account https://superduper.com, enter https://superduper.com in this field.
    • URL Prefix
      • When adding a URL prefix, leave the preceding slash off. An address of https://hello.com/r/x/y/z should have https://hello.com entered in the Domain field and r/x/y/z entered here in the URL Prefix field.
      • If a URL Prefix is not needed, leave this value blank.
    • Authentication - SSH Key
      • Enter the full SSH PRIVATE key value in this box, including headers, footers, and line breaks to ensure accurate encryption/key storage.

Not Enough Time for Outbound Generation

The outbounding process runs twice daily, and multiple processes (outbounding, publishing, pushing to external locations, etc.) must run before a file is pushed to its final destination. A good rule of thumb is that a destination should be fully configured at least 24 hours before you can expect data to be pushed to an external location.

File Split Sizes too Large

When outbounding files to destinations, you can split larger outbound files in file chunks. Make sure that the individual file chunks do not exceed 10 GB. See also, Outbound Data File Name: Syntax and Examples.

How to Set Up Your Destinations to Export Experience Cloud IDs, Customer IDs or Audience Manager IDs in Outbound Data Files

This page shows you how to set up destinations to export data keyed off the ID type you want in Outbound Data Files.

Destinations allow our customers to activate their data across any number of digital channels. For example, they can export audience data to other Adobe Experience Cloud solutions (Target, Campaign, etc.). Or, they could send data to DSPs, SSPs, or any platform that is integrated with Audience Manager. We keep a list of partners we work with on our Integrations Wiki page.

Your customers want to export different ID types, depending on destination. The configuration chart below shows the options you should select to export profile information related to different ID types. We recommend you also refer to the Index of IDs in Audience Manager. There are three important settings to consider, the User ID Key, the Data Source Type and the Format. We detail all of them below.

• User ID Key. In the Admin UI, go to Companies. Search for your customer’s company and click it. Look for the Destinations tab and press Add Destination. In the Add Destination workflow, select the User ID Key. The User ID Key will filter the incoming IDs from the target data source and only allow the IDs to pass.

  

• Data Source Type. Select this when creating a destination in the Audience Manager UI. First of all, select Inbound, then select the ID type you want. The options are:

  

• Format. This option determines the file format you will export. In the Add Destination workflow, under Batch Data, select the format.

To inspect a format, go to Admin UI > Formats and look for the Data Row element. This element contains a macro of the file format, <MCID> in the example below.

Use Cases

Let’s say you use Audience Manager and Campaign. In order to make the customer data actionable in Campaign, you want to export Experience Cloud IDs. You should use configuration number 3 in this case.