Skip to content

07. Advanced Configuration

Jump to bottom
Jörn Berkefeld edited this page May 17, 2023 · 11 revisions

The tool's configuration can be changed in the file .mcdevrc.json located in the root of your project folder.

It contains Market Configuration (markets: { ... }), Market List Configuration (marketList: { ... }) the list of usable Business Units per credentials, directories, as well as other options.

You will also find the configuration for what metadata shall be retrieved here in metaDataTypes.retrieve: [ ... ].

You will also find a secondary file named .mcdev-auth.json containing your credentials. Do not commit this to your repository! You should only commit .mcdevrc.json as this file contains project-wide settings that do not compromise security.

Config Options

.mcdev-auth.json

This file contains the credentials provided by the installed package you create for mcdev. It is generated upon running mcdev init and its name is automatically placed in the .gitignore to ensure it is not accidentally stored in your git repository.

{
    "MyProject": {
        "client_id": "0m0sdfkmq23zv0pebqlv91d1",
        "client_secret": "lSL5XVOEFU1A5QAorQOHLEMK",
        "auth_url": "https://mct0l7hsfq2rt1kxfy8sc47mq.auth.marketingcloudapis.com/",
        "account_id": "7281234"
    }
}

Please note that account_id is your Enterprise ID, the MID of your Parent BU.

.mcdevrc.json

The central config in .mcdevrc.json holds multiple adjustable settings:

{
  "options": {
    "deployment": {
      "commitHistory": 10,
      "sourceTargetMapping": {
        "deployment-source": "deployment-target"
      },
      "targetBranchBuMapping": {
        "release/*": "MySandbox/QA-DE",
        "master": ["MyProduction/PROD-DE", "MyProduction/PROD-NL"]
      }
    },
    "documentType": "md",
    "documentStandardRoles": true,
    "exclude": {
      "role": {
        "CustomerKey": ["excludedRoleKey","excludedOtherRoleKey"]
      }
    },
    "include": {
      "asset": {
        "r__folder_Path": ["Content Builder/only/assets/in/here"]
      },
    },
    "serverTimeOffset": -6
  },
  "directories": {
        "businessUnits": "businessUnits/",
        "deploy": "deploy/",
        "docs": "docs/",
        "retrieve": "retrieve/",
        "template": "template/",
        "templateBuilds": ["retrieve/", "deploy/"]
  },
  "metaDataTypes": {
    "documentOnRetrieve": ["user", "automation", "dataExtension", "role"],
    "retrieve": [...]
  }
}
Setting Default Description
options.deployment.commitHistory 10 Configures how many commits createDeltaPkg will display if no parameters are given
options.deployment.sourceTargetMapping {"deployment-source": "deployment-target"} Configuration of 1 or many source-target marketList combos for mcdev createDeltaPkg
options.deployment.targetBranchBuMapping {"release/*": "...","master": ["..."]} Can be used by CI/CD pipelines to know what BUs shall be deployed to upon a merge into one of the specified branches
options.documentType 'md' Defines the format for documentation ('md', 'html', 'both')
options.documentStandardRoles false Optionally skip standard role documentation by setting to false
options.exclude.type.field [] Allows you to filter out metadata on retrieve based on their field values, e.g. CustomerKey (previously options.filter)
options.include.type.field [] Allows you to filter out metadata on retrieve based on their field values, e.g. CustomerKey
options.serverTimeOffset -6 Used to work around quirks in how SFMC handles timezones; For stack4: set to -7 (US Mountain time); others: -6 (US Central)
directories.businessUnits 'businessUnits/' Directory to save BU base details in
directories.deploy 'deploy/' Where deploy searches for files to deploy
directories.docs 'docs/' Directory for document output
directories.retrieve 'retrieve/' Where retrieve stores downloaded files
directories.template 'template/' Where rt stores downloaded templates & bd retrieves them from
directories.templateBuilds ['retrieve/','deploy/'] Where bd saves final deployment versions in. This can hold multiple directories, e.g. ['retrieve/','deploy/']
metaDataTypes.documentOnRetrieve ['user', 'automation', 'dataExtension', 'role'] automatically executes document for selected types
metaDataTypes.retrieve changes with each release check Metadata Type Support for current list

Market Configuration

You will want to set up configs for variable parts that change between Business Units. We advise starting this after you've first run the retrieveAsTemplate command. This might sound counterintuitive, but when you review what was copied into your template folder you will likely spot these variable parts the fastest and can then start setting up your market config. Please consider this an iterative process, as you will likely run rt followed by another update of your config multiple times until you got it right.

