AEP Query Runner by Lens

ADOBE EXPERIENCE PLATFORM (AEP)

Pradeep Jaiswal

10/21/20264 min read

What Is Lens?

Lens is a Chrome extension built for teams running Adobe Experience Platform. It works inside the AEP/AA/CJA interface you already have open and uses your existing session: no extra login, no API credentials to configure, no data export step. Earlier articles covered the Schema ERD Canvas, the Source Dataflow Canvas, Approved Component Highlighter, Analyze Failed Batch, and Smart Search by Lens.

Try Lens

Who It’s For

For Data Engineers: A big export stops being a watch-the-clock task. Fire it, go do something else in AEP, reload the page if you need to, and the file is there when you come back, split into pieces of a million rows each so nothing fails to open in Excel, however many millions of rows the result turns out to be.

For Analysts: CREATE TABLE AS SELECT and the ad hoc question both live in the same editor, with Saved queries pulling in whatever the Query Editor already has for the sandbox, no retyping a query that already exists.

For Platform Teams A query that would have silently returned only 1,000 of 80,000 rows in AEP's own editor instead comes back complete, with no one having to know in advance that it would be big, and a dozen of them can run at once without queuing behind each other.

You write a SQL query in AEP's own Query Editor. Nine minutes in, it stops: 10 minutes is the limit, whatever the query was doing. Or it finishes, but the editor shows only 1,000 of the rows and the real result was over 50,000, so you never got the rest. That is the gap Query Runner by Lens closes, right on the AEP page you already use.

What Is Query Runner?

Query Runner is a SQL editor inside Lens, open on the current sandbox. Write a query, click Run, and the result is saved straight to a CSV file, no result table to scroll through, no manual export step.

Two Execution modes, picked once below the editor:

Stream, the default: the fast method, the same way AEP's own Query Editor runs it.
Batch: the slow method, for a query you already know will take longer than 10 minutes or return more than 50,000 rows, so there is no point waiting for the switch.

Chrome extension. Link

Five things AEP's own editor will not do, Query Runner does without being asked:

No 10 minute timeout: A query that would be cut off at 10 minutes switches itself to a batch request mid-run and keeps going, with no time limit.
No 50,000 row cap: A result in the millions comes back in full, split automatically into files of a million rows each, not just the first 1,000 the AEP native editor shows on screen.
Several queries at once: Each query runs in its own tab, side by side, all of them running in parallel rather than queued one behind another.
Keeps running in the browser background: Reload the AEP page, collapse Lens, switch to another AEP page, or close the tab the query started in: the query keeps running in the extension and the file is waiting when you come back.
No retyping the query: Click Execute in Lens on AEP's own Query Editor and the SQL you already wrote, parameters included, lands straight in a Query Runner tab, or open any saved query from the sandbox from the Saved queries panel.

The Switch You Never Have to Trigger Yourself

A Stream run that hits either wall does not just fail. Lens notices and resubmits the exact same query as a batch request, automatically, mid-run. Hit the row wall, and the first 50,000 rows are saved as their own file the moment the switch happens, so there is already something to open while the full result, however many millions of rows it turns out to be, is still coming. Hit the 10 minute wall, and the switch happens with nothing lost: the batch request starts fresh and finishes the job. Either way, the editor tells you which wall was hit and that the run is now on the Batch method.

Snackbar

The snackbar at the bottom of the page shows each one as its own line, named by which method it is on, with the elapsed time and a Check status link that jumps straight to that query's tab, whether it switched methods or is still waiting.

On AEP's own Query Editor, an Execute in Lens button sends the SQL you already wrote, with its parameters, straight into a new Query Runner tab, no retyping. The Saved queries panel does the same for anything already saved in the sandbox, open it and it is already there.

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