Basic Operations in Gainsight Data Management

Overview

The Gainsight Data Platform offers a mechanism through which Data that is collected and stored in various data stores in any organization can be managed in the Matrix Data model and transform this data to drive business metrics through tools offered by the Platform. Using Data Management, Admins can create and manage Gainsight Objects directly from the Data Management page.

IMPORTANT: Before proceeding ahead, Gainsight recommends you to go through the Gainsight Objects article for information on types of Gainsight Objects provided as part of its Data Management.

Create a Gainsight Object

Admins can create a custom object to store information in Gainsight as per their requirements.

To create an object:

In the global navigation pane, type Data Management Horizon in the search field.
Click Data Management (Beta) in the search results.
Click Create Object. The Create Object page is displayed.
In the Object Informations step, enter the information in the fields explained in the following table:

Fields	Description
Object Display Name	A unique name for the object.
Object Name	It is auto-generated with a suffix of __gc (), based on the name entered in the above field.
Description	A brief description of the object being created.
Object Type	High Volume: This type of Object can store more than one Million records. Low Volume: This type of object can store upto 1 million records. For more information on Low Volume Custom Objects, refer to the Gainsight Objects article in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Click Next. The Fields section is displayed.

Add Fields in Object

The Fields section displays the list of Standard and System fields that are provided Out Of The Box (OOB).

Field Name	Data Type	Object Type
Currency ISO Code Note: This field is only enabled when multi-currency support is enabled in you org.	String	Standard
GS Created By	GS ID	System
GS Created Date	Date Time	System
GSID	GS ID	System
GS Modified By	GS ID	System
GS Modified Date	Date Time	System

Notes:

The above Field Names cannot be Edited or Deleted.
Click Expand All to view detailed information of all Fields created.
Click Collapse All to view only the Field Names along with Data Types and Field Types.

In the Fields section, you can add the fields by the following two methods:

Upload CSV file to create fields in object
Drag fields to add them in object

Upload CSV file to Create Fields in Object

Admins can upload a CSV file containing the field details from the local system, while creating a new object.

Note: The Upload CSV file option is not available when you edit an object.

To add fields through CSV file:

Drag and drop the CSV file from the local system (or) click Browse to the location and select the CSV file. The Fields will be automatically uploaded in the canvas as shown below.

Note: The CSV file size should be less than or equal to 1 MB.

Change the field display name and field name as required. You can select a different data type, if the automatic matching is incorrect.
(Optional) You can assign default values to the Target Object fields.
Click Save.

Note: Click Delete icon beside the fields to remove the field.

Drag and Drop Fields to Add Them in Object

Admins can drag and drop fields to add them in the object.

To add fields through drag and drop method:

Drag and drop the required data type from the Object pane to the Fields pane.
Enter the details in the following Fields section:

Field Display Name: The display name of the Field that you want to create.
Field Name: An auto-generated field name based on the Field Display Name with a system defined suffix of _gc.
Default Value: The default value that you would like to insert in the object field. This is a dynamic field whose data type changes automatically, based on the Data type selected above. This field is not displayed when you select the GS ID Data type.
Decimal Places: This field is displayed only when you select either Currency, Number, or Percentage Data type. Assign the number of decimal places on the values in the field. By default, the assigned decimal place is 0. Range is 0 to 9.
Description: The description of the field being created.
Dropdown: (This field is displayed only when you select either Dropdown list or Multi select dropdown list as the Data type.) You must select a Category for the Dropdown list. For more information on Dropdown lists, refer to the Dropdown List article.
Max Length: (This field is visible only when you select the Rich Text Area Data type) You should specify the maximum number of words supported by this field.

(Optional) Click Show Advanced Options.

Mark it as a mandatory field: By setting this constraint, the field is not allowed to ingest a null value record while importing data.
Hide in Reporting: If you select this checkbox, the field will be hidden in the Reporting functionality.
Mapping: (This field is displayed only when you select either GSID, Date, DateTime, Email, or String data type). You can map the current field only to standard fields from Gainsight Objects, enabling certain values with hyperlinking and enhancing search capabilities. However, hyperlinks are generated specifically for Company and Relationship names within applicable 360 objects. For example, if you map a field to the Gainsight Company Name and the data in that field is hyperlinked, redirecting to C360 based on the field mapped to Gainsight Company ID. When end users click the hyperlink. In that case, it navigates to the C360 page for that company. It’s important to note that while Person also has a 360, it does not include hyperlinking in production.