We advise clustering your logical approach into variable things on the instance parent (=_ParentBU_ in Accenture SFMC DevTools), the environment parent (under which you cluster your child Business Units for DEV, QA, and PROD respectively), and child Business Units. Ideally, the instance parent is only used to deploy Shared Data Extensions, the environment parent is used for integrations with external services and to separate incoming data via Automations into the respective Shared Data Extensions. The child Business Units are then reserved for everything that is run on a market-by-market basis.

Note: We do see it often that instance parent and environment parent are the same. This depends on your client's setup since Business Units are not for free, and clients sometimes decide to save the extra money. Sometimes, you even end up with only one BU for DEV activities, no QA environment - and share the instance parent between DEV and production... This is not the recommended approach for multiple reasons, including security, but it is the reality in some of our projects.

Here is a simple example with one DEV BU, 1 QA BU, and 2 PROD BUs:

// example market config in your .mcdevrc.json
"markets": {
        "DEV-NL": {
            "mid": "12345",
            "buName": "DEV - Child NL",
            "sharedFolder": "/Shared Data Extensions/DEV/NL",
            "suffix": "_DEV_NL",
            "countryCodeIn": "'NL'"
        },
        "QA-DE": {
            "mid": "12346",
            "buName": "QA - Child DE",
            "sharedFolder": "/Shared Data Extensions/QA/DE",
            "suffix": "_QA_DE",
            "countryCodeIn": "'DE'"
        },
        "PROD-DE": {
            "mid": "12349",
            "buName": "DE - Germany",
            "sharedFolder": "/Shared Data Extensions/DE - Germany",
            "suffix": "_DE",
            "countryCodeIn": "'DE'"
        },
        "PROD-NL": {
            "mid": "12351",
            "buName": "NL - Netherlands",
            "sharedFolder": "/Shared Data Extensions/NL - Netherlands",
            "suffix": "_NL",
            "countryCodeIn": "'NL'"
        }
}

Way more complex example with dedicated "Parent" BUs per environment (DEV, QA, PROD) and multiple country-specific BUs for QA and PROD:

// example market config in your .mcdevrc.json
"markets": {
    "DEV-Parent": {
        "Account_Salesforce": "Account_Salesforce_1",
        "suffix": "_DEV"
    },
    "DEV-NL": {
        "mid": "12345",
        "buName": "DEV - Child NL",
        "sharedFolder": "Shared Items/Shared Data Extensions/DEV/NL",
        "suffix": "_DEV_NL",
        "countryCodeIn": "'NL'"
    },
    "QA-Parent": {
        "Account_Salesforce": "Account_Salesforce_2",
        "suffix": "_QA"
    },
    "QA-DE": {
        "mid": "12346",
        "buName": "QA - Child DE",
        "sharedFolder": "Shared Items/Shared Data Extensions/QA/DE",
        "suffix": "_QA_DE",
        "countryCodeIn": "'DE'"
    },
    "QA-GULF": {
        "mid": "12347",
        "buName": "QA - Child GULF",
        "sharedFolder": "Shared Items/Shared Data Extensions/QA/GULF",
        "suffix": "_QA_GULF",
        "countryCodeIn": "'AE', 'BH', 'IQ', 'KW', 'OM', 'QA', 'SA'"
    },
    "PROD-Parent": {
        "Account_Salesforce": "Account_Salesforce",
        "suffix": ""
    },
    "PROD-AT": {
        "mid": "123458",
        "buName": "AT - Austria",
        "sharedFolder": "Shared Items/Shared Data Extensions/AT - Austria",
        "suffix": "_AT",
        "countryCodeIn": "'AT'"
    },
    "PROD-DE": {
        "mid": "12349",
        "buName": "DE - Germany",
        "sharedFolder": "Shared Items/Shared Data Extensions/DE - Germany",
        "suffix": "_DE",
        "countryCodeIn": "'DE'"
    },
    "PROD-CH": {
        "mid": "12352",
        "buName": "CH - Switzerland",
        "sharedFolder": "Shared Items/Shared Data Extensions/CH - Switzerland",
        "suffix": "_CH",
        "countryCodeIn": "'CH'"
    },
    "PROD-GULF": {
        "mid": "12350",
        "buName": "GULF - Arab states of the Persian Gulf",
        "sharedFolder": "Shared Items/Shared Data Extensions/GULF - Arab states of the Persian Gulf",
        "suffix": "_IC_GULF",
        "countryCodeIn": "'AE', 'BH', 'IQ', 'KW', 'OM', 'QA', 'SA'"
    },
    "PROD-NL": {
        "mid": "12351",
        "buName": "NL - Netherlands",
        "sharedFolder": "Shared Items/Shared Data Extensions/NL - Netherlands",
        "suffix": "_NL",
        "countryCodeIn": "'NL'"
    }
}

