How to use custom Contact data in Segmentation rules in the List Manager

Question

I have varied information stored in xDB imported from a CRM system. This is stored against Contacts in custom Facets. What is the most scalable method to use this data for segmenting large number of Contact's in the List Manager?

Creating the custom segmentation rules isn't a problem it's more retrieving that getting that Contact data in a scalable way.

Answer 1

Sitecore 8.1 update 3 brought a change that allows custom Contact Data to be indexed. This means this Custom Contact data will be available to searched through the sitecore_analytics_index.

This is implemented through a custom processor that extends the new contactindexable.loadfields pipeline. This allows data from custom xDB facets to be added to the collection of contact indexable fields.

protected override IEnumerable<IIndexableDataField> GetFields(ContactIndexableLoadFieldsPipelineArgs args)
{
  var fields = new List<IIndexableDataField>();
  var customFacet = args.Contact.GetFacet<ICustomContactFacet>("CustomContactFacetName");
  if (customFacet != null)
  {
    fields.Add(new IndexableDataField<bool>("contact.CustomFieldName", customFacet.CustomField));
  }
  return fields;
}

I have since written a detailed blog post on how to do this