SFTP Server Connection for Review Generation | Yext Hitchhikers Platform
With the SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) Server Connection source for Review Generation, you can send out review invitations from files hosted on your own server over a secure connection. This will enable your team to automate review generation while keeping sensitive contact information secure.
Setting Up a Connection
Requirements
In order to set up a new SFTP Server Connection, you will need to have the Send Invites, Select Templates, and Manage SFTP Connection permissions, and Full Account access scope.
Setting Up Your File
Before configuring an SFTP Server Connection, you may want to set up the file which will be used to send out review generation invites. The file must be a comma-delimited (CSV) file and must have all required columns. To configure an SFTP Server Connection, you will need to fill out the Server Settings and the File Settings.
Columns in Template File
| Column Header | Description | Additional Information/Context |
|---|---|---|
| Entity ID | Entity ID of associated location | Required |
| firstName | Contact’s first name | Required |
| lastName | Contact’s last name | Required |
| contact | Contact email OR phone number | Must have either email or phone number, not both |
Maximum Contact Frequency
Maximum Contact Frequency is a setting in your Configuration Settings, which prevents contacts from receiving duplicate review generation invites.
It is a required setting for any SFTP Server Connections, in order to prevent scheduled runs from sending out duplicate invites to your contacts. If Maximum Contact Frequency is not enabled, you will be able to create a new connection, however it will save in a disabled state, and you will not be able to run it until the Maximum Contact Frequency has been enabled.
If you have active SFTP Server Connections, and would like to disable the Maximum Contact Frequency setting in order to send a single invite or perform a file upload, you will need to disable all configured SFTP Server Connections in your account before you are able to disable the Maximum Contact Frequency.
Configuring a Connection
Server Settings
You will need to provide details for connecting to your SFTP server, and scheduling server runs. For more information about adding and managing an SFTP Server Connection, see this help article .
File Settings
Once connected to the Server, you will need to specify what type of file you will be uploading, and how to find the correct file to upload. You can specify the file location either by an exact file path, or a more flexible search by criteria strategy.
Note: File Limitation
When uploading a CSV file, we will only pull the first available sheet, and do not support the concatenation of multiple sheets. The file must have all required columns, and must have valid Entity IDs and contact information. Please note that for CSV files, we only support comma delimiters, and will delimit new lines as rows.
Lookup Strategy - Exact File Path
If you know the exact path and name of the file to pull, this strategy will work best. Enter the path to the file, including the root folder and all nested folders, ending with the file name and extension. E.g., root/folder1/folder2/myfile.csv
Lookup Strategy - Search by Criteria
If you know that you want to pull a file in a certain folder, but that file name might constantly change, this strategy will work best. You can specify which file to upload using several criteria:
- Last Modified: Input whether to pull the Newest or Oldest file that meet the specified criteria
- Folder Path: input the folder path that will contain your file (this might be a root folder or nested folders). E.g., root/myfolder
- File Name: optionally, you may input a specific rule to filter by file name. You can choose to filter to a file name that starts with, ends with, contains, or matches a regex pattern of a given value.
Example Use Case: Say you have a folder where you store files that contain your business locations. Each week, you upload an updated version of the file, where the file name contains the date of the upload, i.e., “locations_02-10-2023”. To ensure that the most up-to-date file is always pulled, you might input the following settings:
- Last Modified = Newest
- Folder Path = /root
- File name = contains “locations”
Note: The file must be that of a supported file type, and match that of the file type selected in the next step. If a file is pulled that contains an unsupported extension (such as .doc) will result in an ETL error when the Connector is run.
Saving an SFTP Server Connection
Once you’ve saved an SFTP Server Connection, you will be dropped into the SFTP Server Connections overview page. From here, you will be able to manage your existing connections.
SFTP Server Connection Logs
If you would like to see more details about past SFTP Server Connection runs, you can click the View button on any existing connection, and then click on the Logs tab at the top of the page. The logs tab will display the date and time, status, invites sent, and invites failed for any runs. You can download the details of any logged run to see more details on rows that may have failed to send an invite. If you have the HIPAA product feature enabled, you will not be able to download the details of any logs.
Note: To satisfy GDPR security requirements, logs will be deleted after 60 days.