What is XDM?
Experience Data Model (XDM) is Adobe's standard framework for describing customer experience data. A schema built on XDM gives data a consistent structure and meaning across sources, applications and teams.
Sources: XDM System overview
What is the difference between the XDM Individual Profile and XDM ExperienceEvent classes?
Individual Profile describes attributes about a person (record data such as name or loyalty tier). ExperienceEvent describes time-stamped behaviour (time-series data such as page views, cart adds or transactions).
Sources: XDM Individual Profile class XDM ExperienceEvent class
Which XDM class stores loan repayment or credit card transaction events?
Use a schema based on XDM ExperienceEvent, because each repayment or transaction is a time-stamped event. Store durable customer attributes in an Individual Profile schema instead.
Sources: XDM ExperienceEvent class
What is a field group?
A field group is a reusable set of fields added to a schema, such as Personal Details or Commerce Details. Combine standard and custom field groups to compose a schema instead of redefining fields.
Sources: Basics of schema composition
Which field group captures a customer's age or birth date?
The standard Individual Profile Personal Details field group holds person attributes such as birth date and name. Compute age from birth date rather than storing a value that goes stale.
Sources: XDM Individual Profile class
What is a data type in XDM?
A data type is a reusable object definition, such as an identity or an address, that can be used by several fields or field groups. It keeps repeated structures consistent.
Sources: XDM System overview
What is the tenant namespace?
The tenant namespace (shown as an underscore plus your organisation's ID) is where custom fields you create live in a schema, separating them from standard Adobe fields. Plan a naming strategy for multi-brand organisations.
Sources: Basics of schema composition
What is a dataset?
A dataset is a storage container for data that conforms to one schema. Data lands in the data lake, and if the dataset is enabled for Profile and Identity, it also feeds Real-Time Customer Profile.
Sources: XDM System overview Adobe Experience Platform documentation
What is the difference between record data and event data?
Record data describes the current state of an entity and is typically updated (a customer profile). Event data records something that happened at a point in time and is appended (a purchase).
Sources: XDM Individual Profile class XDM ExperienceEvent class
What is schema evolution?
Schema evolution is how a schema changes over time. Once a schema is in use, changes are additive: you can add fields but not remove or change existing ones, so design carefully before ingesting data.
Sources: Basics of schema composition
How do I mark identities in a schema?
Mark identity fields with an identity namespace and choose one as the primary identity where required. These marks let Identity Service build the graph and let Profile merge fragments.
Sources: Identity data type
What are the most common XDM modelling mistakes?
Frequent mistakes include ingesting without identities, using profile attributes for time-series data, over-nested custom structures, creating many one-off field groups instead of reusing standard ones, and enabling every dataset for Profile.
Sources: Best practices for data modeling Guardrails for Real-Time Customer Profile data
What is an ad-hoc schema?
An ad-hoc schema is a lightweight schema created to support specific ingestion workflows, mainly for data such as identity or lookup sets, without the full governance of a standard schema.
Sources: Create an ad-hoc schema
Where can I find industry data models?
Adobe publishes industry data models, for example for retail, financial services and hospitality, as starting points for schema design. Review them before building custom structures.
Sources: Industry data models overview
What are XDM field type constraints?
Field type constraints are the data types and limits XDM allows for fields, such as strings, integers, dates and objects. Data that violates them can be rejected at ingestion.
Sources: XDM field type constraints
What is a lookup dataset?
A lookup is reference data kept separate from customer identity, such as a product catalogue or store list, that journeys and reports can join to without bloating events.
Sources: Best practices for data modeling
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Answers are AI-assisted summaries of Adobe's public documentation and the instructors' practice, written for learning. Product behaviour changes, so confirm details in the linked official page before relying on them.
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