Understanding Automation Data Views in Salesforce Marketing Cloud

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What are data views?

Marketing Cloud Data_views, are nothing but the pre-built back-end Data Extensions that provide information about automations. These data_views let you to create different views of the data stored in a DataTable. These Marketing Cloud Data_views are generally used to fetch information about your subscribers and use that information for future analysis. Although you cannot change Marketing Cloud Data_views, you can still leverage their data in SQL Queries for reports.

Automation data view

Automation data_views are pre-built views in the Marketing Cloud. These views keep a check on the status of the automation.

There are two data views for Salesforce Marketing Cloud Automations.

  1. Automation Instance(_AutomationInstance)
  2. Automation Activity Instance(_AutomationActivityInstance)

Automation Instance(_AutomationInstance)

      This data view helps

  1. Automations that ran recently like in the last 30 days
  2. When automation ran
  3. The duration of an automation
  4. Whether automation succeeded, skipped, or failed
  5. The reason automation failed
  6. The file that was being processed when triggered automation failed
  7. The email addresses of the automation success/failure notifications

Data_views Columns:

NAME

DESCRIPTION

DATA EXTENSION DATA TYPE

MemberID

The unique ID of the business unit.

Number

AutomationName

The automation name.

Text

AutomationDescription

The automation description.

Text

AutomationCustomerKey

The unique ID of the automation.

Text

AutomationType

The automation’s starting source. Possible values are Schedule, File Drop, or Trigger.

Text

AutomationNotificationRecipient_Complete

The email address where notifications about completed automations are sent.

Text

AutomationNotificationRecipient_Error

The email address where notifications about automation errors are sent.

Text

AutomationNotificationRecipient_Skip

The email address where notifications about skipped automations are sent.

Text

AutomationStepCount

The number of steps in the automation.

Number

AutomationInstanceID

The unique ID of the automation run.

Text

AutomationInstanceIsRunOnce

Whether the automation was set to run once. 1 = true, 0 = false.

Boolean

FilenameFromTrigger

For file drop and trigger automations, the file that started the automation.

Text

AutomationInstanceScheduledTime_UTC

For scheduled automations, the time that the run was scheduled to begin.

Date

AutomationInstanceStartTime_UTC

The time that the automation run started. This value is null if the automation was skipped.

Date

AutomationInstanceEndTime_UTC

The time that the automation run ended. This value is null if the automation was skipped or is still running.

Date

AutomationInstanceStatus

The status of the automation run when the data_views is queried. Possible values are QueuedFile, Initialized, Executing, Stopped, Complete, or Error.

Text

AutomationInstanceActivityErrorDetails

The message from the error log, if applicable. If a system or unclassified error occurs, the value is System Error. If multiple errors occur, only the first message is displayed. To get details on multiple errors, use the _AutomationActivityInstance view.

Text

Automation Activity Instance(_AutomationActivityInstance)

This data view helps us in collecting more information about the activity, which enables us to prevent time-out errors in our activity.

This data view helps

  1. Activities that ran in an automation
  2. When an activity ran
  3. The duration of an activity
  4. Whether an activity succeeded or failed
  5. The reason an activity failed

The limitations of both these types of data views can be that we can only obtain activity data after 24 hours and within 31 days, respectively.

Data views Columns

NAME

DESCRIPTION

DATA EXTENSION DATA TYPE

MemberID

The unique ID of the business unit.

Number

AutomationName

The automation name.

Text

AutomationCustomerKey

The unique ID of the automation.

Text

AutomationInstanceID

The unique ID of the automation run.

Text

ActivityType

The activity type. Possible values are listed in the Activity Type IDs table.

Number

ActivityName

The activity name.

Text

ActivityDescription

The activity description.

Text

ActivityCustomerKey

The unique ID of the activity.

Text

ActivityInstanceStep

Where the activity occurs in the automation. For example, 3.2 is step 3, activity 2.

Text

ActivityInstanceID

The unique ID of the activity run.

Text

ActivityInstanceStartTime_UTC

The time that the activity run started. This value is null if the automation was skipped.

Date

ActivityInstanceEndTime_UTC

The time that the activity run ended. This value is null if the automation was skipped, is still running, or wasn’t selected as part of an Advanced Run Once.

Date

ActivityInstanceStatus

The status of the activity run when the data_views is queried. Possible values are Initialized, Executing, Complete, Error, or Not Selected.

Text

ActivityInstanceStatusDetails

The message from the error log, if applicable. If a system or unclassified error occurs, the value is System Error.

Text

The Status property can contain these values:

Code

Status Type

Message

-1

Error

Program error out.

0

Building Error

Program error out during building.

1

Building

Program building with activities, schedules, and other elements.

2

Ready

Program ready to start.

3

Running

Program running

4

Paused

Program paused from running state.

5

Stopped

Program stopped.

6

Scheduled

Program scheduled.

7

Awaiting Trigger

Program waiting for a trigger.

8

Inactive Trigger

Program trigger inactive.

If you want to keep an eye on the automations in real time we can use the script listed below. This script utilizes the Automation object to get the automation details in real time. The Automation object defines automation in Automation Studio for an account.

				
					var prox = new Script.Util.WSProxy();
for (i = 0; i < mids.length; i++)
 { var mid = mids[i];
  prox.setClientId({"ID": mid});
  var obj = "Automation";
  var cols = ["ProgramID","CustomerKey","Status","Name", "IsActive","ModifiedDate"];
  var filter = {
   Property: "Status"
   , SimpleOperator: "IN"
   , Value: [-1,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
  };
  var opts = null;
  var props = null;
  var moreObjs = true;
  var reqID = null;
  while (moreObjs) {
   moreObjs = false;
   var objs =reqID == null ? prox.retrieve(obj, cols, filter, opts, props) : prox.getNextBatch(obj, reqID);
   if (objs != null)
   {
    moreObjs = objs.HasMoreRows;
    reqID = objs.RequestID;
   for (var j = 0; j < objs.Results.length; j++)
   {
   var automationObj = objs.Results[j];
   var statusDsc = "";
   switch (automationObj.Status)
 {
     case -1: statusDsc = "Error"; break;
     case  0: statusDsc = "Building Error"; break;
     case  1: statusDsc = "Building"; break;
     case  2: statusDsc = "Ready"; break;
     case  3: statusDsc = "Running"; break;
     case  4: statusDsc = "Paused"; break;
     case  5: statusDsc = "Stopped"; break;
     case  6: statusDsc = "Scheduled"; break;
     case  7: statusDsc = "Awaiting Trigger"; break;
     case  8: statusDsc = "Inactive Trigger"; break;
   }
                var addedRowCount = Platform.Function.InsertData(
        'Health Check Automation Status',
        ['MID', 'AutomationName', 'Status', 'IsActive', 'ModifiedDate', 'RecordUpdateDate', 'CustomerKey'],
        [mid, automationObj.Name, statusDsc, automationObj.IsActive, automationObj.ModifiedDate, recordupdatedate, automationObj.CustomerKey]
    );        
    }
   }
  }
  prox.resetClientIds();

}console.log( 'Code is Poetry' );
				
			

The purpose of this research was to identify effective strategy in dealing with automation data_view. Based on the analysis it can be concluded that there are various ways to use this data_view as per the requirement. To deep dive further into Conversion Tracking of Marketing Cloud, send us an email on [email protected] or book a demo.

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