Advanced configuration

Remove outdated data

The way outdated data is handled depends on which API is used. For some APIs, outdated data is handled with a status that is passed on to Backstage (ex. cancelled participants are imported with status "cancelled" in Backstage). This is used when the provider sends a status field and cancelled users are still available in the endpoint.

For other integrations, we use the option the "Remove outdated data". When it is selected on the data configuration, data that is no longer available in the endpoint ( = outdated data) will be deleted completely upon then next sync (ex. cancelled participants are deleted from Backstage, not set as cancelled).

Please note that within a single integration, different configuration can have different settings for "Remove outdated data".

If you are not sure what is the logic for outdated data on the API you are using, please check with the Project and Implementation Team.

Filters: exclude data from the sync

If you need only data matching certain criteria to be pulled into Backstage, you can use the filters available in each data configuration:

For example, you can choose to pull only the participants' records for which "Company" equals "SpotMe"; or the sessions records for which "Title" does not equal "Break". Only the data matching the filters will be imported. The data excluded by the filters will still appear in a separate tab of the data preview file, but will not be pulled.

Prevent manual changes from being overwritten by sync

If you make any changes (either manually or with an XLS import) to data that comes via API, syncing again the data via API will overwrite your changes. There are 2 ways of preventing data from being synced via API:

1. Un-map a field to exclude this one field from syncing for all items of a certain data type (ex. un-map the 'job title' field to prevent the API to sync job titles for all participants)
2. ‘exclude_from_sync = true’ is to exclude all fields from sync for one particular item (ex. prevent the API to sync all profile fields for one specific participant)

A "field" is a metadata in Backstage (person metadata; session metadata; presenter metadata etc.); an "item" is a record for a certain data type (a participant profile; a session; a presenter etc.).

Unmap a field

Un-mapping a previously mapped field allows to protect this field from being overwritten, by excluding it from the next sync via API.

You can un-map any field yourself: in API Data, click on the data type (eg. participant), scroll down and remove the corresponding field mapping. Make sure to save!

Exclude_from_sync

If you need to prevent the API from syncing all fields of a certain item (ex. all fields for a particular session), you can create a metadata called "exclude_from_sync" in the corresponding data type (ex. Setup -> Manage metadata -> Session).

If this metadata is set to TRUE for an item (ex. exclude_from_sync=TRUE for a particular session), then all fields for this item (ex. title, day, location etc.) will not be overwritten by the next API sync.

Multiple credentials set-up in the same event

It may be necessary to sync data from different sources, for example an event has multiple locations and the provider has created different endpoints for each one. This can be handled by creating multiple credentials and mapping configs.