Facebook Ads Query
The Facebook Ads Query component uses the Facebook Ads API to retrieve data and load it into a table—this stages the data, so the table is reloaded each time. Users can then transform their data with transformation components.
If the component requires access to a cloud provider, it will use credentials as follows:
- If using Matillion Full SaaS: The component will use the cloud credentials associated with your environment to access resources.
- If using Hybrid SaaS: By default the component will inherit the agent's execution role (service account role). However, if there are cloud credentials associated to your environment, these will overwrite the role.
Warning
The Facebook Marketing API v17.0 expires on May 14th, 2024. Use the Connection Options property to manually set the API version to a current version—for example, v18.0 or v19.0.
To do this:
- Open the Connection Options property.
- Click +.
- Set Parameter to "Other".
- Set Value to, for example, "MarketingAPIVersion=19.0" or "GraphAPIVersion=19.0".
Read Available Marketing API Versions for more information.
Warning
This component is potentially destructive. If the target table undergoes a change in structure, it will be recreated. Otherwise, the target table is truncated. Setting the load option Recreate Target Table to Off will prevent both recreation and truncation. Do not modify the target table structure manually.
Properties
Reference material is provided below for the Connect, Configure, Destination, and Advanced Settings properties.
Connect
Authentication
= drop-down
Opens a dialog to select an OAuth connection. Click Manage to navigate to the OAuth tab to review OAuth connections and to add new connections. Read OAuth to learn how to create an OAuth connection.
OAuth tokens for Facebook will eventually expire and require remaking. It is outside of Matillion's control to remedy this. You can, however, extend and refresh existing tokens.
Connection Options
= column editor
- Parameter: A JDBC parameter supported by the database driver. The available parameters are explained in data model. Manual setup is not usually required, since sensible defaults are assumed.
- Value: A value for the given parameter.
Click the Text Mode toggle at the bottom of the Connection Options dialog to open a multi-line editor that lets you add items in a single block. For more information, read Text mode.
Configure
Mode
= drop-down
- Basic: This mode will build a query for you using settings from the Schema, Data Source, Data Selection, Data Source Filter, Combine Filters, and Limit parameters. In most cases, this mode will be sufficient.
- Advanced: This mode will require you to write an SQL-like query to call data from the service you're connecting to. The available fields and their descriptions are documented in the data model.
There are some special pseudo columns that can form part of a query filter, but are not returned as data. This is fully described in the data model.
Note
While the query is exposed in an SQL-like language, the exact semantics can be surprising, for example, filtering on a column can return more data than not filtering on it. This is an impossible scenario with regular SQL.
SQL Query
= code editor
This is an SQL-like SELECT query. Treat collections as table names, and fields as columns. Only available in Advanced mode.
Data Source
= drop-down
Select a data source.
Data Selection
= dual listbox
Choose one or more columns to return from the query. The columns available are dependent upon the data source selected. Move columns left-to-right to include in the query.
To use grid variables, tick the Use Grid Variable checkbox at the bottom of the Data Selection dialog.
Data Source Filter
= column editor
- Input Column: Select an input column. The available input columns vary depending upon the data source.
- Qualifier:
- Is: Compares the column to the value using the comparator.
- Not: Reverses the effect of the comparison, so "Equals" becomes "Not equals", "Less than" becomes "Greater than or equal to", etc.
- Comparator: Choose a method of comparing the column to the value. Possible comparators include: "Equal to", "Greater than", "Less than", "Greater than or equal to", "Less than or equal to", "Like", "Null". "Equal to" can match exact strings and numeric values, while other comparators, such as "Greater than" and "Less than", will work only with numerics. The "Like" operator allows the wildcard character
%
to be used at the start and end of a string value to match a column. The Null operator matches only null values, ignoring whatever the value is set to. Not all data sources support all comparators, meaning that it is likely that only a subset of the above comparators will be available to choose from. - Value: The value to be compared.
Click the Text Mode toggle at the bottom of the Connection Options dialog to open a multi-line editor that lets you add items in a single block. For more information, read Text mode.
Combine Filters
= drop-down
Select whether to use the defined filters in combination with one another according to either And or Or.
Limit
= integer
Set a numeric value to limit the number of rows that are loaded. The default is 100.
Destination
Select your cloud data warehouse.
Type
= drop-down
- Standard: The data will be staged in your storage location before being loaded into a table. This is the only setting currently available.
