Validate unified profile completeness via API lookup
Use the Platform Profile API with a namespace and identity value to retrieve a merged profile record programmatically, confirming that attributes, events, and segment memberships from all source datasets are correctly unified and accessible to external applications.
This task produces machine-readable proof that the unified profile is correctly assembled and accessible to external applications via the platform API. The output is a JSON response containing the merged profile record — attributes, event timeline, and segment memberships — that matches the UI profile view and can be compared against expected field values in an automated test suite. API validation is the integration test that confirms the entire pipeline (schema design → ingestion → identity stitching → profile merge) is working end-to-end, not just visible in the UI.
Why API validation differs from UI validation. The UI Profile Viewer is a presentation layer that may mask underlying issues such as namespace mismatches, missing required fields, or merge-rule conflicts. The API response exposes the raw merged record exactly as a downstream application would receive it, including the full identity graph, all attribute paths, and segment membership timestamps. Discrepancies between UI and API responses indicate merge-rule or cache-layer issues that require investigation.
Authentication and credential management. API access requires a service credential from Adobe I/O (OAuth Server-to-Server or JWT, depending on platform version). The credential issues a short-lived Bearer token. In practice, a Postman environment stores the token and auto-refreshes it using a pre-request script. External applications integrating with the Profile API must implement equivalent token management — typically via a secrets manager and a background refresh job.
Use case: real-time call-center integration. The Profile API's most operationally impactful use case is powering call-center applications that display a customer's full interaction history, loyalty status, and open service issues at the moment an inbound call is answered. Latency requirements for this use case (sub-300ms) are achievable because the profile is pre-merged and stored in a low-latency key-value store, not computed on demand. API validation exercises this exact retrieval path.
Parallel viability (moderate). Every CDP exposes an equivalent customer lookup API: Segment's Profile API, mParticle's User Lookup API, Hightouch Customer Studio profile search. The authentication pattern (OAuth2 Bearer token) and response format (JSON with a namespace-keyed identity object) are consistent across vendors. The specific field paths differ per schema implementation. Phase 3 will document the Segment Profile API equivalent.
Side-by-side implementations
Using Postman with an Adobe I/O credential and the AEP Profile API, construct a GET request to the Profile Lookup endpoint with headers x-sandbox-name, x-gw-ims-org-id, and Authorization Bearer token. Pass the identity namespace (e.g., "Email") and identity value (e.g., the customer's email address) as query parameters. The response returns the merged XDM Individual Profile JSON including all attribute values, the full ExperienceEvent timeline, and current segment membership. This API endpoint is the same one used by call-center integration apps, in-store clienteling tools, and any server-side personalization engine that needs to access AEP profile data in real time. Comparing the API response to the UI profile view confirms that both surfaces expose the same merged record.
Capability: Identity Resolution
Parallel implementation not yet available.
Hightouch Customer Studio provides a profile lookup interface that retrieves the merged profile record for a given identity value (email, phone, user ID) across all connected models and sources. The programmatic equivalent is Hightouch's Profile Enrichment API (GET /v3/customer-studio/lookup?modelId=<id>&identity=<email>), which returns profile attributes, computed traits, and audience memberships for the specified profile. Authentication uses a Hightouch API key as an Authorization Bearer header. The response JSON includes all warehouse column values from the primary model plus computed traits and audience membership — functionally equivalent to AEP's Profile Lookup response of merged XDM attributes, event history, and segment memberships. Teams can integrate Hightouch's Profile Enrichment API into call-center applications or integration test suites using the same pattern as the AEP Profile API: an HTTP GET by identity value with Bearer token authentication and sub-second response latency against the pre-merged profile store.
Capability: Identity Resolution
Task-level sources
- technical-training/module3/index.md
- technical-training/module3/ex3.md
- technical-training/module3/ex6.md
How is this implementation?
Sign-in-gated. Tomorrow morning's curriculum-ingestor consumes your feedback: "Inaccurate" queues the task for re-review, "needs update" queues it for a refresh, and "one vendor panel is wrong" re-drafts just that panel.