Before you begin: This user guide details the steps for setting up a Smart Connector using one of the 10 database delivery types:
- Amazon Athena
- Amazon Aurora MySQL
- Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL
- Amazon Redshift
- Google BigQuery
- Microsoft Azure SQL
- Microsoft SQL Server
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
- Snowflake
Data Source and View Settings
1] On the left side menu click Data.
2] Click Smart Connectors. You're taken to the Smart Connectors list.
3] In the upper right, click the "+" to add a Smart Connector.
4] On the New Smart Connector page, enter a name for your Smart Connector in the Name textbox. This is effectively the name of the data source, so make it memorable and relevant to the data you are adding.
5] Enter a drilldown name for the Smart Connector in the Drilldown / view name textbox.
| NOTE: The drilldown / view name will be the name of the data view you are creating. A data view is the same thing as a table in a database. You can read more about data views here: What is a Data View? |
6] From the Origin of Data dropdown menu choose either Internal System or Third-Party Software. If you choose Third-Party Software, be sure to specify the name of the software in the textbox to the right.
7] Slide the Is active? control to the right to ensure the Smart Connector is turned on after you save it. You can change this later if needed.
Manage Connection
8] From the Delivery type dropdown menu, choose one of the database delivery types.
| NOTE: The specific fields which appear depend on which database type you choose. |
9] Fill in the fields which specify the database location and the credentials.
10] Click Test Connection. Or, if you chose Google Big Query, click Authenticate and enter your Google credentials to authenticate to the database. If successful, new fields will appear below.
Additional Features
11] Choose the following optional features by sliding the control to the right.
- Use Quick Mapping?
- Use Geo Data? (By request only and may not be available for all accounts.)
- Map this SC to a single client?
- Data does not contain Dates?
- Use Email Service?
Data Fields
| NOTE: To help TapClicks understand the data, you must first provide a sample of the data and make some choices about the data. |
12] Enter a query in the Request to <database> textbox.
| NOTE: You will need to include the "%START_DATE%" and "%END_DATE%" variables where you would input date values for your query. This allows the Smart Connector to dynamically update the date parameter so that we can pull data on a daily basis. |
13] Click Load Sample. The parsed data appears in the Sample file data section.
14] TapClicks does its best to guess the field type for each field. In the event that it's wrong, you can change the field type using the Field type dropdown menu.
15] Check the Is metric? checkbox when that field should be used as a performance metric.
16] Check the Include in charts? checkbox if the performance metric specified above is to be used in the row breakdown chart and part of the Report Generator chart.
17] For fields that have field type = number, you will be given a choice of which operation to apply to the numbers in that field. Choose the applicable operation from the Operation? dropdown menu. The operation must be set for all metric-based field types (i.e., number, decimal, percent, currency).
18] To remove an unwanted field, click the trash can icon on the far right.
19] Choose which field to use as the date from the Date field dropdown menu.
20] Choose which field to use for client assignment from the Assignment dropdown menu. Typically this is the Campaign name or Client name.
21] Choose one or more unique fields from the Unique Fields dropdown menu. If you're not sure how to choose unique fields, see this article here.
22] You can remove a unique field by clicking the "x" in the upper right corner.
23] Optionally set margin for currency field types (if any) with the Use for margin dropdown.
24] From the Load sample data? dropdown menu, choose Yes. This is recommended.
25] If your data has footer rows you want TapClicks to ignore, enter the number of footer rows to skip in the # Footer rows to skip textbox.
Notifications
26] Enter your email in the Email textbox to receive confirmation and service alert emails.
27] Slide the Email Errors and Warning Only slider to the on position to only receive those types of alerts.
Smart Connector Sublevels
You may have the option to set up sublevels in your Smart Connector. To learn more about sublevels, see this article here.
Advanced Fetching
| NOTE: By default, every day data from the previous three days is fetched from the source. If this works for you, do nothing. But, if you want to fetch more or less than three days, you can do so. However, if you're not sure, avoid making a change as it can have a significant impact on performance. |
28] To optionally change the number of fetch history days, enter the number of days (1 - 30) in the Fetch History textbox.
29] To optionally add a delay to your fetching, enter the number of minutes ( 720 max.) to delay each fetch in the Fetch Delay textbox.
30] At the bottom of the page, click the Save Changes button.