Warehouse
= drop-down
The Snowflake warehouse used to run the queries. The special value, [Environment Default], will use the warehouse defined in the environment. Read Overview of Warehouses to learn more.
Database
= drop-down
The Snowflake database. The special value, [Environment Default], will use the database defined in the environment. Read Databases, Tables and Views - Overview to learn more.
Schema
= drop-down
The Snowflake schema. The special value, [Environment Default], will use the schema defined in the environment. Read Database, Schema, and Share DDL to learn more.
Target Table
= string
The name of the table to be created. This table will be recreated and will drop any existing table of the same name.
Primary Keys
= dual listbox
Select one or more columns to be designated as the table's primary key.
Stage
= drop-down
Select a managed stage. The special value, [Custom], will create a stage "on the fly" for use solely within this component.
Stage Platform
= drop-down
Select a staging setting.
- Existing Amazon S3 Location: Activates the S3 Staging Area property, allowing users to specify a custom staging area on Amazon S3. The Stage Authentication property is also activated, letting users select a method of authenticating the data staging.
- Existing Azure Blob Storage Location: Activates the Storage Account and Blob Container properties, allowing users to specify a custom staging location on Azure. The Stage Authentication property is also activated, letting users select a method of authenticating the data staging.
- Existing Google Cloud Storage Location: Activates the Storage Integration and GCS Staging Area properties, allowing users to specify a custom staging area within Google Cloud Storage.
- Snowflake Managed: Create and use a temporary internal stage on Snowflake for staging the data. This stage, along with the staged data, will cease to exist after loading is complete. This is the default setting.
Stage Authentication
= drop-down
Select an authentication method for data staging. Only available when Stage Platform is set to either Existing Amazon S3 Location or Existing Azure Blob Storage Location.
- Credentials: Uses the credentials configured in the environment. If no credentials have been configured, an error will occur.
- Storage Integration: Use a Snowflake storage integration to authentication data staging. A storage integration is a Snowflake object that stores a generated identity and access management (IAM) entity for your external cloud storage, along with an optional set of allowed or blocked storage locations. To learn more, read Create Storage Integration.
Storage Integration
= drop-down
Select a Snowflake storage integration from the drop-down list. Storage integrations are required to permit Snowflake to read data from and write to your cloud storage location (Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage) and must be set up in advance of selection.
To use this property with an Amazon S3 or Azure Blob Storage location, set Stage Authentication to Storage Integration. For Google Cloud Storage, Storage Integration is the only stage authentication method.
S3 Staging Area
= drop-down
Select an S3 bucket for temporary storage. Ensure your access credentials have S3 access and permission to write to the bucket. Read Secret definitions for details on setting up access. The temporary objects created in this bucket will be removed again after the load completes, they are not kept.
Use Accelerated Endpoint
= boolean
When True, data will be loaded via the s3-accelerate
endpoint. Consider the following information:
- Enabling acceleration can enhance the speed at which data is transferred to the chosen S3 bucket. However, enhanced speed is not always guaranteed. Read Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration Speed Comparison to compare S3 Direct versus S3 Accelerated Transfer speeds.
- Users must manually set the acceleration configuration of an existing bucket. To learn more, read PutBucketAccelerateConfiguration in the AWS API Reference.
- This property is only available if the selected S3 bucket has Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration enabled. For more information, including how to enable this feature, read Getting started with Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration.
- Cases may arise where Data Productivity Cloud can't determine whether the chosen S3 bucket has Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration enabled. In these cases, Designer will reveal this property for user input on a "just in case" basis. In these cases, Designer may return a validation message that reads "OK - Bucket could not be validated." You may also encounter cases where, if you do not have permission to get the status of the acceleration configuration (namely, the permission,
GetAccelerateConfiguration
), Designer will again show this property "just in case". - The default setting is False.
Storage Account
= drop-down
Select a storage account with your desired blob container to be used for staging the data. For more information, read Storage account overview.
Blob Container
= drop-down
Select a Blob container to be used for staging the data. For more information, read Introduction to Azure Blob storage.
GCS Staging Area
= drop-down
The URL and path of the target Google Cloud Storage bucket to be used for staging the queried data. For more information, read Creating storage buckets.
Load Options
= multiple drop-downs
- Clean Staged Files: Destroy staged files after loading data. Default is On.
