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When to activate
By default, Adobe Experience Platform exports data to a destination whenever any change occurs to a profile: an attribute update, an audience qualification or disqualification, or an identity change. This can generate a large volume of exports, many of which carry no meaningful change for downstream systems.
When to activate gives you fine-grained control over which types of profile changes trigger exports for a given destination dataflow. You can enable or disable each trigger type independently. Disabling a trigger type suppresses exports caused only by that type of change.
Supported destination types supported-destinations
The When to activate feature is supported for the following destination types:
- Streaming API-based destinations
- Enterprise destinations: HTTP API, Amazon Kinesis, Azure Event Hubs, and Snowflake Streaming.
Activation trigger types trigger-types
The table below describes each trigger type. Triggers are listed in order of expected export volume, from highest to lowest.
Default behavior default-behavior
All three trigger types are enabled on every new and existing dataflow. When you disable one or more triggers, exports caused by that trigger type are suppressed. Exports that result from a combination of trigger types still fire if at least one enabled trigger caused the change.
Best practices best-practices
The best trigger configuration depends on your use case. Use the following guidance as a starting point.
Disable identity changes first. Disabling the identity changes trigger is the lowest-risk first step to reduce export volume. New identities, such as ECIDs from website visits, are added to profiles frequently and rarely represent meaningful changes for your downstream system.
Disable attribute changes for the largest volume reduction. The attribute changes trigger fires whenever any mapped attribute is updated, including from daily batch ingestion that restates unchanged values. Disabling this trigger produces the most significant reduction in export volume for most organizations.
Keep segmentation changes enabled. Audience entry and exit events are typically the most meaningful signals for downstream systems such as CRMs and ad platforms. Most organizations keep this trigger enabled.
Each organization has different use cases, so different trigger combinations may apply. Contact your Adobe account manager or Customer Care for guidance tailored to your activation setup.
Configure When to activate configure
You can configure the When to activate settings in two places:
- During activation setup: The When to activate step appears in the activation workflow when you set up a streaming API-based or enterprise destination. See Activate audiences to streaming destinations and Activate audiences to streaming profile export destinations.
- On existing dataflows: Use the Edit destination control on a dataflow to change the settings at any time. See Edit activation dataflows.
View trigger configuration in the Browse tab browse-tab
The Browse tab in the Destinations workspace shows an Activation trigger column. The column displays the triggers currently configured for each dataflow. Use this column to quickly review which profile change types activate each of your destination connections.
