About the Data Models

Overview of the Data Models

A data model organizes how data is stored and structured. These data models are used in SAS Customer Intelligence 360:

the Unified Data Model (UDM) contains all of the data that is stored in the cloud. This data is used in SAS Customer Intelligence 360 for analytics and reporting and is available for download.
the Common Data Model (CDM) is on-premises contact and response data that is sourced from the UDM. This data model is structured so that minimal transformation is required to load it into your on-premises database. This model enables you to quickly integrate this data with SAS Customer Intelligence Studio and embed it into your information map.

The content and response data that is stored in each data model illustrates the key differences in the two models:

The UDM includes contact and response data for known users (that is, users that have a subject ID and are known to SAS Customer Intelligence 360) and data for anonymous users.
The CDM starts with the UDM contact and response data and filters out the anonymous users. As a result, the CDM contains contact and response data only for known users.

Working with UDM Data

UDM data is available throughout all of SAS Customer Intelligence 360 and makes it possible to download event and item data and metadata. For example, with UDM data, you can perform these actions:

Use events in data views and for task targeting, segmentation, and triggering tasks.
Stream event data into other applications for use in real-time scenarios.
Join SAS 360 Foundations data with SAS 360 Discover data to provide a comprehensive view of user behavior.

These are the types of tables that are available in the UDM:

detail tables contain the detailed records that are associated with user interactions. For example, each event in the system creates a record in that subject area’s detail table. For information about the content of these tables, see Detail Tables, About the Detail Tables, and CDM (for use with on-premises databases).
Discover base tables (DBTs) are post-processed tables that are used to create the reports that are available from the home page for SAS Customer Intelligence 360. For information about the content of these tables, see About the Discover Base Tables.
identity tables contain the data for user identities and identity mappings. For information about the content of these tables, see About Identity Database Tables.
metadata tables contain records of when an item was published in the user interface. For information about the content of these tables, see About Metadata Tables and CDM (for use with on-premises databases).
plan, assets, and workflow tables contain information about planning items, workflows, and assets. For more information about the content of these tables, see About Tables for Plan.

You can download the data that is stored in the UDM by using the Download API or by using a download program that is available from GitHub.

Working with CDM Data

By default, access to CDM data is disabled. Customers who are interested in accessing the new CDM data need to contact SAS Technical Support to enable the CDM jobs to run for their tenant.

Note: The CDM was introduced starting with the October 2020 (20.10) release. Currently, you can access data that is collected only after the date on which the CDM is enabled.

The CDM consists of data from these areas:

SAS Customer Intelligence 360 items such as tasks, segment maps, messages, and creatives
objects from SAS Customer Intelligence Studio (campaigns and treatments)
contact and response information
identity information

After the CDM is enabled, you can download the data by using the Download API or by using the download client that is available from GitHub.

After the tables are downloaded, the CDM loader program on GitHub enables you to import the downloaded data into an on-premises database. For more information about the available CDM tables, see On-Premises Data Tables (CDM).

Primary Keys and Composite Keys

In the topics that describe each table, the Primary key icon indicates when the column is the primary key or one of the columns that form the table's composite key. When a column is used as a foreign key, the charactes (fk) appear next to the column's name.

Note: For some tables, the composite key is a column set that might contain null columns or is larger than what is technically allowed by your database. If you use a primary key to support upserts, you could generate a surrogate key that is based on a hash of the concatenation of the listed columns.

In rare situations, primary keys in downloaded tables might not be unique. For example, this situation might occur from browser behavior or packet loss. Review these best practices to evaluate records with duplicate primary keys:

To avoid problems in on-site databases (or when re-importing into SAS Customer Intelligence 360), import data by using an UPSERT method or sanitize your files to ignore records when the primary key already exists.
When you use the UPSERT method, records are updated based on their primary keys and the value of the load_dttm column.
If the primary keys and the values for the load_dttm columns are the same, you can use the value of the other *_dttm column (the DATETIME column that represents when the event occurred) to determine which record is the most recent.
If two records are exactly the same, you can discard one of the records. SAS Customer Intelligence 360 is designed to ensure that events are not missed, so data collection is more permissive than restrictive. As a result, duplicate records cannot be completely avoided.
In extract (_EXT) tables, duplicate records might exist based on a change in behavior. For more information, see this document: GCS Customer Notification Number: 2018-06 - 360 Discover EXT Changes (PDF).

Entity Relationship Diagrams

The view the data models and table relationships, use the following links to view an interactive HTML or PDFs of the entity relationship diagrams.

Interactive HTML: this HTML includes the tables from the UDM, DBTs, and Plan models.
PDFs:
TipFor best results when you view the PDF, download the PDF to your local machine and use Acrobat Reader. PDF readers for web browsers might have zoom levels that are not precise enough.

Last updated: October 13, 2026