Key Concepts: Orgs and Data Sources
What is an Org?
An Org is the top-level account for your company in Watching That. There is one Org per customer. It holds your name, timezone and entitlements: the data retention, modules and features included in your plan. All of your data sources live inside your Org.
What are Data Sources?
Watching That is essentially a data pipeline at its core. To make it work, data sources are connected to your Org. A data source is a single, typed feed of data: a FreeWheel log feed, a Google Ad Manager feed, a SpringServe feed, a pixel stream, and so on. Each data source carries its own metrics, dimensions and roll-ups, and your Org can have as many data sources as you need.
Data sources that are supported include:
Pixels - a pixel is the colloquial name given to a URL that can be called from any device to register an event and its state/context. In Watching That a Pixel can be deployed via an ad server as a 3rd party tracker, within native code as an analytics sink or called from any internet connected device. The firing of a pixel represents an event type (app load, ad impression, play request etc) that then powers the Metrics in Watching That. On the URL that is fired, key value pairs can be applied in the query string. These keys map to Dimensions in Watching That.
Log level data feeds - many technology systems like ad servers, SSPs, SSAI platforms etc provide log level feeds of their experience. For example Google Ad Manager provides Data Transfer Logs that is a complete and continuous list of all event data it has received and provided (ad request, code served, impression, ad complete etc). The rows of events map to Metrics and the columns map to Dimensions.
Spreadsheet/Excel reports - many businesses interact with summary reports such as daily reports that are presented in spreadsheets. Watching That can consume these reports automatically. The rows of events map to Metrics and the columns map to Dimensions.
System APIs - modern systems provide APIs that allow other system to interface with them without an human assistance. These APIs provide access to highly contextual information about their configuration and state at any given moment. Watching That can query system APIs as required. The results back from these call typically map to Derived Dimensions in the Watching That platform.
Tip: Watching That can collect from pretty much any data source that you can make available.
Need to keep different parts of your operation separate, for example by product or app, by onsite versus offsite inventory, or by region? Set each one up as its own data source. You can then report on each one on its own, or combine them in a single view.