The following are the standard fields that you can map with a custom field: Company ID, Company Name, Relationship ID, Relationship Name, Relationship Type ID, Relationship Type Name, User Email, User ID, User Name, Person Email, Person Name, Person ID, and Company Person ID.
Lookup: (This field is displayed only when you select either Email, String or GS ID data type.) Import GSID of a record from one object to another, while ingesting data through any channel. For more information on the lookups, refer to the Data Import Lookup article.

Note:
- Lookup between Low Volume Custom Object and High Volume object is not supported. However, you can create Lookup to standard objects
- You cannot apply lookup from any standard or system field.
- You can apply lookup from any custom field of data type String, GSID, and email.
- Self Lookup is only allowed for GSID dataType fields in Standard Object.
On Delete: This allows you to reset the records of this field, when the corresponding lookup record is deleted. This field has three options:
- Delete: When the lookup record is deleted, the corresponding record in the current object is deleted.
- Set Null: When the lookup record is deleted, the corresponding value in the current field is Set to Null.
- None: When the lookup record is deleted, no action will be taken in the current object.
Create Formula: With Create Formula Fields, you can instantly create a formula field on CTA, Task and Success Plan objects, based on your business requirements.
- To use a formula function in a custom field, you must ensure that the Data type of the custom field is the same as the return type of the formula function. For example, the Date Diff function returns output in Number format.
- When creating a formula field, ensure clarity in the use of operators to avoid ambiguity:
Use MOD for modulus operations.
Use % to represent percentages.
- To use this function, your custom field must have data type as either Number, Percentage, or Currency. Substring function returns output in String format. You cannot use it if your custom field’s data type is currency or Date. For more information on Create Formula, refer to the Advanced Operations in Data Management article in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Note: Click the Delete icon beside the fields to remove the field.

Click Save.

Settings

In the Settings tab, admins can configure the following:

Display Record Name Fields
Identifiers

Display Record Name Fields

Display Record Name, helps users to configure and use a recognizable name field to identify the data instead of GSIDs. This simplifies the admin’s experience of viewing, searching, and editing data.

For example:

When you create Reports, a more readable name can be added to the Show me fields instead of GSID.
Display the name of the "Created By" user instead of the GSID of the user record.

To assign display record name fields:

Navigate to Settings tab. The Display Record Name Fields section appears.
From the Display Record Name Field dropdown, select the name to be assigned.
Click Save.

Display field name settings.jpg

IMPORTANT: The Display Record Name Field is:

Pre-defined for the System and Standard objects.
Applicable to Low-volume Custom objects.
Applicable for Email and String data types.
Not applicable to Who ID and fields with self-lookup properties.

The following table shows the predefined Name field and Searchable field for System and Standard Objects.

Object	Named Field	Searchable Field
Anonymous Person	Name	Name
Company	Name	Name
Person	Name	Name, Email
User	Name	Name, Email, SFDC UserName
Relationship	Name	Name
Relationship Type	Name	Name
Cases	NA	Assignee ID, Case Priority, Case Status, Case Subject, Case Type, External Id, External System Id

Edit Display Record Name Field

Admins can edit the Display Record Field from the Fields tab.

To edit the display record name field:

Navigate to Fields tab in the object.
Click the Settings icon. The Field Settings slide-out panel appears.
From the Display Record Name Field dropdown, select the name.
Click Save.

View Display Record Name Field

Once the Display Record Name field is assigned, admins can view the assigned name in the Data tab.
To view the display record name field, navigate to the Data page. The list of fields in the object is displayed. The below image shows the raw data for each of these fields.

Show raw data1.jpg

To view the Display Record Name field, Toggle OFF Show raw data. Admins can now see the record names for the assigned fields.

Raw Data.jpg

Identifiers

Admins can define the key field(s) that must be used on an object to update or upsert the existing records. This is primarily introduced to avoid updating the existing data with the wrong key fields (as it can corrupt the entire object data) and ensure that Update / Upsert operations are allowed ONLY when the valid keys are used.

Note: You cannot select Identifiers for System and Standard objects.

To select an Identifier:

Click the name of an object.
Click the Identifiers tab.
From the Select Identifiers dropdown, select the fields that would be automatically used when "Update" or "Upsert" operation is performed in the data load process.

