At the core of BlueConic are the profile properties that store customer or visitor data in BlueConic customer profiles. Profile properties receive data from various parts of BlueConic, for example from listeners that collect data, from customer input to dialogue forms, from connections that integrate with other systems, and so on. The data stored in a profile property is known as a profile property value.

Learn more: Visit BlueConic University

See the Creating Profile Properties video in the BlueConic University.

Organize and manage profile properties

To view or manage profile properties, you select Properties or Profile properties from the BlueConic navigation bar.

All existing profile properties are shown in a navigation list on the Profile properties tab. You can manage the listed profile properties by searching and filtering. You can even modify the columns displayed.

Note: A select group of properties on this page are system-generated and read-only, meaning you cannot alter their settings or data type. These are grayed out in the table but still clickable.

Create a profile property

Profile properties can be created manually in BlueConic. To create a new profile property, click the Add profile property button on the Profile properties tab. Or, you can create profile properties as you are building connections, dialogues, or listeners.

Define the following settings for a profile property:

Setting	Description
Name and Metadata
Name	This is the human readable text that appears for the profile property wherever it appears in the BlueConic user interface.
Labels	Assign any number of text labels to the profile property for grouping or easy retrieval.
Description	A short description of the profile property.
Settings
ID	The internal identifier for the profile property. The identifier must be unique for each profile property. A valid ID may consist of letters, numbers, hyphens (-), and underscores (_) and must be at least one character long. Once saved, the ID cannot be modified.
Type	Specifies the data type of the profile property. The options are: Text — The value stored in the profile property is in text format. Valid entries include any type of text. Examples: `ブルークルー`, `Blue Crew` Email address — The value contains a valid email address. Example: `[email protected]` Number — The value stored in the profile property is in numerical format: `0` to `9` and `-`. If you select this format, you also select units for the number. The maximum number that can be held by BlueConic is 2,147,483,647. Examples: `1234` and `-9876` Note: You can store numbers higher than 2,147,483,647 that you don't use for mathematical operations in a property of type Text. Decimal — The value contains numbers from `0` to `9`, `-` and `.` with a maximum of 4 decimal places. Examples: `12.3456` and `-98` Currency — The value contains numbers from `0` to `9`, `-` and `.`. If you select this format, you can select from over 150 currencies, with the corresponding units. Examples: `12.34` and `-98.76`. Date time — The value stored in the profile property is in UNIX millisecond timestamp format: the number of milliseconds since 1-1-1970 UTC. Example: `1538073598692` represents September 27th, 2018 6:39:58 PM UTC Group ID — The value serves as the unique ID of a BlueConic group. If you identify this property as a Group ID, you need to provide the Group type as well. Learn more about BlueConic Groups. Note: If you set these data types, BlueConic will enforce them. Once there is at least one profile with a value for the profile property, you can no longer change the data type (except for "Text" profile properties, which can be changed to the type "Email address" at all times). Learn more about validating and enforcing data types in profile properties.
Segmentation	Use the 'Available for segmentation' option to specify whether or not the profile property should be available in the Segments tab to be used as a filter for segmentation. If you do not show the profile property in the Segments tab, you cannot use it do define BlueConic customer segments.
Default values	Enter default values for the profile property. These values will be available for building segments — even when no values have been added by listeners to visitor profiles yet.

Click Save to permanently save the profile property.

Selecting unit types for numerical profile properties

When you set a profile property's type to number, you can specify a unit for the numbers. The unit serves as a visual aid to help BlueConic users to understand the context for this profile property value. It does not affect the numerical values stored in the profile property. The default value is 'No unit'.

For example, if the profile property value represents page views, you can specify the unit when you create the profile property.

Expert settings

Use the profile property expert settings to control the privacy level of the property, its data sensitivity (PII vs non-PII), and what happens to the value of a profile property during profile merging. You can also assign a unique identifier to a profile property that aids in the retrieving of property values using the BlueConic REST API.

