Establish a data block connection

Data Blocks form the data components of your Datasource. After you create your Datasource, e.g., a User Datasource, you will need to create one or more Data Blocks to tell Blue what institutional/organizational data should be used within that Datasource for data collection and analysis at a subsequent stage of a project.

A data block is a component of your datasource that tells Blue what data will be imported from input data sources such as SIS (Student Information System), HRIS (Human Resource Information System) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems, and used in your project.

When you select the data that you will be using for your Data Block for the import process, Blue identifies all of the fields/columns it sees in your data and also identifies the type of data it is (e.g. String = alpha/numeric; Date/Time = date fields like hire date).

• In Blue, after you create your datasource, you must then create one or more data blocks for that datasource.
• The Data Block(s) will tell Blue from where – and in what format – the data for your Project is coming.
• Essentially, you are telling Blue what the origin of your data is and what fields within your data you will want to eventually import directly into Blue.
• Once you have told Blue what data file you are using, and what fields within that file will be used, you will then be able to import the data directly into Blue to make a copy of your data within Blue that can then be fed into your Project.

Blue supports many different file formats for your Data Blocks, including manual file uploads such as CSV and Excel, as well as direct links to data bases, such as Salesforce.com, SAP Systems, Zendesk, etc.