Note: A Maximum of 6 Identifiers can be selected.

Click Save. A confirmation dialog is displayed.
Click Yes.

IMPORTANT: Once Update key(s) are defined, subsequent Update or Upsert operation in the data Ingest (S3 connector , Gainsight Bulk API, or Rules engine > Load to Gainsight Object) is allowed only when the same update/upsert keys are used. If the keys are different, the update/upsert process would fail. Therefore, exercise caution while enabling this feature for an existing object. Existing rules will fail if the update keys are different. Gainsight strongly recommends that you create a new object, and experiment with this feature.

Objects Summary Ribbon

The summary ribbon at the top of the Objects tab under the Data Management page displays a summary of high level critical information pertaining to the Objects of your tenant.

To enable, click the Object Stats option. This opens the summary ribbon that displays the following information:

Number of Standard objects
Number of Custom objects
Number of Low Volume Custom Objects

Object Stats.jpg

Object Stats provide insights into critical metrics and are updated every 24 hours.

Fields Summary Ribbon

The summary ribbon at the top of the Fields tab under the Data Management page displays a summary of high level critical information pertaining to the Fields of your object.

To enable, click the Fields Stats option. This opens the summary ribbon that displays the following information:

Total Fields
Number of Custom Fields
Number of Formula Fields
Number of Required Fields
Number of Identifiers

Fields Stats.jpg

Fields Stats provide insights into critical metrics and are updated in real time.

Conditions for ‘On Delete’

You can see only None item in the On Delete option while applying MDA join from a:
Custom field in the User or Person object.
Custom field of any object to either User or Person object.
Both of these conditions are imposed to make sure that none of the records are deleted from either User or Person object.
By default, On Delete option in the existing MDA joins is None from a custom field in any object. On Delete option in the existing MDA joins is set to None from any field to either User or Person object and vice-versa.
You can select any On Delete option in a custom field of Who ID data type. This option allows you to reset records in this field when the corresponding person lookup record is deleted from the Data Operation page.
Currently, On Delete option does not work even when you can delete records from a custom object (from the Data Management page) that has lookup to another custom object.

Supported Data Types

The following table explains all the types of data supported in Gainsight:

