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The data layer is opt-in. To enable the data layer on your environment:
  1. Reach out to your CSM at Chift.
  2. Together, you agree on the sync timing that fits your use case (how often the sync runs). The cadence directly drives how fresh the datalayer data will be for your customers.
  3. Chift activates the sync. An initial run backfills historical data into the data layer store; the recurring sync then keeps it up to date at the agreed cadence.
Once the initial sync completes, the data layer is ready to serve reads for that connection.
The first sync can take a while on connections with a lot of historical data. Plan the activation accordingly.

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How to activate it on one connection?

This is done automatically once we add the data layer feature to your environment.

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Use it on a request

Reading from the data layer is a per-request choice. To serve a given call from the datalayer instead of the live source, add the following header to your request: 
GET /accounting/journal-entries
x-chift-datalayer: true
The endpoint, parameters and response shape are exactly the same as the regular unified API call. The only difference is that the response is computed from Chift’s datalayer store rather than fetched live from the source system. If you omit the header, the call goes through the default unified API path and reaches the source live, exactly as before. You can freely mix both styles within the same integration and on the same connection.

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Reading data you just wrote

Because writes go to the source and the datalayer is updated only by the sync, a record you have just created or updated is not yet in the datalayer until the next sync run. The pattern is simple: just don’t send the x-chift-datalayer header on that read. The call then goes through the live unified API and returns the up-to-date record from the source. On subsequent reads where freshness is no longer critical, you can send the header again.

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Monitoring

The sync that feeds the datalayer is a standard Chift sync, so you can monitor it the same way as any other sync. See Syncs for the general overview and Troubleshooting for the most common failure modes.