Map Fields | Yext Hitchhikers Platform
Select Entity Type
Select the entity type that you wish to map your data to. This can be changed at any time. Only fields enabled on the entity type will be available as fields you can map to.
Map to Multiple Entity Types
If multiple entity types are selected, you must specify the entity type for each row. This should be included as a column with the value of the entity type’s API name (e.g., blogPost), mapped to “Entity Type.”
This is not a method to change the type of an existing entity — existing entities’ type must match their current type.
Note that if a given field is enabled on only a subset of the selected entity types, the field is still an eligible mapping. However, if field values are provided for entities of a type that does not support the field, the values will be ignored. For example, if ingesting blogPost and location entity types, any location entities that have a value for c_author (a field only enabled on blogPost entities) will successfully process, but the value for c_author will be ignored.
Map Column Headers
By default, when an entity type is selected, we will attempt to map all available column headers to fields available for that entity type. If desired, you can change the automatically mapped column headers to different fields.
Mapping all column headers is not required or expected. Any column headers that are not mapped to a field are ignored upon applying profile updates.
Sample Data
This column is populated using the first non-null value for that column header, as shown in the preview table data. This means that the sample data may not all be data for the same row (entity).
If all preview table data is null for a given column header, then the Sample Data column will be blank.
Blank Value Behavior
When mapping a column to a field, designate the behavior for blank values. The default option is to Clear Value if Blank = False, or you can choose to Clear Value if Blank = True.
This configuration is set at the field level, meaning that different behavior can be designated for different fields on a single entity.
For the table below, use an example entity with Entity ID 123 and the Date field populated to 2023-01-01.
| Option | Behavior | Example | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clear Value if Blank = False (Default) | The existing field value on the given entity is preserved | Connector Data for Entity ID 123: Date = “” Field Value for Entity ID 123 after the run: Date = 2023-01-01 |
Fields that should not have their contents cleared when source data is blank (e.g., fields such as Category where a blank value would never be intended) Fields that may not be ingested in each run (e.g., crawler runs, where source data is less predictable) Fields that are edited from a variety of sources (e.g., manual edits in Entity Edit, another connector, API) |
| Clear Value if Blank = True | Any existing field contents on the given entity are cleared | Connector Data for Entity ID 123: Date = “”Field Value for Entity ID 123 after the run: Date = “” |
Fields that may sometimes expect a blank value (e.g., product data for seasonally available items — a blank value returned from the API should clear the prior value on the entity to reflect that the product is no longer available) |