Understanding Your Data Structures

Bu içerik henüz dilinizde mevcut değil.

Chapter 2 of Data 360 Architect, Part 1: Bringing Data In. Previous: Data 360 in One Picture.

Chapter 1 walked the whole picture. Before we open the first door in chapter 3, there’s one more thing to do, and it’s the one teams skip: understand the data you’re about to bring in. Because it’s so hard to delete and change things in Data 360, you really need to know your data before you bring it in.

The positions in this chapter

Know it before it comes in. Field types can’t change once a data lake object exists, and names get one chance.
Do the thinking outside Data 360. Map in a dictionary first; data should be shaped before it lands, not fixed afterward.
Know the shape: flat, normalized, JSON or documents. Every list inside a record is a table to design.
Keys define reality. Unique, unchanging, meaningless, never personal data. A match key isn’t a primary key.
Decide the type; don’t leave it to detection. Wrong types don’t fail loudly; they make the data quietly wrong.
Don’t bring in everything. Every field has a use someone can name, a classification, and, if it’s about a person, a way to be erased.

The path through this chapter

Five modules, each standing on its own.

Know It Before It Comes In (coming soon). What you can’t change later, and one field chosen in a hurry.
Flat, Normalized or Unstructured (coming soon). The shapes of the aviation data, and what each one means on its way in.
What Makes It Unique (coming soon). The primary key decides insert or update; two ways to get it wrong.
The Dictionary Before You Map (coming soon). A design-time data dictionary with the columns a Data 360 source needs.
Don’t Bring In Everything (coming soon). Controlled intake: a use, a type, a classification, and personal data a deletion request can reach.

What an architect decides here

What each source is: its shape, its key and the meaning of each field, written down before its stream exists.
Which fields come in, and which stay out until they have a use.
How personal data stays erasable once it’s in.

Explore

All checked 2026-11-01.

Data Types in Data 360 (opens in a new tab), Salesforce Help.
Primary Key (opens in a new tab), Salesforce Help.
Requesting Data Deletion or Right to Be Forgotten (opens in a new tab), Salesforce Help.

Next: The Doors In