Transaction ID data sources

Last update: Fri Sep 05 2025 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

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Data Sources

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Transaction ID data sources are a variation of summary data sources that let you apply values saved from an online hit to offline rows that share the same transaction ID. This approach is useful when you capture a transaction online but receive details later from another system. Primary examples include product returns, booking cancellations, or outcomes from call center interactions.

NOTE

Before using transaction ID data sources, you must first enable it in General Account Settings for the desired report suite.

How it works

The concept of transaction IDs require two parts:

Online hit: Any full Analytics hit sent to a report suite (AppMeasurement, Web SDK, API, etc). On this hit, you set the transactionID implementation variable.
Offline hit: A row uploaded through data sources. Within the file, include the transactionID column with a value that matches an online hit.

When you send an online hit that contains the transactionID implementation variable, Adobe takes a “snapshot” of the following dimensions that were set or persisted at that point:

Category
Days before first purchase
Days since last purchase
eVars 1-250
Feature-specific dimensions enabled in Report suite settings that behave similarly to eVars. Feature-specific dimensions that behave similarly to props are not included.
List variables
Marketing channel
Marketing channel detail
Mobile dimensions
Original referring domain
Product
Referring domain
Search engine
Search keyword
Tracking code
Visit number

NOTE

Metrics (such as a Orders or Custom events) are not included in the “snapshot”.

When you upload an offline hit through data sources that contains a matching transaction ID, any available dimensions within the “snapshot” are automatically appended to the data source row. If a given dimension is present in both the online and offline hit, the offline hit value is used.

IMPORTANT

The concept of transaction ID data sources only help fill data source rows (offline hits). They do not impact or change the online hit.

Transaction ID data source considerations

Transaction ID data sources have the following properties:

The online data must be collected and processed first. If a transaction ID data source is uploaded before a report suite processes a hit matching that transaction ID, the data is treated like a summary data source.
Transaction IDs collected from online hits expire after 25 months.
Data sources uploaded with an expired transaction ID are treated similarly to data uploaded without a transaction ID.
If you set the same transaction ID on multiple online hits, only the first occurrence’s “snapshot” is used. Subsequent duplicate transaction ID online hits are processed as if they did not have a transaction ID.
Once you populate a given transactionID value, the associated “snapshot” is considered immutable until that transaction ID expires.
If you set the same transaction ID on multiple data source rows, any available dimensions from the online hit are appended to each offline hit. Offline hits for the same transaction ID do not know anything about each other; data is not passed between offline hits.

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