You create a Source when you want to fetch data or information to act on. A Source is a pointer to Tapistro to fetch the information from, say, the connections that you create. When you create connections, you only establish a pipeline and provide authentication for the data to be fetched. Source actually fetch the required data that is used in a Journey.
Sources let you modularize the source of information as a plug-and-play unit that you use in a Journey. If the source of your information changes over time, you just modify an existing Source in Tapistro, and its associated Journey starts working with updated data.
For example, consider the following scenarios:
To input offline data, you can use a Source of the type 'CSV' and upload a comma-separated file.
To fetch data from your existing CRM system, you can connect to the CRM platform in Tapistro. Via a Source you can use data from CRM such as deal level information, contact data, active pipeline data. Tapistro allows users to use this data in various ways in the Journeys.
Types of Sources
Based on the ownership of intent data, Sources are of the following types:
First-party (1P) data: Data owned by you that is residing in some external system. For example, your CRM data that is available in HubSpot.
Second-party (2P) data: Data gathering that was facilitated by you, and the data may or may not reside in your database. For example, G2 reviews or other user-generated content (UGC).
Third-party (3P) data: Data that you borrow or purchase from a third-party provider. For example, an email list targeting a specific demographic.
Create new or modify existing Sources
You create Sources in advance and then use those in a journey. To create a Source, follow these steps:
Log into your Tapistro account and go to the Sources option in the left sidebar.
Select New Source option in the upper-right corner.
Enter a name for the Source. This name is used by you only to recognize the Source and is used only in your account.
Provide an Origin Type value for the Source. You specify where the data for the Source resides.
By default, the status of a Source is active. You can switch the status of a Source to inactive either when you edit an existing source to discontinue its usage or when you create a new source that you don’t want to use right away.
Optionally, you can define the key-value pairing in the Config section. This pairing is typically required for the data that you ingest into Tapistro, say, for example, using a CSV.
Set the discovery provider order
Discovery finds missing account domains and person emails for the data a Source brings in. You can set the order of discovery providers at the Source level so you can tune discovery quality and cost for each data set.
When you create or edit a Source, set two provider orders:
Account discovery provider order: the providers used to find missing account domains, in the order they run (for example, Apollo, then ContactOut).
Person discovery provider order: the providers used to find missing person emails, in the order they run.
If you don't set a provider order on a Source, Tapistro uses the system default order. Existing Sources without a provider order keep working with no change.
Tips
Provider names must be valid. An invalid name is rejected with an error message when you save the Source.
Order matters: the first provider runs first, and later providers act as fallbacks. For a specific data set, put the highest-quality or lowest-cost provider first.
Search accounts with or without website or domain
Some companies don't have a website or a domain. You may or may not be interested in finding such leads when searching for accounts using Sources. You can define such preferences when creating a Source of origin type Account Search. Tapistro contains the following two options to filter such accounts:
At Tapistro-level: When creating a Source, you can select Skip Entries Without Domain or Allow Accounts Without Domain.
At data provider-level: Explorium or TheirStack provide such curated data. If you select one of these providers, then use the option Website Present or Website Absent.
Scenario1: You're interested to find accounts that don't have a website. For example, you're targeting smaller companies without websites.
Scenario2: You want to filter out accounts without a website presence. For example, such accounts are difficult to enrich or activate and you want to save account discovery credits.
Manage your Sources
To modify an existing Source, hover the pointer over the name of the Source and click the pencil icon to edit.
To preview the information that a Source will fetch when used in a journey, click Preview when creating a Source or when edit a Source.
To use an existing Source as a template to create a new Source, hover the pointer over an existing Source and click the copy icon.
To delete a Source, hover the pointer over the name of the Source and click the trash can icon to delete it.
You can use a Source in one Journey. To reuse a Source, create its copy and edit the copy as required.
Note: Tapistro keeps a version history across the UI. To restore an earlier version of a Source, open its Audit view, where all previous versions are listed. Hover over the version you want and click Restore, then save. Use this if you save accidentally or want to discard a round of edits, without rebuilding from scratch.
List of all the supported origin types in a Source
For a complete list of all the supported origin types that you can use when creating a Source, see Integrations to fetch and enrich your data.