In this lesson, you will learn how to establish and implement data retention rules within the SAP Customer Data Platform. Data Retention establishes an expiration date for your customer data based on a custom criteria. This feature allows you to simulate all customer data that will be kept based on the retention period you set, meaning all customer data past that period will be erased. In addition to that, it allows you to set extra custom criteria to further narrow down the customer data to be removed.
Data Retention lets you delete profiles based on rules you set. Activities linked to these profiles will also be deleted unless they are connected to other profiles or groups. It may take up to 24 hours for a rule to take effect. If multiple rules apply to a profile, the one with the highest priority will be followed.
When you first use Data Retention, it starts in Simulation mode. This mode shows how profiles would be deleted but doesn’t actually delete them. It predicts what will happen over the next six months if data retention is active. The dashboard graphs display the profiles set for deletion during this period. In Simulation mode, profiles are not deleted. Switching to Active mode enables actual deletion according to your rules. Any profiles marked for deletion in Simulation mode will be deleted in the next period.
Creating Data Rentention Rules
When you create a new Retention Rule, you need to specify not only its name, but also:
- Retention Period: how long you want the customer data retained in the system. Any data older than that can be marked for deletion.
- Rule Activation: the timestamp used to specify the age of the customer data can be the moment it was created or its last update.
- Condition Criteria: leverage the criteria builder to create advanced criteria that acts as a filter to delete only the customer data that satisfy the conditions you define.
After the calculation period passes, see on the left-hand side of the simulation screen the potential number of profiles removed by the Data Retention Rules.
The screenshot above shows the Data Retention dashboard with 50k profiles eligible for deletion according to the Data Retention rule. The highlighted activation button will enforce these rules. If that is what you expect, choose the Activate button to proceed and make the rule effective. The profiles will be permanently erased on the next calculation cycle (usually in 24 hours).
Configuring Data Retention Rules in SAP Customer Data Platform
In this video, we will demonstrate how to configure a data retention rule that deletes customer data older than two weeks, that contains the primaryEmail attribute.
Video Summary
- Navigate to Data Retention Section.
- Create a New Data Retention Rule.
- Configure the Data Retention Rule.
- Save and Simulate Rule.
- Activate Rule if Satisfied.
Lesson Summary
In this lesson, you learned how to configure and implement data retention rules within the SAP Customer Data Platform. These rules allow you to define an expiration period for customer data, simulate potential deletions, and permanently remove profiles and associated activities based on custom criteria.