- String Null is Null: Converts any strings equal to null into a null value. This is case-sensitive and only works with entirely lower-case strings. Default is Off.
- Recreate Target Table: Choose whether the component recreates its target table before the data load. If Off, the existing table will be used. Default is On.
- File Prefix: Give staged file names a prefix of your choice. Default is empty (no prefix).
- Trim String Columns: Remove leading and trailing characters from a string column. Default is On.
- Compression Type: Set the compression type to either gzip (default) or None.
Catalog
= drop-down
Select a Databricks Unity Catalog. The special value, [Environment Default], will use the catalog specified in the Data Productivity Cloud environment setup. Selecting a catalog will determine which databases are available in the next parameter.
Schema (Database)
= drop-down
The Databricks schema. The special value, [Environment Default], will use the schema defined in the environment. Read Create and manage schemas to learn more.
Table
= string
The name of the table to be created. This table will be recreated and will drop any existing table of the same name.
Stage Platform
= drop-down
Select a staging setting.
- AWS S3: Lets users specify a custom staging area on Amazon S3.
- Azure Blob: Lets users specify a custom staging area on Azure Blob storage.
- Personal Staging: Uses a Databricks personal staging location. Your Data Productivity Cloud environment connection to Databricks requires your username to be a token and the corresponding password to be a masked entry for a Databricks access token (AWS). Additionally, read Configure Unity Catalog storage account for CORS to learn how to configure CORS to enable Databricks to manage personal staging locations in Unity Catalog (AWS). If you're using Azure, read Configure Unity Catalog storage account for CORS.
- Volume: Use a pre-existing Databricks volume to stage your data. Only external volumes are available.
S3 Staging Area
= drop-down
Select an S3 bucket for temporary storage. Ensure your access credentials have S3 access and permission to write to the bucket. Read Secret definitions for details on setting up access. The temporary objects created in this bucket will be removed again after the load completes, they are not kept.
Storage Account
= drop-down
Select a storage account with your desired Blob container to be used for staging the data. For more information, read Storage account overview.
Blob Container
= drop-down
Select a Blob container to be used for staging the data. For more information, read Introduction to Azure Blob storage.
Volume
= drop-down
Select a Databricks volume.
Load Options
= multiple drop-downs
- Clean Staged Files: Destroy staged files after loading data. Default is On.
- String Null is Null: Converts any strings equal to null into a null value. This is case-sensitive and only works with entirely lower-case strings. Default is Off.
- Recreate Target Table: Choose whether the component recreates its target table before the data load. If Off, the existing table will be used. Default is On.
- File Prefix: Give staged file names a prefix of your choice. Default is empty (no prefix).
- Compression Type: Set the compression type to either gzip (default) or None.
Type
= drop-down
- Standard: The data will be staged in your storage location before being loaded into a table. This is the only setting currently available.
Use Accelerated Endpoint
= boolean
When True, data will be loaded via the s3-accelerate
endpoint.
- Enabling acceleration can enhance the speed at which data is transferred to the chosen S3 bucket. However, enhanced speed is not always guaranteed. Read Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration Speed Comparison to compare S3 Direct versus S3 Accelerated Transfer speeds.
- Users must manually set the acceleration configuration of an existing bucket. To learn more, see PutBucketAccelerateConfiguration in the API Reference, available at the AWS documentation.
- This property is only available if the selected S3 bucket has Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration enabled. For more information, including how to enable this feature, read Getting started with Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration.
- Cases may arise where Data Productivity Cloud cannot determine whether the chosen S3 bucket has Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration enabled. In these cases, Designer will reveal this property for user input on a "just in case" basis. In these cases, Designer may return a validation message that reads "OK - Bucket could not be validated." You may also encounter cases where, if you do not have permission to get the status of the acceleration configuration (namely, the permission,
GetAccelerateConfiguration
) Designer will again show this property "just in case". - The default setting is False.
Schema
= drop-down
Select the table schema. The special value, [Environment Default], will use the schema defined in the environment. For more information on using multiple schemas, read Schemas.
Target Table
= string
The name of the table to be created. This table will be recreated and will drop any existing table of the same name.
S3 Staging Area
= S3 bucket
Select an S3 bucket for temporary storage. Ensure your access credentials have S3 access and permission to write to the bucket. Read Secret definitions for details on setting up access. The temporary objects created in this bucket will be removed again after the load completes, they are not kept.
