Scheduled File Import
Set up file imports for adding and updating profiles to automatically run on a schedule.
In this Article
About Scheduled Import
Instead of manually uploading a file to APSIS One and repeating that process every time, use Scheduled Import and set up your system to upload files to the APSIS Cloud SFTP server. APSIS provides a dedicated SFTP area and credentials for each customer account.
💡 Tip: In some cases a Scheduled Import can be an alternative to setting up an complex integration. This requires some familiarity with FTP or an automated setup.
We provide a free cloud storage for all our customers' file imports. Each customer has a secure area to upload files that will be importable on a schedule. This storage needs minimal initialisation to set up. Read on to learn how.
How to Setup Scheduled Import
There are three steps to setting up a scheduled File Import:
Initialising the cloud storage
Uploading a file
Scheduling the file import
Initialising the APSIS Cloud storage (SFTP)
As is standard in APSIS One, users can initialise a separate cloud storage slice per section.
1. Head over to your user Icon and go to Settings.
2. Choose the Section you want set up the Scheduled File Import for.
3. Choose SFTP Storage in the left menu and click Create new connection to set it up. Then enter an SSH public key.
SSH keys
SSH public key authentication is a more secure and efficient alternative to username/password authentication and is used in this case to authenticate an external computer with APSIS Cloud.
4. Generate a separate SSH public/private key pair for the computer connecting to APSIS Cloud. Plenty of third-party FTP clients can generate key pairs easily, but it's possible to do it in the command line for Mac or Linux systems without additional software.
5. Copy the public key into the SSH public key text field in SFTP Storage and click on Create.
APSIS One creates a new login ID that is connected to the public key.
6. Use this pair (login & public key) to log in to their SFTP hosting area and upload the file.
Uploading a file
7. With the login ID and public key, log in to your cloud storage in APSIS One with any SFTP client. The SFTP server is at fi-sftp.webscript.apsis.one (port 22).
Uploading a file to APSIS One is done as usual via each user's preferred SFTP client. Single files are preferable, but folder structures are respected and will be visible when looking for a file to use during file import.
Scheduling the file import
Schedule the import when the file(s) has finished getting uploaded to APSIS One.
8. Navigate to the import history in Audience and click Create Scheduled Import.
9. Choose the file you want to use from the dropdown listing all the files uploaded to cloud storage.
10. Once you have selected the file follow the steps for mapping columns and Attributes.
Follow these guides to learn how to:
11. Locate all the scheduled file imports in the Import history menu under Shedules.
Automation
In-house IT or consultants can prepare any internal computer system to connect and upload data to APSIS Cloud regularly or after a change in the relevant files, using the credentials generated with SSH and APSIS One. Then the scheduled file import can use the updated file when it is scheduled to run.
The process looks like this:
A user modifies a file in a shared or personal folder with new profile data.
A script runs to upload the updated file to APSIS Cloud, replacing the old file.
After some time, a scheduled file import runs to ingest the file into Audience.
If there is no great need for real-time data, this process could be run at the end of each working date, providing a marketer with the latest data every morning.
Limitations
There is a limit of two concurrent scheduled File Imports per account and one per section.
The maximum allowed file size is 50 MB.
SFTP storage only supports SSH keys based on the RSA and ECDSA algorithms.
Uploaded files will be deleted after 30 days.
What's Next?