Sitecore tip 24: quick insight in the xConnect models

I learned this a few months ago when working on a few Marketing Automation cases which required extensions of the models in the Experience Database. You can create your custom models and deploy them to/with xConnect. See the Sitecore documentation site for details.

When we followed the steps to deploy a model I wondered how I could check if xConnect had deployed the model and if it was available. One way is to create some simple tests with EXM or some (custom) rules to do some personalization. But there had to be another quick way.

So I started with the xConnect OData feed. You can use the following URL to start with, where everything before /odata/ is your own URL to xConnect:

https:// sc910.xconnect/odata/

Entering this in a browser will deliver you the following JSON result:

{"@odata.context":"https://sc910.xconnect/odata/$metadata","value":[
{"name":"Contacts","kind":"EntitySet","url":"Contacts"},
{"name":"Interactions","kind":"EntitySet","url":"Interactions"},
{"name":"DeviceProfiles","kind":"EntitySet","url":"DeviceProfiles"}]}

I used Contacts and Interactions so far, but never tried the one with $metadata. But when you do, you suddenly see lots of information about the xConnect model. You will get an XML file with all information about the models including your own models.

So, when you want to learn more about the models, for example which default facets there are, or you want to check if your custom model is properly deployed, you can use this URL.

Make your developers happy!