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Real-time data ingestion (preview)

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[This article is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

The near real-time functionality lets you see, within seconds, the latest interactions that your customers have made with your products or services.

Scheduled refreshes include large numbers of records and several complex operations. First, data is pulled from the data source. Next, the data is unified, and then enriched with additional information. Every run of this process can take minutes to hours.

The real-time functionality provides data immediately for consumption, until the subsequent scheduled refresh pulls this data from the data source.

Real-time updates have an expiration time after which they no longer override the value from the data source:

  • Profile updates are kept for four hours
  • Activities are kept for 30 days

These values are API call parameters that you can change. They aim to ensure that your source data remains your source of truth. If you want real-time updates to be included for longer, add them to a data source so they get pulled during the next scheduled refresh.

Tip

Any ingested or modified data using these APIs reflects directly in the corresponding Dataverse tables. This allows you to leverage the rest of the Dataverse ecosystem and functionalities to achieve end-to-end business scenarios.

Important

  • This is a preview feature.
  • Preview features aren't meant for production use and may have restricted functionality. These features are available before an official release so that customers can get early access and provide feedback.

Real-time update of the unified customer profile fields

Updated profiles show in the customer card view, or any other visualization, within a few seconds.

Because real-time operations take place after the data unification has happened, they only apply to the unified customer profiles. Consequently, real-time profile changes don't update measures, segment membership, or enrichments.

Limitations

  • Customer profiles can be updated, but not created or deleted.
  • Exporting real-time updates to external systems, like Power BI, is not possible.

Real-time creation of activities

The real-time API lets you publish a new activity from your source system (an individual source record) to a unified customer profile. The new activity is available as a unified activity in that unified customer profile's timeline within seconds. You can see the timeline in the customer card view or any other timeline integration you configured.

Note

  • Activities don't change once created.
  • Segments and measures don't update based on the new activity.
  • Activities added only through the real-time API are not part of exports and don't show up in PowerBI.

There are two ways to connect to the real-time API:

Both ways share the following prerequisites:

  • A Customer Insights - Data environment
  • Unified customer profiles
  • Activities configured and run
  • Contributor or Administrator permissions to authenticate your account

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Data connection

The real-time API can ingest data from a dedicated Power Platform connector, the Dynamics 365 Customer Insights connector, without the need to write and deploy any code. The connector can do the same real-time actions as the API. You need a valid license for premium connectors. For more information, see Power Apps and Power Automate licensing FAQs.

For details about creating flows, see the Power Automate documentation.

Direct connection to the real-time API

You can use the real-time capabilities by building your own pipeline and connecting directly to the real-time API. You can post an activity in the format of your source system or in the UnifiedActivity format. Get the format by making an API call to /api/instances/{instanceId}/manage/tables/UnifiedActivity.

Details of this API, including parameters and responses, can be found in the TableData section on the API reference. For more information, see Work with APIs.