Best Practice on Importing Data to Agillic

When importing any type of data into Agillic, there are a few steps you should take to make sure the data imports correctly.

Below, we've laid out a few guidelines to read through before starting to import data into Agillic:

• Agillic's Recommended Best Practice for Importing Data
  • Follow the Supported Data Format
  • Use a Plain Text Format for your Import Files
  • Check for Duplicates
  • Validate your Import Files Before Importing
  • Continuously Monitor Imports

Agillic's Recommended Best Practice for Importing Data

Follow the Supported Data Format

To ensure that your imports are successful, your import files should follow the correct Data Format:

• Person Data Format
• One-to-many Data Format
• Global Data Table Format

If you don't follow the data-specific format, your imports will most likely fail, or at worst, you might end up importing data into the wrong data fields.

Use a Plain Text Format for your Import Files

By using a plain text format such as .csv or .txt, it's less likely your Import Files will contain hidden formatting that might result in your Import Files failing. It also makes it easier to troubleshoot a failed import. Learn more about how to investigate a failed Import File here.

Check for Duplicates

It's also important to check you don't have any duplicates in your Import Files. When you update your existing recipients' data, make sure it imports to the matching recipient IDs, such as MEMBERID or ACCOUNTNUMBER, or any other unique identifier. This makes sure that you don't end up with repeated recipients and all imports attach to the correct recipient. 

Validate your Import Files Before Importing

We recommend always validating your Import files in the Agillic UI before fully importing them. This way, you can check if your Import File is correctly set up before attempting to import it into the Agillic database. 

If you encountered an error while importing, click 'Download' to see more details about what went wrong. This indicates where in the Import File there was data that caused issues.

Continuously Monitor Imports

In order to ensure the data you use in your daily communication is up to date, we advice you to monitor the import jobs closely. By continuously monitering imports in Agillic it enables you to secure all needed data for your communication is imported successfully. You can use our standard import notification feature to get import status of any import file via email. If you want to integrate into your own monitoring infrastructure, and/or are interested in more detailed attributes of import files, consider writing a Javascript Monitor Extension to have programmatic access to your Agillic imports, and the entire Javascript Extension framework. 

Suggested Next Step

• How to Create an Import File
• Understanding Import System Settings
• All You Need to Know About Data Models
• How to Import in Agillic
• Understanding Data Import/Export
• How to Set up WebDAV