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Overview

This article explains how to perform batch deletion of records belonging to a Contact table using Datahub.

All examples used in this file are either anonymized or fictitious.

Prerequisites

• Knowledge of the CSV format and the import procedure.
• A UTF-8 capable text editor or spreadsheet software.
• Knowledge of the configuration file syntax to define sub-sequences for deletion scopes.
• Knowledge of the Customer Key for your Splio universe (deletion of contacts).

Configuration of contact deletion scopes

Use a UTF-8 capable text editor to edit the config file.

You need to define sub-sequences for deletion scopes in the configuration file to make Splio recognize your deletion files automatically.

There are exactly two configuration options to be defined for each configuration scope:

• "report recipients" -- a list of email addresses to which Splio will send a report after finishing the deletion, and
• "alert recipients" -- a list of email addresses to which Splio should send alerts if something goes wrong.

Configuration file example

The example below defines a sub-section "leads" for the "contacts" scope and a sub-section "delete" for the "deletecontacts" scope within the "mycompany" universe.

Note that the delete_contacts scope contains the same first two lines as the contacts scope.

Deletion files are named according to the same schema as import files. Compare the names of files corresponding to the config file example above, dated June 26, 2018:

mycompany_contacts_leads_20180626.csv, and mycompany_deletecontacts_delete_20180626.csv.

Always remember to save the config file with UTF-8 encoding.

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Please limit the size of your file to 100K objects.

Creating deletion files

Use your favorite UTF-8-enabled text editor or spreadsheet software to create deletion files.

Deletion files use exactly the same CSV format as the import files. However, in deletion files you only use the columns with which Splio recognizes unique records for each scope. You may use your spreadsheet software to easily remove excess columns.

Delete Contacts

Deleting contacts may be necessary, e.g., when a person invokes their "right to be forgotten" under GDPR.

To create a deletion file for contacts, use a special "customer_key" column (even if it is a custom field or email is the unique_key). Values in this column enable Splio to distinguish between unique contacts.

Since the contacts table in your Splio universe can be organized in a non-default way, you must always remember to use the "customer_key" values which correspond to the Customer Key of the table.

The three examples below will show you how to deal with the three most frequent cases. To learn more, please refer to the Imports - Contacts document.

Example 1: Default Customer Key

Email is the default Customer Key. You should use it for deletion files unless your Splio universe has been customized (see the remaining examples).

We have used double quotes for clarity in the example and we suggest you do so.

customer_key
 "[email protected]"

Splio will match the values found in the deletion file against the emails in the contacts table and remove all records it finds.

Example 2: Custom column as Customer Key

If your Splio universe was configured to use a custom field (e.g., c0) as the Customer Key, your deletion file must contain these values instead of emails.

customer_key
 "CARD123455"