Understanding How Data Sources and Accounts Work

When configuring your data sources in Power My Analytics, it can be helpful to understand the basic terminology we use when referring to connectors, sources, accounts, and related features.

Platform

1. An advertising, e-commerce, email, sales, SEO, social media, or web analytics service that provides marketing analytics data to Power My Analytics and your PMA reports through an API. Examples include Facebook Ads, Google Business Profile, or HubSpot. Power My Analytics supports over 50 popular platforms.
   

Data Connector (or Connector)

1. Individual services offered by Power My Analytics for linking analytics and marketing data from a single platform to PMA's data automation hub, providing numerous individual fields of metrics and dimensions for use in reports. Examples include the Google Ads data connector or the Instagram Insights connector. 
   
   
   
   Individual data connectors can be chosen to connect a new data source by going to Sources in the PMA hub at hub.powermyanalytics.com and clicking the + Add new source button to open the data connector gallery. Then select a connector to use.
   
   

Data Source (or Source)

1. A connection in your PMA hub that uses one data connector to connect to a user account on a platform. For example, a TikTok Ads data source connects to TikTok Ads data from your TikTok user account. Connecting a data source requires providing login credentials to authenticate your account on the platform, as well as granting permissions to Power My Analytics to authorize access to your account's data.
   
   
   
   All data sources that have been connected to your PMA hub, even if they are currently disconnected, appear in your Hub under Sources in the main Sources table until they are removed with Remove Source.

Account(s)

1. Subsets of data within data sources that can be selected individually for inclusion or exclusion. These correspond to divisions within the platform itself, such as multiple ad accounts under Facebook Ads or multiple pages under Facebook Insights. Some platforms have only a single account corresponding to each connected data source.
   
   
   
   Accounts under a connected data source can be viewed in Action > Manage accounts.
   
   

Backfilling

1. The process of Power My Analytics pulling data from your connected data sources via API and caching it in our data warehouse, making data available faster than live requests to API and maintaining availability of your report data during any API outages. An initial backfill to synchronize data occurs when you first connect your data source, including the last 13 months of data by default for most connectors. 
   
   
   
   Manual backfilling can be performed from the Action > Backfill data range menu at the data source level or individual account level.

Data Sync

1. After the initial backfill, a daily data sync occurs every day at midnight in your selected time zone and retrieves the past 7 days of data. The status of the data sync at the data source level and individual account level can be seen in the Sources section main table and Manage Accounts panel.
   
   
   
   For most connectors, the time zone can be customized at the data source level or individual account level in Actions > Set sync time from the Sources table or in Manage Accounts > Set Sync Time. Choose a time zone from the dropdown under Edit Timezone.
   
   

Data Gaps

1. Missing or incomplete data points or ranges of data in the historical data of your data source or its accounts. These can be caused by an outage of the platform's API or a temporary data refresh error. If you experience gaps in your historical data, or missing or incorrect data issues, manually backfilling connection data is often the simplest and most effective solution.
   
   
   
   The Data Gaps display can be found in the Manage Accounts panel for a connected data source, under Actions > History for an individual account.
   
   
   

What Power My Analytics Does for You Automatically

Historic Data Collection with Backfilling

1. Most of our connectors start collecting up to 13 months of historical data as soon as you connect your data source. This process typically takes a few minutes, but for some data sources, it might take a couple of hours to complete the initial backfill.
   
2. Some connectors allow you to perform backfills of data for 2 years or more.
   

Regular Data Refreshes with Daily Data Sync

1. We refresh your data every day at midnight with all our connectors.
   
2. During these refreshes, we also update the past 7 days of data to account for any changes that may have occurred, at the time zone set at the data source level or individual account level. (Time zone selection is not available for all connectors.)
   

See Also

1. Manage and Configure Data Sources
2. Connect to a Data Source