mParticle provides data retention policies for the data you store. Two main data classes provide information about your users and the events they trigger: profile data and event data.
Data about users are stored as attributes of individual profiles. These attributes include identities, device types and IDs, and several custom attributes such as membership status and demographic information. An attribute value may not be current, depending on how often it is updated.
For more information about how profile data is associated with users, see Store and Organize User Data.
Events describe actions that your users have taken. Event data is stored as attributes of event types. The value of an event data attribute is valid at the moment the event was triggered. For example, the event “Sign up” could have an event attribute of “membership tier,” the membership status at the time of signing up.
A complete description of the mParticle event schema is in JSON Schema.
The maximum period that mParticle stores profile and event data is governed by your long-term data retention policy, which is defined in your contract. Usually, the long-term data retention policy is the same for event and profile data. However, you can have different ranges for added control and flexibility for events and profile data. For example, during org and account setup, you can set long-term data retention for events at two years and reduce the time profile data is available to 12 months.
Retention Limit | Description |
Features Affected |
---|---|---|
Long-term retention for events | The date range during which events are stored in mParticle. Scope: org Default values: none |
Event connections Data replays UAV - events view Standard audiences Event data for Personalization features (calculated attributes, audiences, journeys) with Unlimited Lookback |
Long-term retention for profiles | The date range during which profiles are stored in mParticle and available for real-time data evaluation. Scope: account Default value: long-term retention for events. Can be changed upon request. |
Real-time profile enrichment Profile API UAV profile search and view Membership lifetime in audiences and calculated attributes |
Another factor may affect the data that is available for audiences: the Real-Time Audience Storage Lookback specified in your contract. Typically it is set to 30, 60, or 90 days, but can be changed. It is also overridden by Unlimited Lookback. See Data retention and Unlimited Lookback for details.
Unlimited Lookback is a premium feature that extends your audience and calculated attribute lookback to your long-term retention for events. Without this feature, audience lookback is limited to the Real-Time Audience Storage Lookback specified in your contract.
Data retention for personalization features (audiences, journeys, and calculated attributes) behaves differently depending on whether or not your account has the Unlimited Lookback feature enabled:
Unlimited Lookback:
Without Unlimited Lookback:
mParticle determines the beginning of a date range for retention purposes differently for event and profile data:
timestamp_unixtime_ms
) added to the top level of every batch, representing the time the batch was received by mParticle. Note this is different from the timestamp associated with an individual event. Events and profiles need different ways of calculating age because an event isn’t usually updated. Since several processes may modify a profile’s timestamp, the date is measured differently than event data.
Assume the following facts:
screen_view
) occurred and is time-stamped 1657934165001 (6 June 2023, at 21:29:24).In this example, mParticle keeps the event available until 1749270655 (6 June 2025, at 21:30:55).
Was this page helpful?