Adobe Audience Manager: Creating Onboarded Traits with Bulk Management Tools (BAAAM)

Some integrations with Adobe Audience Manager (AAM) require pushing audiences into the AAM platform. Each of these audiences is represented as an AAM Trait - more specifically an "Onboarded" Trait (yes, there are different types of Traits).  The Trait must be created within the AAM account before all of the user data for the audience can be transferred.

This article will show you one method of creating an Onboarded Trait using the Bulk Management Tools (BAAAM). Other methods will be covered in separate articles, including using the AAM REST API and the AAM UI.

Prerequisites

• User Permissions - you must be able to sign in to the AAM user interface with a user that has adequate permissions to create Data Sources and Traits.
• Data Source - all Traits must be linked to a Data Source, so create one to hold your Trait(s) if you haven't already.
• Download the Bulk Management Tool xlms file - get the correct version from this Bulk Management Tools documentation page. 
• AAM REST API authorization - you must have a Client ID and Secret which you can use to create the authorization .txt file that allows the Bulk Management Tool to make API calls. If you don't have this contact the Adobe Exchange tech support channel using this form.

See this getting started doc for more details on how to set up BAAAM and the authentication file.

Note that the most current version of BAAAM (found here) will not work for our partners. Unfortunately our partners don't have the right Experience Cloud access to use the new version of BAAAM yet. We're working with the product team on a way to get access for our Marketplace partners but for now our partners will need to continue using the pre-2.0 version of BAAAM as described in the links above.

Step 1 - Create the Trait folder

All Traits must live inside of a Trait folder. Trait folders exist to keep Traits organized within a taxonomy.

To see the Trait folders you must first navigate to the Traits UI (Audience Data > Traits).

These folders can be seen in the Trait Storage view.

You create a new Trait folder by mousing over the folder that will become the parent to the new folder. You will see a + (plus) icon appear.

You will then type the new folder name and click "Save".

Your new folder has been created.

Discover the folder ID by clicking the edit (pencil) icon next to the folder name. You will need this folder ID when creating Traits within this folder.

Note, if you are a Marketplace partner, a Trait folder will automatically be created for you under the "3rd-Party Data" folder each time you create a new Data Source. The Trait folder will be named the same as your Data Source name. Use the steps above to add new sub folders as needed within those auto created folders. 

It is also important to keep the following in mind with Trait folders -

• There is a limit on the total number of Trait folders that can exist for your account. That limit is 2,000 at the time this article was created. Look under Admin > Limits within the UI to see how you are tracking for this limit.
• Once you create a folder under the folder structure for one Data Source, do NOT move that folder to exist within the folder structure of a different Data Source. Doing so will result in visibility and access issues for customers that later subscribe to your data offering.
• You can create up to 3 levels of sub-folders beneath your data source folder. Trying to create additional levels will result in an error. 

Step 2 - Create the Trait

Now that a folder exists, let's create some Traits within that folder.

Open the Bulk Management Tool .xlsm file in MS Excel.

Note, as the file opens, you may be given a security warning. Click the "Enable Content" button to enable the use of macros.

At the bottom click on the "Headers" sheet tab.

Copy the row under "Create a Trait"

Switch to the "Create" sheet and paste the row as the new first row in the sheet. We will also insert 2 new columns (after "name"); give them the header values of "description" and "ttl".

Next we fill in a row for every Trait we wish to create. Here are some suggestions on how to fill in the 7 columns for a Trait.

• name - This should describe the audience and include the data provider's brand in most cases.
• description - Provides some additional information about the audience if needed.
• ttl - the number of days that the Trait will be associated to a user. Value should be between 1 and 30.
• dataSourceId - This is the numeric ID of the Data Source to which this Trait belongs. The Data Source and the top level Trait folder (child of the "3rd-Party Data" folder) should correspond.
• folderId - The numeric ID of the Trait folder the Trait should belong to.
• traitRule - This is the "Trait Expression" in the UI. This expression is how AAM will recognize which users will qualify for this Trait (belong to this audience) when the data files are processed. In most cases an "ic ==" rule should be used as shown below. In this example, "4567" and "4568" will be used within the Inbound data files  to link users to this Trait.
• traitType - For Onboarded Traits this should always have the value "ON_BOARDED_TRAIT"

To create two Traits, we fill in two rows of the "Create" sheet.

Click the "BAAAM" tab to see all of the AAM related API operations, then click "Create Traits".

You'll be prompted for Account Information for the API authorization. Enter the following values then click "Submit".

• User - Your AAM username. The same that you use to log in to the AAM UI.
• Password - The password for this user.
• Client ID - You will have received this from your Adobe representative. It is also the file name (without the .txt suffix) of the authorization file that should be in the same directory as this tool (the .xlsm file)
• Domain - api.demdex.com (for production environment) or api-beta.demdex.com (for beta environment)

Note, values used in the screenshot above are for a fictional account.

To see the results of the two API calls you can look to the columns just to the right of your data. A new "Response" header should now be present, with the API responses (JSON formatted) for each Trait creation request in each row beneath.

Important: if you are creating several hundred Traits at one time you will likely see a "busy" icon for several minutes. Be patient, your API calls are likely running just fine!

Assuming everything has run successfully, you will now also see the new Traits appear within the AAM UI.

Congratulations! You have now created your first Onboarded Traits using the Bulk Management Tool.