Control batch audience evaluation with Flexible Batch Schedules

Batch segmentation is an evaluation method that lets you move profile data all at once to create a corresponding audience. Previously, these batch audiences relied on a single, fixed segmentation job that ran once a day.

With Flexible Batch Schedules, you control when your audiences are evaluated, giving you more flexibility to prioritize your evaluation timings so you can better scale to larger audience volumes.

Create a schedule create-schedule

To use Flexible Batch Schedules, you’ll first need to create a schedule for the audiences. You can create a schedule using either the Experience Platform UI or API.

POST /schedules

curl -X POST https://platform.adobe.io/data/core/ups/config/schedules \
 -H 'Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}' \
 -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: {ORG_ID}' \
 -H 'x-api-key: {API_KEY}' \
 -H 'x-sandbox-name: {SANDBOX_NAME}'
 -d '
{
    "name": "Weekly VIP refresh",
    "type": "batch_segmentation",
    "schedule": "0 0 10 * * ?",
    "properties": {
        "segments": [
            "sample-audience-1",
            "sample-audience-2"
        ]
    },
    "state": "active"
}'

{
  "id": "cd585edf-962d-420d-94ad-3be03e619ac2",
  "name": "Weekly VIP Refresh",
  "type": "batch_segmentation",
  "schedule": "0 0 10 * * ?",
  "frequency": "weekly",
  "state": "active",
  "properties": {
    "segments": ["sample-audience-1", "sample-audience-2"]
  }
}

Assign audiences to a schedule assign-audience

After you create a schedule, you can assign additional audiences to the previously schedule. You can assign audiences using either the Experience Platform UI or API.

POST /schedules/add-audiences

curl -X POST https://platform.adobe.io/data/core/ups/config/schedules/add-audiences \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: {ORG_ID}' \
  -H 'x-api-key: {API_KEY}' \
  -H 'x-sandbox-name: {SANDBOX_NAME}' \
  -d '{
        "id": "cd585edf-962d-420d-94ad-3be03e619ac2",
        "segments": [
            "sample-audience-3",
            "sample-audience-4"
        ]
      }'

{
    "added": ["sample-audience-3", "sample-audience-4"],
    "existing": [],
    "invalid": [],
    "segmentCount": {
        "previous": 2,
        "current": 4,
        "diff": 2
    }
}

Alternatively, you can assign a schedule to an audience during audience creation. Within Audience Builder, after saving your audience, go to the Schedule section in the audience properties section and select the .

The Audience schedules popover appears. On this popover, you can assign which schedules the audience should belong to.

View an audience’s schedule view-audience-schedule

You can see which schedules an audience belongs to either using the Experience Platform UI or API.

POST /schedules/audience-map

curl -X POST https://platform.adobe.io/data/core/ups/config/schedules/audience-map \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: {ORG_ID}' \
  -H 'x-api-key: {API_KEY}' \
  -H 'x-sandbox-name: {SANDBOX_NAME}' \
  -d '{
        "segments": [
            "sample-audience-1",
            "sample-audience-2"
        ]
      }'

{
  "audienceMap": {
    "sample-audience-1": ["cd585edf-962d-420d-94ad-3be03e619ac2"],
    "sample-audience-2": []
  },
  "schedules": {
    "cd585edf-962d-420d-94ad-3be03e619ac2": {
      "name": "Weekly VIP Refresh",
      "schedule": "0 0 10 * * ?",
      "frequency": "weekly"
    }
  }
}

Remove audiences from a schedule remove-audience

If you want to remove audiences from an already created schedule, you can use either the Experience Platform UI or API.

POST /schedules/remove-audiences

curl -X POST https://platform.adobe.io/data/core/ups/config/schedules/remove-audiences/
 -H 'Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}' \
 -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: {ORG_ID}' \
 -H 'x-api-key: {API_KEY}' \
 -H 'x-sandbox-name: {SANDBOX_NAME}'
 -d '
 {
    "id": "cd585edf-962d-420d-94ad-3be03e619ac2",
    "segments": [
        "sample-audience-1"
    ]
 }
 '

{
    "removed": ["sample-audience-1"],
    "existing": [],
    "invalid": [],
    "segmentCount": {
        "previous"
    }
}

Run a schedule manually run-manually

Instead of waiting for the schedule to run, you can manually trigger an existing schedule to run using either the Experience Platform UI or API.

POST /schedules/trigger

curl -X POST https://platform.adobe.io/data/core/ups/config/schedules/trigger \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: {ORG_ID}' \
  -H 'x-api-key: {API_KEY}' \
  -H 'x-sandbox-name: {SANDBOX_NAME}' \
  -d '{
    "id": "cd585edf-962d-420d-94ad-3be03e619ac2"
    }'

Enable or disable a schedule

You can enable or disable a schedule using either the Experience Platform UI or API.

PATCH /schedules/{SCHEDULE_ID}

curl -X PATCH https://platform.adobe.io/data/core/ups/config/schedules/cd585edf-962d-420d-94ad-3be03e619ac2 \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: {ORG_ID}' \
  -H 'x-api-key: {API_KEY}' \
  -H 'x-sandbox-name: {SANDBOX_NAME}' \
  -d '[
        {
            "op": "replace",
            "path": "/state",
            "value": "inactive"
        }
      ]'

Next steps

After reading this guide, you now know how to use Flexible Batch Schedules either using the Experience Platform API or UI. For more information on the Flexible Batch Schedules UI, read the segmentation service UI overview. For more information on the schedules API, read the schedules endpoint guide. To learn how Flexible Batch Schedules works with your capacity and credits, read the license usage and capacities overview.

Video video

The following video shows how to use flexible batch schedules, outlining how to create custom schedules, monitor segmentation jobs, and manage credits within the Evaluation tab.

Appendix appendix

The following appendix lists how cross-schedule dependencies work and frequently asked questions about flexible batch schedules.

Cross-schedule dependencies cross-schedule-dependencies

If one audience refers to another audience as a dependency, that dependency can pull that audience into a schedule it doesn’t belong to.

Consider the following four audiences and two schedules:

Schedule A: Audience 1, Audience 4
Schedule B: Audience 2, Audience 3

Audience 1 refers to Audience 2 through a dependency, so Audience 1 needs Audience 2’s evaluated membership to compute its own.

When Schedule A runs, Audience 1 and Audience 4 evaluate, as expected. However, Audience 2 also runs, since it’s a dependency of Audience 1.

When Schedule B runs, Audience 2 and Audience 3 evaluate, as expected. In this scenario, Audience 1 does not get evaluated, since Audience 2 does not depend on Audience 1.

As a result, this means audiences that are dependents of other audiences (such as Audience 2 in the above scenario) may evaluate more than once a day - once as part of its own scheduled evaluation, and once as part of the schedule of the audience that depends on the other audience.

Frequently asked questions faq

Do I need to do anything to keep using the daily evaluation I currently have?

Can an audience be assigned to more than one custom schedule?

Can streaming or edge audiences use custom schedules?

Can I assign an audience composition to a custom schedule?

How many schedules can I run?

Do I need Flexible Batch Schedules to have more than 4,000 batch audiences?

Does creating a custom schedule cost anything?

How can I see if my schedule ran?

Answer

You can see if your schedule ran within the segmentation job monitoring view. Select Monitoring followed by Dashboard, Audiences, and Segmentation job. From here, select the next to the time the schedule ran to see the list of audiences evaluated by the schedule.