Importing Data into Loyalty

The Loyalty platform supports two data import features: Standard Imports and Advanced Imports. This article describes the differences between the two features, and provides guidance on when you should use one feature over the other.

Standard Imports

Standard Imports are supported by every Loyalty asset that can be imported. In most cases, you can configure a Standard Import directly from the asset's main screen (such as the Offers screen or the Rewards screen for example).

The Standard Import feature can be used for simple one-time imports or occasional manual imports, as the feature is limited to importing only files located on your local PC. Standard Imports support the following functionality:

• Selecting what fields to import

• Comma-delimited or semicolon-delimited

• Manual execution

• Success / Error email notifications

• Lookup table options to match / update records

• Importing into Child tables

• Job history and status monitoring

Advanced Imports

Advanced Imports are supported by a smaller sub-set of assets than is supported by Standard Imports.  You can configure an Advanced Import for only the following asset types:

• Activity

• Custom Objects

• Members

• Offer Certificate Codes

• Offer Responses

• Offer Response with Certificate Code Assignment

• Offer

• Order

• Product Item

• Place

• Lookup

Advanced Imports should be used if you require more sophisticated import configurations than those supported by Standard Imports. The Advanced Imports feature supports the following:

• Fully automated and repeatable import processing

• Importing of files from your local PC, as well as from a Secure FTP server, Amazon S3 Bucket, or Google Cloud Storage (GCS) Bucket

• Reusable Connection Profiles for defining server locations and access credentials

• Full-featured data mapping of columns in the import file to fields in a table

• Data Transformations

• Scheduled executions, including one-offs and recurring schedules

The Advanced Import feature is available on the Imports screen. See Getting Started with Imports for more information.

Feature Matrix

The following matrix summarizes the feature differences between Standard and Advanced Imports:

Feature	Standard Imports	Advanced Imports
Data mapping	Select the fields being imported.	Map the columns in the import file to fields in the destination table.
Import methods	Insert new only Update existing only Insert and update	Insert new only Update existing only Insert and update Delete (if applicable)
Email notifications	Success and Error notifications	Success and Error notifications
File location	Local PC	Local PC, Secure FTP, Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage
Delimiter	Comma, semicolon	Comma, semicolon, custom character
Load data into Child tables	Yes	Not supported
Lookup table options	Match / update records in a Lookup table	Not supported
Supported assets	All Loyalty assets that can be imported	Sub-set of Loyalty assets (see above for list)
Connection Profiles	Not supported	Yes
Import file options	Delimiter character	Delimiter character, text qualifier, file encoding, unescaped double-quotes, delimiter count validation
Encryption	Not supported	PGP
Option to skip blank values	Yes	Yes
Data validation	Yes	Yes
Data Transformations	Not supported	Yes
Manual execution	Yes	Yes
Scheduled execution	Not supported	Execute once in the future, execute on a recurring schedule
Job history	Yes	Yes
Status monitoring	Yes	Yes
Log files	Not supported	Transformation errors, skipped records log, records with errors, deleted records (if applicable)