If you aren't sure about how to configure these settings, it's best to leave them at the default value or ask your BlueConic customer success manager.

Setting	Description
Unique identifier	A unique identifier that can be used to retrieve profiles with a specific value for a property, for example, an email address. The unique identifier is also used for profile properties that can be used to create a "When to Merge" rule. See Profile merging for complete information. Select "Create new profile when identifier changes" for improved privacy and security (to prevent profile hijacking). If checked, the visitor will switch to a new profile when a new value for this property is set. See Unique identifiers in BlueConic.
Data sensitivity	Select whether this profile property will contain personally identifiable information (PII) or non-PII. PII settings can be changed to non-PII only if no profiles contain values for this property. Properties with PII are visible only to BlueConic users whose user role includes data visibility for PII. See data sensitivity and visibility settings for more information.
Permission level	Specifies what visitor permission level is minimally needed to use the profile property. There are two options: Level 1 — The profile property can only store anonymous data. Level 2 — The profile property can store personal data such as an email address or telephone number.
Merge strategy	Specifies what to do with the value of the profile property if the visitor's profile is merged with another profile. See Profile merging for complete information on profile merging. You have the following options: Value of current profile — The value of the property in the current visitor profile is kept. The current profile is the one the visitor was actively using at the time of the merge. Keep both — The values from both profile properties are kept. Most recently updated value — Keeps the value that was last set. Sum — (number, decimal, and currency only) The values from the two matching profile properties are added together. Highest — (number, decimal, and currency only) Keep the highest number from the visitor profiles as the value. Lowest — (number, decimal, and currency only) Keep the lowest number from the visitor profiles as the value. Most recent date — (date time only) Compare both date values and keep the most recent one. Oldest date — (date time only) Compare both date values and keep the most recent one. First stored value — If both profiles have a value, the oldest value (with the oldest timestamp) is used for merging.
Visitor access	Determines what access the visitor or browser has from the browser client to read or write to this profile property (including BlueConic client connections, dialogues, and listeners). Enable the "Read" option to allow the visitor's browser to retrieve the value for this profile property. Enable "Write" to allow the visitor's browser client to write a new value into this property. When you create new profile properties via the Profile properties tab, Visitor access is turned off by default, to improve security of these values, so the values are not open to changes from the browser. You can choose to enable Read or Write access if you require that the visitor's browser be able to read or write the profile property value. Visitor access determines a profile property's read and write access from a website (as well as BlueConic client connections, dialogues, and listeners). It does not apply to batch and server-side, real-time connections, server-side listeners, or the BlueConic REST API. The BlueConic connections to Mailchimp, via Webhooks, and for Facebook Custom Audiences are all examples of batch or server-side real-time connections, so these do not need readable or writable profile properties. Contact your BlueConic Customer Success Manager for more information.
Hide from UI	Enable the "Don’t show on Segments tab" option if you do not want this profile property to show up on the user interface of the Segments tab. This is useful if you only want to be able to hand off the profile property in a connection.

Default size of data stored in a profile property value

The default maximum size for a profile property value is 64KB, which results in a 65,536 character limit for text-type properties.

Validating and enforcing data types

Data is validated for the number, decimal, currency, date time, and email address types. At the time of the upgrade, BlueConic analyzed the values of all existing profile properties to find the percentage of valid values for each property.