Market List Configuration

Market Lists are very powerful and you will quickly notice how much time they can save you during your deployment preparation. Let's first look at an example list config:

// this is a market-list-config based on the example market-config listed above!
"markets": {...},
"marketList": {
    "deployment-source": {
        "description": "Define one 1:1 BU-Market combo here to as source for automated creation of deployment packages; you can create more than one source market list",
        "MySandbox/DEV-NL": "DEV-NL"
    },
    "deployment-target": {
        "description": "Define n BU-Market combo here to as target for automated creation of deployment packages; you can create more than one target market list and they can be as complex as you like",
        "MySandbox/QA-DE": "QA-DE",
        "MyProduction/PROD-DE": "PROD-DE",
        "MyProduction/PROD-NL": "PROD-NL"
    }
}

The above can be used together with createDeltaPkg command.

Way more complex example:

// this is a market-list-config based on the example market-config listed above!
"markets": {...},
"marketList": {
    "Parent-shared": {
        "description": "used to deploy shared data extensions",
        "MySandbox/_ParentBU_": ["QA-DE", "QA-GULF"],
        "MyProduction/_ParentBU_": ["PROD-AT", "PROD-CH", "PROD-DE", "PROD-GULF", "PROD-NL"]
    },
    "Parent-medium": {
        "description": "if you use the instance's parent BU also for imports",
        "MySandbox/_ParentBU_": "QA-Parent",
        "MyProduction/_ParentBU_": "PROD-Parent"
    },
    "Parent-large": {
        "description": "very large projects often decide against using the instance parent to get more order into the chaos and define their own 'parents' instead",
        "MySandbox/QA-_Parent_": "QA-Parent",
        "MyProduction/ProjectX-_Parent_": "PROD-Parent"
    },
    "Parent-medium-multi": {
        "description": "equal to Parent-shared"
    },
    "Parent-large-multi": {
        "description": "use to deploy market-adapted queries to your parent BUs",
        "MySandbox/QA-_Parent_": ["QA-DE", "QA-GULF"],
        "MyProduction/ProjectX-_Parent_": [
            "PROD-AT",
            "PROD-CH",
            "PROD-DE",
            "PROD-GULF",
            "PROD-NL"
        ]
    },
    "Children": {
        "description": "use this to deploy to your market BUs",
        "MySandbox/QA-DE": "QA-DE",
        "MySandbox/QA-GULF": "QA-GULF",
        "MyProduction/PROD-Child_AT": "PROD-AT",
        "MyProduction/PROD-Child_CH": "PROD-CH",
        "MyProduction/PROD-Child_DE": "PROD-DE",
        "MyProduction/PROD-Child_GULF": "PROD-GULF",
        "MyProduction/PROD-Child_NL": "PROD-NL"
    }
}

First off, we don't see DEV in here. If you have more than one market in DEV then this might deviate but in general, you don't want to bulk-deploy to DEV as this is your single source of truth. Apart from that, we can see 4 types of lists here:

  1. Parent-shared (instance parent): This would be used to deploy the Shared Data Extensions to the instance parent. The child-configs are listed in an array to ensure we end up with one file per child in our parent BU folder.
  2. Parent-medium/Parent-large (medium:instance parent; large:environment parent): A 1:1 config that handles automations and the part of your solution that only runs on the parent.
  3. Parent-medium-multi/Parent-large-multi (medium:instance parent; large:environment parent): Any scripts, queries, automations that are executed on the parent but require one per child (e.g. query to fill country-specific Shared Data Extensions)
  4. Children (child BUs): everything that is needed on the market-specific Business Units.

CLI Options

--api

Optionally, you can see API requests & responses in the logfile or directly in CLI.

Examples:

mcdev retrieve --api=log
mcdev deploy --api=cli

Copyright (c) 2020-2025 Accenture. MIT licensed. Main contributors: Jörn Berkefeld, Doug Midgley

Clone this wiki locally