Create and set up environments

  • 6 minutes

Environments in Customer Insights - Data are where you'll build functionality, such as

  • Creating the unified customer profile

  • Ingesting data from your different data sources

  • Analyzing data, and more.

You can create two environments for every Customer Insights - Data license that you purchase.

When you create a new Customer Insights - Data environment, it includes Audience insights that helps you transform your business into a customer-centric organization. Marketing, sales, and service professionals will have the insights that they need to personalize experiences.

Create a new environment

When you first access the application, a sample environment will display that includes sample data to help get you started. When you're ready to start using your own data, you'll need to create a new environment by selecting the Environment picker and then selecting + New.

Screenshot of the Select environments page with the New button highlighted.

When creating a new environment, make sure that you provide information in the following screens:

  • Basic information - Defines the basic details of the environment, such as type, region, and business focus.

  • Data storage - Specifies where the data will be stored.

  • Microsoft Dataverse - Defines the Microsoft Dataverse instance that you want to attach to Customer Insights - Data.

On the Basic information screen, define the following details:

  • Name - Specifies the name of the environment that will be displayed in the application and what will be used to identify the environment that is connecting with other applications.

  • Type - Defines the type of environment that you want to create. You can choose from the following types:

    • Production - Represents the live environment that is actively being used by your organization.

    • Sandbox - Intended for pre-implementation and testing scenarios. They don't allow scheduled data refresh.

    • Trial - Represents a trial organization. This type is only available when you're working in a trial Customer Insights - Data instance.

You can only have one production environment. After you've defined a production environment, the second environment that you create will need to be a sandbox instance.

  • Region - Defines the region where your environment will be hosted. Try choosing a region that is closest to your location.

Screenshot of the Basic information screen with environment details.

When you create a new environment, you're creating a new, blank environment that contains no data, measures, segments, and so on. So, you'll need to build that information from the beginning. If you want to create a new environment based on an existing environment, select the Copy from existing environment option, which will create an identical copy of the selected environment. This option is beneficial if you want to build a sandbox environment for testing purposes that is based on your current production instance.

In the Data storage screen, you'll choose where to store the data from Customer Insights - Data. Two options that you can choose from are:

  • Customer Insights storage - Data will be stored in an Azure Data Lake Storage that is managed by the Customer Insights - Data team.

  • Azure Data Lake Storage - Data will be stored in your own Microsoft Azure Data Lake Storage. This option requires that you have an Azure Data Lake Gen2 storage to connect to.

By default, the Customer Insights storage option will be selected.

Screenshot of Data storage screen with the Save output data to menu expanded and the Customer Insights storage option selected.

For more information, see Connect to an Azure Data Lake Storage account.

In the Microsoft Dataverse screen, you can connect Customer Insights - Data with your Dataverse environment. This action will associate your Customer Insights - Data and Dataverse instances together. If you want to use the out-of-the-box prediction models, set up data sharing with Dataverse, and share Customer Insights data (such as profiles, segments, and metrics) with your Microsoft Dataverse instance, select Enable data sharing.

Screenshot of the Microsoft Dataverse tab with the Enable data sharing option selected.

Work with environments

After you've created one more environment, you can switch between them by using the Environment control in the upper-right corner of the application.

Screenshot of the Select environment menu with CDP Training selected.

Now, administrators can perform multiple environmental tasks, such as:

  • Create new environments - Opens the environment creation wizard.

  • Edit existing environments - Allows you to make minor changes, such as setting the environment as the default environment or connecting to Dataverse if you didn't do so initially. For more information, see Edit an existing environment.

  • Reset an environment - Resets the environment to an empty state if you only want to remove the configurations and ingested data but want to keep the environment. For more information, see Reset an existing environment.

  • Remove environments - Removes the environment from your instance. For more information, see Delete an existing environment.

Managing environments is only one part of maintaining a Customer Data Platform instance. Next, you'll learn about system statuses and how to ensure that your information in Customer Insights - Data is updating as needed.