BlueConic profile property data types

BlueConic profile properties are set to one of the following data types:

Text — The value stored in the profile property is in text format. Valid entries include any type of text. Examples: ブルークルー, BlueCrew
Email address — The value contains a valid email address. Example: [email protected]
Number — The value stored in the profile property is in numerical format: 0 to 9 and -. If you select this format, select the units for the number below. The maximum number that can be held by BlueConic is 2,147,483,647. Examples: 1234 and -9876
Note: You can store numbers higher than 2,147,483,647 that you don't use for mathematical operations in a property of type Text.
Decimal — The value contains numbers from 0 to 9, - and . with a maximum of 4 decimal places. Examples: 12.3456 and -98
Currency — The value contains numbers from 0 to 9, - and .. If you select this format, you can select from over 150 currencies, with the corresponding units. Examples: 12.34 and -98.76.
Date time — The value stored in the profile property is in UNIX millisecond timestamp format: the number of milliseconds since 1-1-1970 UTC. Example: 1538073598692 represents September 27th, 2018 6:39:58 PM UTC

Note: When you create a new profile property using the number, date time, currency, decimal, or email address type, validation is always enabled. (Content stored as text is not validated.) When you set these data types, BlueConic will enforce them.

Upon enabling validation, BlueConic enforces validation going forward when values are retrieved, exported, or changed.

Once there is at least one profile with a value for the profile property, you can no longer change the data type (except for "Text" profile properties, which can be changed to the type "Email address" at all times). For this reason, be sure to choose data types carefully. Contact BlueConic Support if you need help setting this up.

Enabling data validation for existing number and date time properties

When BlueConic analyzes profile properties set to the number or date time data type, validation will be enabled automatically only for profile properties with more than 99% type validation.

For profile properties whose type is number or date time, if validation is not yet enabled, the profile property view shows the option to Open validation analysis.

BlueConic will analyze a random sample of up to 10,000 profiles to evaluate the percentage of valid values. For example, if you enable validation for a profile property called "Age" to make sure the values are all valid numbers, BlueConic reports the scope of invalid values, with details on the first 500 invalid values in the sample set, as shown below. You can choose to manually fix the invalid entries (click Cancel) or click Yes, enable to enable validation and remove invalid profile properties.

Enabling validation for email addresses previously stored as text

BlueConic can help you identify email addresses previously stored as text. BlueConic analyzes your content to identify the percent of values of the valid data type. If more than 80% of the values in a profile property are valid email addresses, the text "Not yet enabled" is shown in the Validation column of the profile properties overview. Profile properties with fewer than 80% valid values will show the text "N/a" in the Validation column.

All profile properties of type text can be converted to type email address. In the settings for a profile property, select the "Email address" option from the Type drop-down menu. When you select this option, a pop-up window appears, where BlueConic analyzes the values stored in the profile property. Click Yes, convert to enforce validation. Going forward, this cleans out invalid email addresses of visitors that touch your channels, and invalid entries will no longer be accepted. Click Cancel to leave the profile property as is; the type remains as text, and the invalid data stays in the profiles.

Data types for read-only profile properties

All tenants include BlueConic-created profile properties that are read-only, meaning their settings and data type are predefined and cannot be changed. These are the current read-only properties:

Creation date: Data type is “Date time.”
Last visited date: Data type is “Date time.”
Domain group: Data type is “Text.”
Last modified date: Data type is “Date time.”
System has property: Data type is “Text.”

Modify a profile property

You can change any setting for a profile property except the ID of the profile property. When you change any of the settings of a profile property, the Save button is enabled. By clicking the Save button, the profile property settings are permanently modified.

Note: Profile properties that are defined in plugins by a developer are read only and cannot be modified. This is indicated in the user interface by the grayed-out settings and the disabled Save button.

Delete a profile property

To delete a profile property, select the Save button and choose delete from the dropdown menu. Note: Profile properties that are defined in plugins by a developer are read-only and cannot be deleted. This is indicated in the user interface by the grayed-out settings and the disabled Delete option.

Copy a profile property

A shortcut for profile property creation is to copy an existing profile property. Press the Save button and choose Save as... from the dropdown menu.
A new profile property is created with the same settings as the original profile property, but with an adapted ID. You can set a new ID or change any other setting. By clicking the Save button, you finalize the creation of the copied profile property.

Overview: Using BlueConic Profiles

Behavioral profile properties

Unique identifiers in BlueConic

Data sensitivity and visibility settings for PII