Journey Builder Activity behaving different based upon Entry Event

Question

I have an package in Marketing Cloud that adds a custom Activity to Journey Builder. Upon notification to my Activity that a contact has enter the step, my App reaches back out to Marketing Cloud to retrieve data from a Data Extension based upon configuration.

The app is having difficulty in one Org based upon a Journey's entry where a the requests to Marketing return no Data Extension records. In the case a Journey is triggered via Api Event, no records are retrieved, but when a Journey is trigger via Data Extension entry event, all the data from the Data Extension record is retrieved with no issue.

To test, I have two Journeys with an entry event and my Activity -- one with an Api Event and one with a Data Extension listener, both configured to use the same Data Extension. I trigger the Api Event, see the Data Esxtension updated with the valid data, then see my App ask for the data from Marketing Cloud and get a Soap response with no records. I then see the Data Extension entry Journey pick up the new DE row, notify my App, and see the record returned from the Soap call with the valid data I sent to the Api Request.

I cannot reproduce this behavior in another Org.

I am having a difficult time troubleshooting behavior that seemingly differs solely based upon entry event. Is there some permissions around Api Event-triggered Journeys required that differs from the Data Extension Read/Write access granted by the package? Any known limitations of Api Entry Events I may have missed? Known bugs (I do not see any relevant reportings)?

Answer 1

My issue was querying for Data Extension based upon ContactKey.

The Contact Key in the JSON payload when the Api Request is made is set as an email address.

A Data Extension links to Subscriber Key on Subscriber.

In this instance, Subscriber Key is not a Contact's email address; therefore, assuming I could query using the Contact Key as the Subscriber Key in order to retrieve the needed Data Extension record is an incorrect assumption.

It feels a little strange to me that the Payload for an Api Event takes a Contact Key at all while the actual Journey's DE is keyed to Subscriber with a column in the DE and not directly related to Contact. I suppose this feeling may be a lack of full understanding in the relationships of these objects within Marketing Cloud, but I am slowly figuring it out and modifying my application to suit.