Environment
Issues/Symptoms
Is there a relationship between AAM Data Sources and AEP Identity Namespaces?
Yes. They are related in the following ways.:
Given this information, here are some important caveats to be aware of:
How does one practically apply this information?
If an existing AAM implementation needs to be maintained during a migration to the AEP Web or Mobile SDKs, then the way to pass Customer or CRM IDs to AAM (what is historically done via the Set Customer ID function/method of the ECID Identity Service) is by setting the SDK Identity Map with the identity namespace symbol found in the AEP or Data Collection UI that corresponds with the AAM cross-device data source in question. Experience edge will see the identity symbol, look up the corollary AAM integration code, then forward the data collection hit with the correct AAM integration code, thereby allowing the AAM cross-device data source to continue collecting customer IDs for the AAM use cases utilizing those IDs.
Important Note: AEP will treat any identities passed via the identity map in the AEP Web SDK (or otherwise) as stitchable identities, even if the identity namespaces in question are not tied to a profile-enabled XDM field. This can be problematic if the IDs that need to be passed to AAM are not individual/profile-level IDs. This can lead to multiple AEP profiles being merged/collapsed into one if the ID in question were a household ID, for example, instead of an individual ID.
Helpful Hint: If it is not clear which AAM cross-device datasource may be related to a given AEP Identity Namespace, then calling the AAM API for one of the potential AAM data sources using this API call will return a JSON payload that contains the customNamespaceCode
field. The value of that field should match whichever AEP Identity Namespace points to that AAM datasource.