Load file load-file
The Load file activity is a Data management activity. Use this activity to work with profiles and data stored in an external file. Profiles and data are not added to the database, but all fields in the input file are available for personalization, or to update profiles, or any other table.
This activity can be used with a Reconciliation activity to link unidentified data to existing resources. For example, the Load file activity can be placed before a Reconciliation activity if you import non-standard data into the database.
Configure the Load file activity load-configuration
The Load file activity configuration involves two steps. First, you need to define the expected file structure by uploading a sample file. Once this is done, you can specify the origin of the file whose data will be imported. Follow the steps below to configure the activity.
Configure the sample file sample
Follow these steps to configure the sample file used to define the expected file structure:
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Add a Load file activity into your workflow.
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Select the sample file to use to define the expected file structure. To do this, click the Select file button in the Sample file section and select the local file to use.
note note NOTE The data of the sample file is used for configuring the activity but is not imported. We recommend using a sample file containing little data. The file format must be aligned with this sample file. -
A preview of the sample file is shown, displaying a maximum of 30 lines.
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In the File type drop-down list, specify if the file is using delimited columns or fixed width columns.
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For delimited columns file types, use the Columns section to configure the properties of each column.
accordion Available options for file columns - Label: Label to display for the column.
- Data type: Type of data contained in the column.
- Width (string data type): Maximum number of characters to display in the column.
- Data Transformation (string data type): Apply transformation to the values contained in the column.
- White space management (string data type): Specify how to manage spaces contained in the column.
- Separators (date, time, integer and number data types)*: Specify the characters to use as separators.
- Allow NULLs: Specify how to manage empty values in the column. The 鈥溍鄱故悠 Campaign default鈥 option will throw an error if an empty value is present.
- Error processing (string data type): Specify the behaviour in case of errors in one of the lines.
- Value remapping: This option allows you to map specific values with new ones. For example, if the column contains 鈥淭rue鈥/鈥淔alse鈥 values, you can add a mapping to automatically replace those values with 鈥0鈥/鈥1鈥 characters.
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In the Formatting section, specify how the file is formatted to ensure that data is correctly imported.
Define the target file to upload target
To define the target file to upload, follow these steps:
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In the Target file section, specify the action to perform when retrieving the file to upload on the server.
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Upload file from local machine: Select the file to upload from your machine.
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Specified in the transition: Upload the file specified in the inbound transition upcoming from a previous activity such as Transfer file.
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Pre-process the file: Upload the file specified in the previous transition and apply a pre-processing command to it such as Decompression or Decrypt.
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Calculated: Upload the file whose name is specified in the File name field. Click the Open personalization dialog icon to leverage the expression editor, including event variables, to calculate the file name.
note note NOTE If you are accessing a Load file activity that has already been setup in the client console, an additional Target database section displays if you have configured the activity to upload the file to an external database. It allows you to specify if you want to upload the file on the Campaign server or on the external database. -
Additional options options
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In the Reject management section, specify how the activity should behave in case of errors:
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In the Number of errors allowed field, specify the maximum number of errors that are authorized when processing the file to load. For example, if the value is set to 鈥20鈥, the workflow execution will fail if there are more than 20 errors when loading the file.
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To keep the errors that occurred when loading the file, toggle the Keep rejects in a file option on and specify the desired name for the file in the Rejection File field.
After activating this option, an additional output transition named 鈥淐omplement鈥 is added after the activity. Any error that will occur during the import will be stored in the specified file on the server.
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To delete the uploaded file from the server after the workflow has been executed, toggle the Delete file after import option.
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Click Confirm once settings are correct.
Example load-example
A sample of an external file loading used with the Reconciliation activity is available in this section.