Data Types	Description	Information
String	The Custom String data type The Standard String data type	Any text. Maximum text length is 500 characters. This data type can be mapped (Join Field data type) to String, SFDCID, and Email. Any text. Maximum text length is 255 characters. This data type can be mapped (Join Field data type) to String, SFDCID, and Email.
Boolean	The Boolean data type	0 or 1; True or False
Date	The Date data type	Stores the date component. Supported formats (Click here to expand the list) MM-dd-yyyy MM/dd/yyyy MM/dd/yyyy yyyy-MM-dd yyyy/MM/dd M-dd-yyyy M/dd/yyyy MM-d-yyyy MM/d/yyyy yyyy-M-dd yyyy-MM-d yyyy/M/dd yyyy/MM/d M-d-yyyy M/d/yyyy MM-dd-yy MM/dd/yy yyyy-M-d yyyy/M/d yyyyMMdd M-dd-yy M/dd/yy MM-d-yy MM/d/yy M-d-yy M/d/yy
DateTime	The DateTime data type	Stores the date along with time. Supported formats (Click here to expand the list) M/d/yy HH:mm M-d-yy HH:mm MM/d/yy HH:mm MM-d-yy HH:mm M/dd/yy HH:mm M-dd-yy HH:mm MM/dd/yy HH:mm MM-dd-yy HH:mm M/d/yyyy HH:mm M-d-yyyy HH:mm MM/d/yyyy HH:mm MM-d-yyyy HH:mm M/dd/yyyy HH:mm M-dd-yyyy HH:mm MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm M/d/yyyy HH:mm:ss M-d-yyyy HH:mm:ss MM/d/yyyy HH:mm:ss MM-d-yyyy HH:mm:ss M/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss M-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss yyyy-MM-dd:HH-mm-ss yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss yyyy-MM-dd HH-mm-ss MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ssZ yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ yyyy/MM/dd'T'HH:mm:ss yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.S yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S yyyy/MM/dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.SS yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SS yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.SSS yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS yyyy/MM/dd'T'HH:mm:ssSSS yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssSSS yyyy/MM/dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ yyyy/MM/dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z' yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'
Number	The Number data type	A whole number or number with decimal places. Formula Support: Formulas are supported through Formula Builder; they must be set from the Tenant Management.
SFDC ID	The SFDC ID data type	Note: Gainsight does not allow the creation of SFDC ID data type fields. However, we continue to support existing SFDC ID data type fields. When data is being loaded to an Gainsight object with SFDC ID as a data type, the application checks and converts 15 digit IDs to 18 digit SFDC ID. If the SFDC ID value is not a 15 digit or an 18 digit record, data would be rejected. SFDC ID field can contain NULL. This data type can be mapped (Join Field data type) to string and SFDCID.
GS ID		A 36 digit unique GSID is assigned for identification of each externally exposed “Object” and “Record” from Gainsight. It is assigned automatically to each record in Gainsight. You can import GSID of a record from one Gainsight object to another through data import lookup while ingesting data through Gainsight Bulk API, Rules Engine, and S3 Connector. For more information, refer to the Data Import Lookup article in the Additonal Resources at the end of this article.
Email	The Email data type Info	When data is being loaded to an Gainsight object with Email as a data type, the application validates the email ID with the following criteria. The email ID must have: At least one @ in the email address. There should be at least one character before and after @ This data type can be mapped (Join Field data type) to String and Email.
Dropdown List		This data type is available for all custom fields in Gainsight Standard and custom objects. You can use this data type field in other functionalities as required. For more information, refer to the Dropdown List article in the Additonal Resources at the end of this article..
Multi Select Dropdown List		This data type is available for all custom fields in Gainsight standard and custom objects. This is used when a user wants to store multiple values for the same record. For more information, refer to the Dropdown List article in the Additonal Resources at the end of this article.
Rich Text Area		This data type is available for all custom fields in Gainsight standard and custom objects. This data type is used to support ingesting the data of all characters and basic formatting into the associated field. It is used to store large amounts of data, including comments or notes such as the Survey Comments, CTA Comments, Meeting Notes, Logging Call in Timeline, Email content in Cockpit, or Executive Summary. A maximum length of 15000 characters for high volume custom objects and 150000 for low volume custom objects can be defined for this field. If the length of the data to be ingested exceeds the defined length, the record will be rejected rather than trimming and ingesting the record. Data can be ingested into this field through the data ingestion channels like Rules Engine, S3 Connector, and Connectors 2.0. Admins can set the Rich Text Area field as a Required field. Limitations: Admins cannot assign a default value for this field. This field does not support MDA Joins and update keys. After data is ingested into this field, Admins can increase the maximum length of text in the field (up to the maximum limit) but cannot decrease it.
Currency		List of currencies supported (Click here to expand the list) United States Dollar (USD) Indian Rupee (INR) European Currency (EUR) Great Britain Pound (GBP) Australia Dollar (AUD) Brazil Real (BRL) Canadian Dollar (CAD) Switzerland Franc (CHF) Israel Shekel (ILS) Mexico Peso (MXN) New Zealand Dollar (NZD) Russian Ruble (RUB) Chinese yuan (RMB) Japanese Yen (JPY) Norwegian Krone (NOK) The help icon for Currency Code that appears when the Currency data type is selected displays the currencies supported. You can enter a number, number with a thousand separator, number with currency symbol appended, or number with currency code appended. For example, 1000, $1000, 100,000, or USD1000. If the data includes currency symbol/currency code, such as "USD 100", "$ 100", "100 USD", or "100 $", there should not be any space before or after the currency symbol or code. Only a thousand separator comma is supported. For example, 100,000. If the data includes a thousand separator; for example, 10,324,342, the data should be enclosed within double quotation marks ("10,324,342"). Otherwise, it will be considered as data for the next columns. You can enter a number with decimal places. For example, 110.56 $, or ₹ 55.25. Formula Support: Formulas are supported through Formula Builder; they must be set from the Tenant Management. Report Filters: To search for a specific value in the report, use only the number. For example, to search for $10, enter 10. Usage in Journey Orchestrator: If the user is using a currency value in the Email Template as a token, and the record value is 12, the $ symbol will not automatically appear in the email. For example, you must add the currency symbol ($<token>) before the token in the email body for the email to display as $12. A table below shows how the currency numbers will be formatted in various areas of Gainsight.
Percentage		You can enter values with a percentage symbol. For example, 10%. When loading numbers into the percentage field through a CSV file, if the source value is 0.1, it is automatically converted into 10% in the target field. When loading numbers into percentage fields through Rules or Connectors, if the source value is 0.1, then it is stored as 0.1 in the target field. You can enter percentage values with decimals. For example, 98.33%. Formula Support: Formulas are supported through Formula Builder; they must be set from the Tenant Management. Report Filters: To search for a specific value in the report, use only the number. For example, to search for 10%, enter 10. Usage in Journey Orchestrator: If the user is using a percentage value in the Email Template as a token, and the record value is 12, the % symbol will not automatically appear in the email. For example, you must add the percentage symbol (<token>%) after the token in the email body for the email to display as 12%. A table below shows how the percentage numbers will be formatted in various areas of Gainsight.
Who ID		A field of this data type can be created in any standard or custom object. This field has the ability to dynamically join with the User or Person object to identify a user or person uniquely from the current object. This helps to build reports on the current object and join the selected fields from the Person or User object.
What ID URL		Admins would be able to create a field of this data type in any standard or custom object. This field has the ability to dynamically join with another standard object to fetch the source information. This helps to build reports on the current object and join the selected fields from the standard object. Currently, Gainsight does not support to create a new field of this data type. You can use this Data type to store web site addresses. You can ingest values into these data type fields that start with either http:// or https:// prefix and end with .com, .org, or any other suffix. If you try to ingest values without the prefix or suffix, such values are not ingested.

