You'd like to use product usage or CRM data from a source MadKudu does not currently have an integration with? No worries, we can easily set up a transfer using Amazon S3 from Redshift or flat files (JSON or CSV). MadKudu's preferred way is to pull data from your S3 bucket where the data is formatted as described below, and from which MadKudu has access through an IAM role. 

• Please refer to this documentation to give MadKudu access to your bucket.
• For transfer from Redshift, please refer to this documentation.

How to format your data

MadKudu works with 4 types of objects:

• Event: what are users doing?
• Contact: who is the user? 
• Account: what accounts my users belong to?
• Opportunity: what deals do I open? (when you are not using Salesforce Opps or HubSpot Deals)

Depending on what type of segmentation you will want to build (based on behavioral activity, based on lead/account attributes, or based on both), you may send us data from 1 or more objects.

• If you track behavioral activity in a system that does not integrate with MadKudu and would like to build a behavioral model, you would need to send at least Events. If you plan on having account scoring, please send us your Accounts as well. 
• If you have a homemade CRM or CRM which does not integrate with MadKudu, you would need to send at least Contacts and Opportunities for MadKudu to understand who are your contacts and who converts. If you plan on having account scoring, please send us your Accounts as well. 

You want to send...

Event

To send behavioral data (product usage, web activity, marketing activity...), create a file named event with the following attributes (with headers included):

Example in JSON format

{"event_key": "abcd1234", "event_text":"signed up", "event_timestamp":1234567890, "contact_key":"abc1234"}
{"event_key": "abcd2345", "event_text":"visit web page", "event_timestamp":1234567890, "contact_key":"paul@madkudu.com", "event_url":"http://www.domain.com/pricing"}

Contact

To send enrichment or CRM data on the contact level (CRM, demographic, firmographic traits ...), create a file named contact with the following attributes (with headers included):

Example in JSON format

{"contact_key":"abc1234", "email":"paul@madkudu.com"}
{"contact_key":"432535", "email":"paul@madkudu.com", "contact_title":"cto"}

Account

To send enrichment or CRM data on the account level (CRM, demographic, firmographic traits ...), create a file named account with the following attributes (with headers included):

Example in JSON format

{"contact_key":"abc1234", "account_key":"madkudu.com", "domain": "madkudu.com", "name": "madkudu"}
{"contact_key":"abc4983", "account_key":"ibm.com", "domain": "ibm.com", "account_ARR":"3000"}

Customer Fit training data

If you are not able to send your Opportunities as described above, MadKudu still needs to understand who converts from your historical data to configure a customer fit model. You can send us a unique flat file extracted from your CRM that tells us who has converted among your leads, with the following fields (with headers included):

Example in JSON format

{"email":"elon@tesla.com", "target":"1", "amount": "2499", "target_closed_won":"0", "amount_closed_won":"0", "created_date": "1234567890" }
{"email":"paul@madkudu.com", "target":"0", "amount": "0", "target_closed_won":"0", "amount_closed_won":"0", "created_date": "1234567810", "team_size":"5"}

Points of attention

How to format the files

MadKudu currently supports two file formats:

• Newline-delimited JSON (preferred)
• CSV

Newline-delimited JSON

Our preferred format for upload is newline-delimited JSON, which is more standardized and less error-prone than CSV.

In this format, the different records are separated by the newline \n character. Each line is a valid JSON object:

{"event_text":"signed up", "event_timestamp":1234567890, "contact_key":"abc1234"}
{"event_text":"added a friend", "event_timestamp":1234567890, "contact_key":"paul@madkudu.com", "some_other_event_field":"some_value"}

{"contact_key":"abc1234", "email":"paul@madkudu.com"}
{"contact_key":"432535", "email":"paul@madkudu.com", "some_other_contact_field":"some value"}

{"event_text":"signed up", "event_timestamp":1234567890, "contact_key":"abc1234", "key": "val"ue"}

{"event_text":"signed up", "event_timestamp":1234567890, "contact_key":"abc1234", "key": "val\"ue"}

CSV

We also support the .csv format, with the recommended format:

• column names (header) in the first line
• separator: ~  → separate the value with ~ (ex: abc~def~) Please do not use ,  or -as it easily creates parsing issues
• delimiter: "   → this adds quotes around the values (abc -> "abc")
• line separator: line-break \n

abc,cde,ef

"abc","cde","efg"

"abc","cd"e","efg"

"abc","cd""e","efg"

Data validation

JSON line and CSV are relatively easy to corrupt (for example with " or , characters in the data).

We will validate the data on our side and warn you of any corruption issues, but it helps a lot if you follow the format requested above.

Compression

To speed up the data upload part, we highly recommend that you compress your file with GZIP before uploading them to S3.

You can call your file whatever you want it (we recommend event, contact and account). However, please make sure to add the correct extension depending on your file format:

• .json.gz for compressed JSON (recommended)
• .json for uncompressed JSON
• .csv.gz for compressed CSV
• .csv for uncompressed CSV

How to store your file

We recommend that the files you want to share with MadKudu are in a dedicated folder and that you create an IAM policy and role for MadKudu to access these files. 

You will also need to set up a recurring push of your data to this folder for MadKudu to score fresh data. This is done by creating distinct files, as described below. 

File naming

In the S3 bucket, please upload data into separate folders by date and by objects

{object}/{year}/{month}/{day} where the objects are 

• event
• contact
• account
• opportunity

MadKudu will pull the files on the date from the folder name. Files in a folder containing /2020/11/20/ will be pulled on November the 20th, 2020.

If you use the S3 API, simply “prefix” your destination file name. For example, uploading to "contact/2020/11/20/11:00:00/name_of_file.csv" will add a file name name_of_file.csv to the contact folder.

Please use this recommended file naming and storing system in the bucket for MadKudu to be able to automatically pull any new file. 

s3://bucket_name/object/year/month/day/name_of_file.csv

Compression

To speed up file transfer, you can compress files locally before transferring them to Amazon S3. If you want to compress your files, please use the GZIP compression method and use .gz or .gzip as your file extension (we currently don’t support other methods or other extensions). 

Frequency: setting up a recurring push of data to MadKudu

Depending on how your data will be used in the MadKudu platform, we recommend providing fresh data through that bucket

• every 4 hours or at least twice a day if used in a behavioral model 
• in one shot if used for a punctual model training or analysis

For setting up a recurring push of data, please upload a new file for each batch of new records, naming the files as described in File naming. 

Please open a ticket here if you have a doubt, we'll be happy to assist you.

Frequently Asked Questions

I'm having an issue with S3 / I don't know how to use S3

Please open a ticket here and we will be happy to assist you.

Your file format doesn’t work for me. What do I do?

If you’re having any issues with the file format, please open a ticket here and we’ll be happy to help.

How often is the data refreshed?

As soon as you drop data into the S3 bucket, expect results to be updated in the Madkudu platform within 6 hours.

What would happen if I send the same event more than once - will it appear twice in MadKudu?

Our system will deduce the events based on contact_key / event_text / timestamp. If you send the same event twice, only one will be kept:

• If sent in two separate batches, only the most recent will be kept.
• If sent in the same data batch, the first one in the file.

Can we add other attributes to the Contact records?

Yes, please send any attributes you have stored in your user table (except sensitive ones (password, cc number)).

In particular, it is always helpful to get the following:

• created_date
• lead source
• current plan/value of the plan

More questions and answers are in the FAQ as well.