The Imported Files synapse can be used to bridge the gap between an external system with no APIs and the rest of your ecosystem. In this article, we will learn how to use the Imported Files synapse to create a Syncari entity and sync the CSV data into that entity.
You can upload a single sheet on a one-time basis into its own entity, or, you can maintain the entity up to date by continuing to upload additional files over time.
This article does not cover how to use CSV data to update existing records in a different entity, like a data loader in Salesforce. If your goal is to update existing records on a one-time basis, see Updating Existing Records using the Imported Files Synapse.
As you've probably already noticed, the Imported Files synapse is already active and ready, so there is no authentication setup necessary.
First things first, let's talk about your source file. A few things to keep in mind:
- You must include a unique ID column to identify each record accurately, this is required.
- Make sure the first row of your sheet is dedicated to column/field names.
- Make sure to not rename the column headers/field names when importing additional files in the future into the same entity.
- If you have more than 100,000 rows in a CSV you want to import, we recommend you split the data into multiple files with approximately 100,000 rows in each and import them one at a time.
NOTE: The Imported Files Synapse is a uni-directional Synapse, you cannot write back to the CSV file. If you have a need to read and write to a CSV file, you can look into using our Amazon S3 Synapse or our Google Sheets synapse.
Once you have your source file ready, follow these instructions to create an entity in Syncari to sync the CSV data into and to begin importing your data into it.
1. Log into Syncari and navigate to the Imported Files section:
2. Click Upload file, then upload to new folder (the folder name will be the object name in your Syncari data model).
3. Enter a Folder/Object Name, then select the file you want to import to populate the object with your data.
4. Select the column/field from your CSV that Syncari should use as the unique identifier of the imported records and finally click Upload.
5. Excellent! Now your CSV file has been uploaded successfully to Syncari. You can preview it's content by selecting the file under the folder.
Note: the record preview is limited, do not worry if you don't see all records here.
6. But wait! There's more! Now let's go ahead and auto-create an entity in Syncari to house the data from the uploaded spreadsheet. Navigate to Sync Studio, from the Relationships view, click the gear icon on the Imported Files synapse.
7. A modal will pop open with a list of folders/CSV files you uploaded that don't have corresponding objects yet. Select the correct one and click Create Entity.
8. You should now see the new object/entity on the Sync Studio canvas. Let's double-click this new object.
9. You can see that all the columns from the spreadsheet are now in this object as fields and the mappings are done automatically. To begin pulling data from the uploaded file into this new object/entity, click Publish.
10. A modal will pop up and give you the opportunity to review. Go ahead and click Publish Draft.
11. The final step is to run a resync for the data transfer from CSV to Entity to occur. From the Resync menu, click Resync.
12. Select the entity you want to resync and click Resync.
13. You'll notice the entity will show a status of resynching.
14. Pay attention to the notification bell up top as it'll let you know when the resync is completed. The time to complete the resync depends entirely on how many records and how many columns/fields are in the file.
15. You can see the records now in Data Studio.
Excellent work! The next time you have more data you want to add to this object, you can simply upload a new version of the file to the same folder using the exact same column headers and Syncari will ingest the new data with no further action needed.
If you have overlap between your files, Syncari will accept the latest version of the record in the latest file. Make sure to always include the unique IDs in your files.