Documentation Experience Cloud interface and administration

Create a data source and upload the file

Last update: Thu Aug 28 2025 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Topics:
Customer Attributes

CREATED FOR:

Experienced
Admin

Create the customer attribute source (.csv and .fin files) and upload the data. You can activate the data source when you are ready. After the data source is active, share the attribute data to Analytics and Target.

Customer Attributes workflow

customer attributes workflow

Locate Customer Attributes

In Experience Cloud, click Apps > Customer Attributes.

Prerequisites for using Customer Attributes prerequisites

Group membership: To upload the data, users must be members of the Customer Attributes group. You must also belong to either an Adobe Analytics group or an Adobe Target group.

To know whether your company has access to customer attributes, your Experience Cloud administrator should log into the Experience Cloud. Navigate to Admin Console > Products. If Customer Attributes displays as one of the product profiles, you are ready to begin.

Users that are added to Customer Attributes see the Customer Attributes menu item on the left side of the Experience Cloud interface.
Adobe Target at.js (any version) or mbox.js version 58 or later is required for customer attributes.

See How to deploy at.js.

Create a data file create-data

This data is enterprise customer data from your CRM. The data might include subscriber data for products, including member IDs, entitled products, most-launched products, and so on.

Create a .csv file.

note note
NOTE
Later in this process, you drag and drop the `.csv` file to upload the file. However, if you upload via FTP, you also need a `.fin` file with the same name as the `.csv`.

Sample enterprise customer data file:

Sample enterprise customer data file

Before continuing, review the important information in Data File Requirements, before you upload the file.
Create a customer attribute source and upload the data, described below.

Create the attribute source and upload the data file create-source

Perform these steps on the the Create Customer Attribute Source page in Experience Cloud.

IMPORTANT

When creating, modifying, or deleting customer attribute sources, there is a delay of up to one hour before IDs begin synchronizing with the new data source. You must have administrative rights in Audience Manager to create or modify customer attribute sources. Contact Audience Manager customer Care or consulting to obtain administrative rights.

In Experience Cloud, click Apps > Customer Attributes.
Click New.

On the Create Customer Attribute Source page, configure the following fields:

Name: A friendly name for the data attribute source. For Adobe Target, attribute names cannot include spaces. If an attribute with a space is passed, Target ignores it. Other characters not supported include: < , >, ', ".
Description: (Optional) A description of the data attribute source.

Alias ID: Represents a source of customer attribute data, such as a specific CRM system. Alias ID is a unique ID that is used in your customer attribute Source code. The ID should be unique, lowercase, with no spaces. The value that is entered in the Alias ID field for a customer attribute source in Experience Cloud should match the values that are being passed in from the implementation (whether via Platform Data Collection or JavaScript of the Mobile SDK.)

note important
IMPORTANT
Deleting a data source associated with an Alias ID does not make the Alias ID available, as the Alias ID is saved in multiple services and used to map profiles between them.

The Alias ID corresponds to certain areas where you set additional customer ID values. For example:

Tags: The Alias ID corresponds to the Integration Code value under customer Settings, in the Experience Cloud ID Service tool.

Visitor API: The Alias ID corresponds to the additional customer IDs that you can associate with each visitor.

For example, “crm_id” in:

code language-none
`"crm_id":"67312378756723456"`

iOS: The Alias ID corresponds to “idType” in visitorSyncIdentifiers:identifiers.

For example:

[ADBMobile visitorSyncIdentifiers:@{@<"idType":@"idValue"}];
Android™: The Alias ID corresponds to “idType” in syncIdentifiers.

For example:

identifiers.put("idType", "idValue");

See Leveraging multiple data sources for additional information about data processing regarding the Alias ID field and customer IDs.

Namespace Code: Use this value to identify the customer attribute source when using the IdentityMap as part of an AEP WebSDK Implementation.

Click Save.

Upload file upload

The customer attribute record is created, and you can upload the file by editing the customer attribute.

On the Customer Attributes page, click the attribute source.
On the Edit Customer Data Source page, click File Upload.
Drag and drop the .csv or .zip or .gzip data file into the drag-and-drop window.

IMPORTANT

Specific data file requirements exist. See Data File Requirements for more information.

After uploading the file, table data is displayed under the File Upload heading on this page. You can validate the schema, configure subscriptions, or set up the FTP.

attributes

Unique customer ID: Displays how many unique IDs you have uploaded to this attribute source.
customer-Provided IDs Aliased to Experience Cloud Visitor IDs: Displays how many IDs have been aliased to Experience Cloud Visitor IDs.
customer-Provided IDs with High Alias Counts: Displays the count of customer-provided IDs with 500 or more aliased Experience Cloud Visitor IDs. These customer-provided IDs most likely do not represent individuals but rather some sort of shared login. The system distributes the attributes associated with these IDs to the 500 most recent aliased Experience Cloud Visitor IDs, until the alias count reaches 10,000. Then, the system invalidates the customer-provided ID and no longer distributes associated attributes. -->

Validate the schema validate-schema

The validation process lets you map display names and descriptions to uploaded attributes (strings, integers, numbers, and so on). You can also delete attributes by updating the schema.

See Validate the schema.

To delete attributes, see (Optional) Update the schema (deletes attributes).

(Optional) Update the schema (delete attributes) task_6568898BB7C44A42ABFB86532B89063C

How to delete attributes and replace attributes in the schema.

On the Edit Customer Attribute Source page, remove the Target or Analytics subscription (under Configure Subscriptions).
Upload a new data file with updated fields.

Configure subscriptions and activate the attribute source task_1ACA21198F0E46A897A320C244DFF6EA

Configuring a subscription sets up the data flow between Experience Cloud and applications. Activating the attribute source allows the data to flow to subscribed applications. The customer records you have uploaded are matched up with incoming ID signals from your web site or application.

See Configure subscriptions and activate the data source.

Use Customer Attributes data in Adobe Analytics task_7EB0680540CE4B65911B2C779210915D

With the data now available in applications like Adobe Analytics, you can report on the data, analyze it, and take the appropriate action in your marketing campaigns.

The following example shows an Analytics segment based on the uploaded attributes. This segment shows Photoshop Lightroom subscribers whose most-launched product is Photoshop.

Analytics segment based on the uploaded attributes

When you publish a segment to Experience Cloud, it becomes available in Experience Cloud Audiences and Audience Manager.

Use Customer Attributes data in Adobe Target task_FC5F9D9059114027B62DB9B1C7D9E257

In Target, you can select a customer attribute from the Visitor Profile section when creating an audience. All customer attributes have the prefix crs. in the list. Combine these attributes as required with other data attributes to build audiences.

Use Customer Attributes in Adobe Target

See Create an Audience in Target help.

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