Deploy marketing definitions and taxonomies

Current version: 10.1

Marketing definitions are Sitecore items that enable you to create and define campaigns, funnels, goals, marketing assets, outcomes, and marketing taxonomies. In order for aggregation and reporting to work correctly in a scaled setup, you must deploy marketing definition items. Experience Analytics reports are built on data from the ReferenceData database, and therefore taxonomies and definitions need to be present in the ReferenceData database for data to be shown accurately. When you deploy a marketing definition or a taxonomy that is defined in the Master database:

  • A corresponding record is created in the ReferenceData database.

  • The marketing definitions indexes are rebuilt.

  • The marketing definitions items are published to the web database.

Note

In order to include any custom marketing definitions or taxonomies in reports, you need to create one or more custom reports.

Deploy all marketing definitions and taxonomies

You must deploy all marketing definition items when you:

  • Install a standalone environment.

  • Configure a scalable environment.

    Note

    In a scaled environment, the Deploy marketing definitions dialog box is only available in the content management role.

  • Add a module that contains marketing definitions.

  • Install the Commerce server with Sitecore.

  • Upgrade a Sitecore instance to a newer version.

If you install a Sitecore module, then use the Deploy marketing definitions dialog to update the ReferenceData database with any additional marketing definitions that come as part of the module.

To deploy all marketing definitions and taxonomies:

  1. Log in to the Sitecore Experience Platform desktop.

  2. Click Control Panel, navigate to the ANALYTICS section, and click Deploy marketing definitions.

    The Analytics section
  3. In the Deploy marketing definitions dialog box, select all the checkboxes and click Deploy.

    Select the definitions

When you click Deploy, all marketing definitions that are in the final Analytics workflow state and all taxonomy items are deployed to the ReferenceData database. This can take a long time to complete.

Note

If you fail to deploy marketing definitions correctly, you can get an error during aggregation and some xAnalytics reports will not display correctly. Errors are stored in the log files but are not displayed in the xAnalytics UI. Also, other Sitecore applications using the ReferenceData database could be affected.

Deploy a new marketing definition

If you create an additional custom marketing definition (such as a goal) you do not need to use the Deploy marketing definitions dialog box to redeploy all items. Marketing definition items are automatically included in the Analytics workflow, so you can deploy the item by moving it to the final state of the workflow.

To deploy a single marketing definition item that you have created:

  • In the Marketing Control Panel, on the Home tab, click the Edit drop-down menu and click Deploy.

Important

If you create a new marketing definition under a category or folder, you must publish all parent categories or folders first.

Deploy a new taxonomy

If you create an additional taxonomy item, such as a channel or asset, you do not need to use the Deploy marketing definitions dialog box to redeploy all items. However, it is not possible to deploy an individual taxonomy item because taxonomy items are part of a hierarchy. It is necessary to deploy the entire hierarchy.

To deploy a new taxonomy item:

  • Select the root taxonomy item. On the Taxonomy tab, click Deploy.

Do you have some feedback for us?

If you have suggestions for improving this article,