Marketplace data and the Marketplace

Datasets Halo maintains and shares with your organization. They come with your plan or on request, you use them like your own, and they're read-only.

Some useful data isn't yours to keep up to date. Marketplace data is data Halo maintains and shares with organizations, so you can chart it beside your own without connecting anything or looking after a pipeline.

Packages and the Marketplace

Marketplace data comes in packages. Marketplace, in the sidebar, lists them, with a search box and a filter by category. Open one to see what it holds: its datasets, and any charts and report templates that come with it.

Everyone in your organization can browse. Your Marketplace data, at the top of the page, lists the datasets your organization already has, with their package and version.

Sources, on a package, says where its data comes from, with the license and the credit to give if you publish it.

How you get a package

There are two ways, and neither needs a connection or a login.

With your plan. A package marked Included in your plan is granted automatically, and it's listed as "with your plan". It follows your plan: change plans and packages come or go to match, without anyone asking.

On request. For other packages, an Owner or Admin chooses Request this and can add a Message to Halo saying what you'd use it for. It reads "Requested. Your Halo account manager will be in touch." Halo's team grants it from their side, and there's no checkout in Halo Data. Others in your organization are asked to go through an Owner or Admin.

A grant Halo's team gives you lasts through plan changes, until they end it or an end date passes.

Using Marketplace data

A granted dataset appears under Datasets with a Marketplace data badge. It sits in no workspace. From there:

Explore it and read its Fields, like any dataset.
Chart it, with New chart from it.
Place those charts in reports, and share them like any others.
Narrow it with your own filters.

Your charts and reports are yours. Only the data underneath stays Halo's.

Read-only

Marketplace data is marked read-only. You can't edit its fields, joins, access or settings, and there's no History tab, because those belong to Halo. To add filters and calculated fields of your own, make an overlay.

You also never see where it comes from. The workspaces, connections and credentials behind it stay with Halo, and no login is shared with you.

Slices

A grant can carry a row filter, so every organization can see the same data, or each can see its own slice. A dataset with a slice says "your area" under Your Marketplace data.

The slice is applied ahead of any filter you add, and filters only narrow, so nothing in your organization can widen it. Results are cached per organization, so nobody else's slice reaches you.

A slice works like a row policy, except that Halo sets it, for your whole organization.

Versions

Each grant is to a major version of a dataset, shown as "version 1", for instance, so that a breaking change can't reach you unannounced.

When Halo releases a new major version, Owners and Admins get a notification, and Your Marketplace data shows Version 2 is out, for instance. Your charts and reports stay on the version you have until the date it names, when they move. Open it to see which of your fields change, and choose Move now to move sooner.

Overlays: your own filters and calculated fields

An overlay is a dataset of your own that builds on a Marketplace dataset. Open the Marketplace dataset and choose Make an overlay, then pick a name and a workspace you can edit. It opens on its Fields tab.

Calculated fields: add them as on any dataset, with Calculated field. Name each unlike any of the Marketplace dataset's fields, including ones Halo keeps hidden, or it can't be saved. Formulas read the fields you can see.
Filters: on the Filters and joins tab, filters every query of the overlay keeps to, such as one region or one market.
Joins: on the same tab, Join a dataset of your own, matched on a field such as a region or market, to bring its fields in beside Halo's. They're named for the join, such as regions_state for a join named regions, and your calculated fields can use them.
Everything else: charts, reports, sharing, goals and history work on an overlay as on any dataset of yours.

Halo's fields stay Halo's: changes to them aren't saved. Your slice always applies first, underneath every filter and calculated field the overlay adds, so nothing in it can reach rows outside the slice.

An overlay follows the major version your organization holds. When a new one is out and it removes a field one of your calculated fields reads, the overlay says so, so you can change the formula before you move. A calculated field that reads a field Halo hides or removes stops working, and the overlay names it.

How joins work

Halo's data and yours live in different places, so a joined overlay runs on a copy of both: your slice of the Marketplace dataset, written with your subscription's filter already applied and only the fields you can see, beside the rows of the datasets you join. The copy is made when you change the joins and again every six hours. Until it's ready, the overlay reads the Marketplace data without its joins and says so.

The copy belongs to the overlay. It isn't on your Data page, and nothing else can be built on it. If your subscription ends, the overlay goes to the Trash for good, or what it joins can't be joined any more, the copy is deleted, and the overlay says why. Save the overlay again to make a new one. A dataset that reads Halo activity can't be joined, since the copy reaches everyone who opens the overlay.

Because the copy only holds your slice, nothing you join, filter or calculate can reach a row outside it.
A dataset whose row policies keep some rows from some people can't be joined: its rows would reach everyone who opens the overlay. Everyone who opens an overlay sees what it joins.
Halo's calculations over groups, such as an average per visitor, don't carry into a joined overlay. Write your own as calculated fields.
The copy counts toward your plan's storage.

If your grant ends, the overlay stays, and its queries say the subscription ended. When the grant comes back, it works as before.

What's planned

When a grant ends

If a grant ends, its datasets stop being available to your organization, and your charts over them can't load their data. To ask for one back, use Request this, or Contact Halo.