Distribution Style
= drop-down
- All: Copy rows to all nodes in the Redshift cluster.
- Auto: (Default) Allow Redshift to manage your distribution style.
- Even: Distribute rows around the Redshift cluster evenly.
- Key: Distribute rows around the Redshift cluster according to the value of a key column.
Note
Table distribution is critical to good performance. Read the Distribution styles documentation for more information.
Sort Key
= dual listbox
This is optional, and lets users specify one or more columns from the input that should be set as the table's sort key.
Note
Sort keys are critical to good performance. Read Working with sort keys for more information.
Sort Key Options
= drop-down
Decide whether the sort key is of a compound or interleaved variety.
Primary Key
= dual listbox
Select one or more columns to be designated as the table's primary key.
Advanced Settings
Load Options
= multiple drop-downs
- Clean Staged Files: Destroy staged files after loading data. Default is On.
- String Null is Null: Converts any strings equal to null into a null value. This is case-sensitive and only works with entirely lower-case strings. Default is Off.
- Recreate Target Table: Choose whether the component recreates its target table before the data load. If Off, the existing table will be used. Default is On.
- File Prefix: Give staged file names a prefix of your choice. Default is empty (no prefix).
- Trim String Columns: Remove leading and trailing characters from a string column. Default is On.
- Compression Type: Set the compression type to either gzip (default) or None.
Load Options
= multiple drop-downs
- Clean Staged Files: Destroy staged files after loading data. Default is On.
- String Null is Null: Converts any strings equal to null into a null value. This is case-sensitive and only works with entirely lower-case strings. Default is Off.
- Recreate Target Table: Choose whether the component recreates its target table before the data load. If Off, the existing table will be used. Default is On.
- File Prefix: Give staged file names a prefix of your choice. Default is empty (no prefix).
- Compression Type: Set the compression type to either gzip (default) or None.
Load Options
= multiple drop-downs
- Comp Update: Apply automatic compression to the target table. Default is On.
- Stat Update: Automatically update statistics when filling a table. Default is On. In this case, it is updating the statistics of the target table.
- Clean S3 Objects: Automatically remove UUID-based objects on the S3 bucket. Default is On. Effectively, users decide here whether to keep the staged data in the S3 bucket or not.
- String Null is Null: Converts any strings equal to "null" into a null value. This is case-sensitive and only works with entirely lower-case strings. Default is On.
- Recreate Target Table: Choose whether the component recreates its target table before the data load. If Off, the existing table will be used. Default is On.
- File Prefix: Give staged file names a prefix of your choice. When this Load Option is selected, users should set their preferred prefix in the text field.
- Compression Type: Set the compression type to either gzip (default) or None.
Encryption
= drop-down
Decide how the files are encrypted inside the S3 bucket. This property is available when using an existing Amazon S3 location for staging.
- None: No encryption.
- SSE KMS: Encrypt the data according to a key stored on KMS. Read AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) to learn more.
- SSE S3: Encrypt the data according to a key stored on an S3 bucket. Read Using server-side encryption with Amazon S3-managed encryption keys (SSE-S3) to learn more.
KMS Key ID
= drop-down
The ID of the KMS encryption key you have chosen to use in the Encryption property.
Auto Debug
= drop-down
Choose whether to automatically log debug information about your load. These logs can be found in the task history and should be included in support requests concerning the component. Turning this on will override any debugging connection options.
Debug Level
= drop-down
The level of verbosity with which your debug information is logged. Levels above 1 can log huge amounts of data and result in slower execution.
- Will log the query, the number of rows returned by it, the start of execution and the time taken, and any errors.
- Will log everything included in Level 1, plus cache queries and additional information about the request, if applicable.
- Will additionally log the body of the request and the response.
- Will additionally log transport-level communication with the data source. This includes SSL negotiation.
- Will additionally log communication with the data source, as well as additional details that may be helpful in troubleshooting problems. This includes interface commands.
Data model
The JDBC driver for this component models Facebook Ads APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures, which are documented in the data model. You'll also find API limitations and requirements. The connection option SupportEnhancedSQL
is set to true
by default and typically circumvents most API limitations.
View the Facebook Ads data model to learn more.
Snowflake | Databricks | Amazon Redshift |
---|---|---|
✅ | ✅ | ✅ |