Edit an Object

To edit the Object:

Click the three vertical dots menu of the Object to be edited. The Edit Object page is displayed.
Edit the Object Display Name and Description as required.
Click Next.
Edit the Fields within the Object as required.
Click Save.

Edit a Field

To edit Fields:

Click the three vertical dots menu of the object and select View Fields.
Click Add or Edit Field. The Edit Object page is displayed.
Click the Expand icon to view the details of the field to be edited.
Modify the fields as per your requirement.

Note: You can modify more than one field and review all changes at once

Click Review Changes. The Review Changes pop-up with all the updated fields information is displayed
Click Cancel.

Note: This will not cancel your changes but will take you back to the Edit Object page.

Click Save.

Delete an Object

Admins can delete any unwanted or unused Gainsight custom object and any custom field in the Gainsight standard or custom objects. The specific objects and the fields can be deleted irrespective of whether they have data or not. These objects and fields can be deleted when they do not have any dependencies (it is not being used in any of the consumption areas). To delete a custom object or field, Admins should remove its dependencies first.

To delete an object:

Click the three-vertical dots icon of the object and select Delete Object. A confirmation dialog is displayed.
Click OK.

Notes: If the object has any dependencies, the object cannot be deleted. you can remove any dependencies on the custom object and repeat the above steps to delete the Object.

Delete a Field

To delete a custom field in an object:

Navigate to Administration > Customer Data > Data Management.
Click the Custom object whose field is to be deleted. The Fields tab appears.
Click the three-vertical dots icon corresponding to the required field.
Select Delete Field.

The Delete Field popup appears, calculating and displaying all the dependencies the field has on other product areas of Gainsight.

Notes:

You can only delete a custom field that does not have any active dependencies or lookups. In such cases, the Delete Field popup displays a message as follows:

Cannot Delete Field.png

You can remove the dependencies on the custom field and repeat the steps to delete the field. Click View Dependencies to view a list of the field's dependencies on all the application areas.

Load Data into the Gainsight Object

IMPORTANT: This feature will be available for new Data Management (Horizon Experience) as part of upcoming V6.32 April release.

Once you have created a Gainsight Object, you can load data into the object. It is designed to load small files (under 1 MB). The purpose is to manually load a small data file and view the object data in the data browser to verify its structure.
For loading large files, please consider other methods like loading data via Gainsight Bulk API or Gainsight S3 connector for data import.

Delete Data from a Gainsight Object

IMPORTANT: This feature will be available for new Data Management (Horizon Experience) as part of upcoming V6.32 April release.

You can delete records from the custom objects only from the Data Management page. You can delete whole data from a custom object or filter records as required and delete them. For more information on how to delete data from an object, refer to the Delete Data from a Gainsight Object section in the Older version of this article or refer to the Mass Delete Records section of the Data Operations article.

Additional Resources

For more information on managing data in Gainsight, refer to the following articles: