Resources to Better Understand the CMA Refresh Schedule and Process
Our goal is to conduct weekly CMA refreshes, though the schedule is not set in stone due to occasional fluctuations in processing or extract delivery delays. As a general rule, the expectation is that each week, generally on Wednesday night, the workbooks will refresh to the next Circana week ending date. These week ending dates always fall on Sundays, resulting in approximately one-to-two-week lag between the current date and the workbook's week ending date.
Circana provides a two-week delivery window for delivering InfoSource data extracts. However, they have consistently delivered within the first week of this window. As soon as we receive the extract delivery, we commence processing and testing the files to later place them in production for the weekly CMA refresh. If there are no issues or delays, we can expect completion of the CMA refresh by Wednesday night of the same week we received the Circana file delivery.
See this InfoSource Delivery Schedule for the expected refresh dates for 2024.
To view the status of the upcoming refresh, see CMA: Data Refresh Tracker.
To delve into more detail, the InfoSource Delivery Schedule reveals that Circana provides a two-week delivery window rather than a specific date. For instance, following the snapshot below from the InfoSource Delivery Schedule, it indicates that we may receive the delivery featuring the week ending date January 14, 2024, anywhere between January 22 and February 5. Generally, we do receive these extract deliveries toward the beginning of those time windows, but not always. This is partly why we can't offer an exact, strict cadence for deliveries. We depend on Circana to deliver these extracts at the beginning of the time window and to provide us with extracts that are sound, complete, and easily processed.
For example:
The Circana file delivery window shown in the image below (January 22, 2024 – February 5, 2024) represents the expected period for receiving the extract delivery from Circana. Let’s say we receive the extracts on the first day of this two-week delivery window (January 22, 2024). Assuming there are no issues or delays, refresh production would occur on January 24, Wednesday night. Once the refresh is completed in this scenario, the week ending date would be January 14, 2024 (Sunday).
The image below shows the calendar for January, continuing from the previous example.
- The blue square indicates the expected delivery of Circana's extracts.
- The red square indicates the day we are expected to refresh after receiving the delivery extracts, usually Wednesday night.
- The yellow square indicates the week ending date once the refresh is complete.
