A parent-child connection describes a case where two or more data streams are linked by a matching entity key. This connection establishes hierarchical dependencies between entities, allowing for grouping at various granular levels such as campaign, media buy, or creative. Matching entity keys between the data streams are required to establish a parent-child relationship.
Parent-child data streams are linked at the database level and are poured into one data pool, sharing dimensional values. This connection allows for a complete view of the data sets from both data streams. Measurements aren’t shared across data streams in a parent-child relationship, and can be stored only in their own data stream. For example, measurements from an ‘Ads’ data stream can’t be stored in a ‘conversion’ data stream. However, when both data streams are linked together in a parent-child relationship, the measurements from both data streams can be viewed alongside each other.
In a parent-child relationship, both the parent and the child data streams have equal power in contributing to the data pool to which they belong. Meaning, any data stream that is the first to introduce an entity key to the parent-child data pool determines and dictates the hierarchy and attributes for the introduced entity key.
Over time more sources can be added to a parent-child data pool that share the same entity keys but have an updated hierarchy and attributes. You can configure which data streams update attributes and hierarchy to keep up with the new updates. All entity keys and attributes are shared between all data streams in the data pool. After the updated values are introduced, data streams that have permissions to update, update the attributes or hierarchy for all shared entity keys.
- Define a Parent Data Stream
Define a parent data stream to determine a connection between two data streams using a shared entity. - Parent-Child Use Cases
You can use parent-child connections when there are multiple data streams that share the same keys, but have unique attributes, and you must share a hierarchy between them. Here are examples of when parent-child can be used.