Data Studio FAQs

• Clicked is when a media link is followed. If you add a link as a media item, clicking it increases the Clicked count by one.
• Downloaded is any form of downloading your content. If you upload a file (for example, a PDF), either clicking a link to download it or loading a web page where it is embedded increases the Downloaded count by one.

• Viewed is the loading of a form in a landing page or website page.
• Inserted is when a brand new form submission is recorded.
• Updated is when a submission is recorded with an email address that's already in your submission list. If there are new or updated fields in the form submission, they are updated on the contact record.

When an export is run, you specify the time frame you want results for. Enabling this option does two things:

• It limits results to messages sent in the selected time frame and generated for that particular export.
• It includes response actions (such as Opened and Clicked) up to 5 days past the end of the time frame.

Use this option if the time frame has messages sent at the end and you want the resulting actions (up to 5 days) to be included. Do not use it if the report has actions from messages sent before the selected time frame that you want to be included.

• The Email profile field is what currently exists in your list in the field mapped as the System Usage Field for "Contact's E-mail Address."
• The Recipient E-mail field is the address used for a particular sent message. If a contact was not sent that specific message, their email is blank on that report.

• If you're using Data Studio to export raw data to analyse (pivot tables, a BI tool, and so on), choose Detailed log data. You get more rows that you can manipulate as you like.
• If you're using Data Studio to generate a report to use as is, choose a specific field for data grouping. The data is more presentable and digestible in aggregated format.

Step 2 of the export wizard uses inclusive filters:

• Only pulls data from the assets, campaigns, and so on that you specify.
• Uses fewer resources, so it processes faster and consumes fewer tokens.
• Allows reports with greater time frames (multiple years).

Step 5 of the export wizard uses exclusive filters:

• Pulls all possible data, then filters it by the criteria you specify.
• Can be set in much more granular ways (logic works similarly to building segments).
• More useful if you aren't using a separate BI tool to sift through the data.

If you have filters set in Step 5 of the export wizard (Filters tab), try changing them or removing them altogether. There may be logic in the filters that isn't working as you intended.

You may find that your data sets are too large to export several years of data at once. Adding inclusive filters (see above) may lower the size enough to make this possible.

To export several years of unfiltered data, you may need to break reports up into single years, or whatever time frame lets the report run.

Data Studio pulls two types of data: Facts (behaviours) and Profile fields.

• Facts are any action or behaviour tracked by Act-On. These are black.
  • Facts are associated with the email address of the contact making the behaviour.
• Profile fields are data that exists on your lists and contacts. These are red.
  • All Audience Center fields appear here automatically.
  • For Marketing Lists, fields must be added as Standard Field Names to appear here.

For all datasets (except website visitor traffic), the unique context is recid (recipient ID).

For website visitor traffic the unique context is cookieid (because of the large number of anonymous visits; known visitors can also be identified by cookie ID). Data Studio does not reconcile cookie ID, email addresses, and recipient IDs to identify a true unique.

If you need that, download the detailed log and use an external ETL process or BI tool to compute true uniques.

• If you select a set of lists for an export using inclusion filters (for example, multiple messages sent to different lists), all profile fields for those lists are made available for the export definition.
• If you don't specify inclusion filters in your dataset, only standard profile fields are available.
  • An administrator can override the system and allow you to inject a custom profile field if needed.

Not directly, but an Act-On Customer Success Manager can create one on your behalf. A future release will support creating custom fields or aggregates as a self-service option.

The standard limit is 10 scheduled exports. To increase it, contact your Account Manager.

If you run your export as a downloadable file, it isn't stored in your account permanently. It is eventually removed, though the timing depends on storage limits in your account and other factors.

We recommend setting up external destinations instead, so your exports are available as long as you need them.

• For On Demand (manual) exports, you can choose:
  • Specific date ranges.
  • Relative date ranges (Last X Days).
  • All time.
• The date range selector appears when you generate an export or package manually.

Notes:

• All time includes all data available on your account for this dataset, including any available data for today.
• An absolute date range must specify both start and end dates. If today is included in the range, the report includes any available data for today.
• Relative periods do not include the current day. The most recent time available is the previous day (1 day ago in your account's time zone). The maximum range is 365 days.

For Daily or Weekly exports (or packages), the schedule you set drives the run:

• If specific days of the week are selected, the export or package runs on those days between 3am and 5am in your account's time zone and retrieves data for the previous X days (based on the Last X Days selector).
• You can set additional date limits of "After Date X," "Before Date Y," or "Between Dates X and Y" (this last option includes both days X and Y).

Examples:

• A daily export scheduled with a time period of Last 1 Day runs every day between 3am and 5am in your account's time zone. The export contains data for the previous day.
• A weekly export (time period of Last 7 Days) scheduled to run every Monday runs between 3am and 5am in your account's time zone. The export contains data from the previous Monday at 12am midnight through the previous Sunday at 11:59:59pm.
• If a package is scheduled to run daily, its child exports use this date range for data. Different time ranges set on the individual child exports aren't used.

For monthly exports (or packages), data is always retrieved for a full month. The export or package runs on the 1st day of each month (between 1am and 3am in your account's time zone).

As with the daily and weekly schedules, if a date boundary is specified the monthly schedule runs only within those bounds. The boundary for monthly schedules specifies a month and year pair. Example: a monthly export requested for July 2025 to November 2025 first runs on August 1st 2025 between 1am and 3am (generating July 2025 data). The next run executes on September 1st 2025 between 1am and 3am (generating August 2025 data). This continues every month on the 1st until December 1st 2025, where the last run generates data for November 2025.

CSV, CSV ZIP, CSV GZ, or XLSX. We recommend ZIP or GZ for larger exports, as they process and download faster.

For an on demand export or package, you request a run by clicking Generate in the export or package list view. In the Run Logs view, you see your queued, running, or completed job with your name (or the requester's name) on it.

For a scheduled job, the initiator of the run is the system Export Scheduler.

Delivery specifies how the output is delivered. The output can either be preserved by Data Studio for 7 days for a manual download, or pushed to SFTP or other destinations defined in the Destinations section. See Configuring Destinations for Data Studio Exports.

Yes. When specifying the destination of your export, there is a checkbox for Attach export output to email. This option is only available for Excel formatted output, so it includes up to 10,000 rows of data.

Yes, optionally, by email.

Not at this time. The goal of Data Studio is to get you raw data that you can then plug into your favourite BI tool to generate polished visuals. High-fidelity output formats are not a focus.

The schedule of the package overrides the schedule of the export and drives the export. The export by itself still runs on its own defined schedule (or not at all if it's on demand).

The package drives another instance of the export based on its schedule, so an export may run twice on the same day (once for its own schedule and once when invoked by a package).

No. All child exports contained in a package are generated as CSV files, even if the export definition specifies its destination file as a ZIP or GZIP.

A runtime error occurs while combining the two output files into the package archive. You are still charged the token cost of each successfully generated export.

The option to join reports together in a package may not work if you are joining different types of data. If you encounter issues with this feature, run the reports separately and merge them outside of Act-On.