Create test profiles

Last update: February 19, 2025

CREATED FOR:

  • Intermediate
  • User

Test profiles are required when using the test mode in a journey, and to preview and test your content.

NOTE
Journey optimizer also allows you to test different variants of your content by previewing it and sending proofs using sample input data uploaded from a CSV / JSON file, or added manually. Learn how to test your content using sample input data

There are several ways to create test profiles. You can find in this page details to:

You can also upload a json file in an existing dataset. For more on this, refer to the Data Ingestion documentation.

Note that creating a test profile is similar to creating regular profiles in Adobe Experience Platform. For more information, refer to the Real-time Customer Profile documentation.

➡️ Learn how to create test profiles in this video

Prerequisites

In order to be able to create profiles, you first need to create a schema and a dataset in Adobe Journey Optimizer.

To create a schema, follow these steps:

  1. In the DATA MANAGEMENT menu section, click Schemas.

  2. Click Create schema, in the top right, select a schema type, for example Individual Profile and click Next.

  3. Enter a name for your schema and click Finish.

  4. In the Field groups section, on the left, click Add and select the appropriate field groups. Make sure you add the Profile test details field group.

    Once done, click Add field groups: the list of field groups is displayed on the schema overview screen.

    NOTE
    Click the name of the schema to update its properties.

  5. In the list of fields, click on the field that you want to define as the primary identity.

  6. In the Field properties right pane, check the Identity and Primary Identity options and select a namespace. If you want the primary identity to be an email address, choose the Email namespace. Click Apply.

  7. Select the schema and enable the Profile option in the Schema properties pane.

  8. Click Save.

NOTE
For more information on schema creation, refer to the XDM documentation.

Then you need to create the dataset in which the profiles will be imported. Follow these steps:

  1. Browse to Datasets, then click Create dataset.
  2. Choose Create dataset from schema.
  3. Select the previously created schema then click Next.
  4. Choose a name then click Finish.
  5. Enable the Profile option.
NOTE
For more information on dataset creation, refer to the Catalog Service documentation.

In-product use case

From Adobe Journey Optimizer home page, you can leverage the test profiles in-product use case. This use case facilitates the creation of test profiles used for testing journeys before publishing.

Click the Begin button to start the use case.

The following information is required:

  1. Identity namespace: The identity namespace used to uniquely identify the test profiles. For example, if email is used to identify the test profiles, the identity namespace Email should be selected. If the unique identifier is the phone number, then the identity namespace Phone should be selected.

  2. CSV file: A comma separated file containing the list of test profiles to create. The use case expects a predefined format for the CSV file that contains the list of test profiles to create. Each row in the file should include the following fields in the correct order as follows:

    1. Person Id: Unique identifier of the test profile. The values of this field should reflect the identity namespace that was selected. (As an example, if Phone is selected for the identity namespace, then the values of this field should be phone numbers. Similarly if Email is selected, then the values of this field should be emails)
    2. Email Address: Test profile email address. (The Person Id field and the Email Address field could potentially contain the same values if Email is selected as the identity namespace)
    3. First Name: Test profile first name.
    4. Last Name: Test profile last name.
    5. City: Test profile city of residence
    6. Country: Test profile country of residence
    7. Gender: Test profile gender. Available values are male, female and non_specified

After selecting the identity namespace and providing the CSV file based on the format above, click on Run button at the top right. The use case might take a few minutes to complete. Once the use case completes processing and creating the test profiles, a notification will be sent to notify the user.

NOTE
Test profiles may override existing profiles. Before executing the use case make sure the CSV contains test profiles only and that it is executed against the correct sandbox.

Turn a profile into a test profile

You can turn an existing profile into a test profile: you can update profiles attributes in the same way as when you create a profile.

A simple way to do this is by using an Update Profile action activity in a journey and change the testProfile boolean field from false to true.

Your journey will be composed of a Read Audience and an Update Profile activity. You first need to create an audience targeting the profiles you want to turn into test profiles.

NOTE
Since you will be updating the testProfile field, the chosen profiles must include this field. The related schema must have the Profile test details field group. See this section.

  1. Browse to Audiences, then Create audience, in the top right.

  2. Define a name for your audience and build the audience: choose the field(s) and value(s) to target the profiles you want.

  3. Click Save and check that the profiles are correctly targeted by the audience.

    NOTE
    Audience calculation can take some time. Learn more on audiences in this section.

  4. Now create a new journey and start with a Read Audience orchestration activity.

  5. Choose the previously created audience and the namespace that your profiles use.

  6. Add an Update Profile action activity.

  7. Select the schema, the testProfiles field, the dataset and set the value to True. To perform this, in the VALUE field, click the Pen icon on the right, select Advanced mode and enter true.

  8. Click Publish.

  9. In the Audiences section, check that the profiles have been correctly updated.

    NOTE
    For more information on the Update Profile activity, refer to this section.

Create a test profile using a csv file

In Adobe Experience Platform, you can create profiles by uploading a csv file containing the different profile fields into your dataset. This is the easiest method.

  1. Create a simple csv file using a spreadsheet software.
  2. Add one column for each needed field. Make sure you add the primary identity field (“personID” in our example above) and the “testProfile” field set to “true”.
  3. Add one line per profile and fill in the values for each field.
  4. Save the spreadsheet as a csv file. Make sure commas are used as separators.
  5. Browse to Adobe Experience Platform Workflows.
  6. Choose Map CSV to XDM schema, then click Launch.
  7. Select the dataset you want to import the profiles into. Click Next.
  8. Click Choose files and select your csv file. When the file is uploaded, click Next.
  9. Map the source csv fields to the schema fields, then click Finish.
  10. The data import begins. The status will move from Processing to Success. Click Preview dataset, in the top right.
  11. Check that the test profiles have been correctly added.

Your test profiles are added and can now be used when testing a journey. Refer to this section.

NOTE
For more information on csv imports, refer to the Data Ingestion documentation.