E-mail touchpoint - Uploading participants via FTPs

When you start "feeding" your touchpoint with participants based on a transaction, chances are you will need to start uploading on a daily basis, which is not very time-efficient to keep doing manually. That is why we have 2 automated connections to use: FTPs and API (more info here). We focus on the FTPs-connection below.

IN THIS ARTICLE

1. FTPs in general
1. What is FTPs?
2. What are the benefits of FTPs?
2. Start uploading files via FTPs
1. Steps to take
2. Content of the file
3. File specifications
3. Connecting to the FTPs server

1. FTPs in general?

1a. What is FTPs?

FTPs is an extension of the commonly used File Transfer Protocol (FTP) that adds support for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) cryptographic protocols. FTPs is based on a client-server model. The client software connects to the FTPs server, which allows you to transfer files from your computer to the server.

FTPs can be used as a safe method to transfer participants in spreadsheets to the Hello Customer platform in order to send an invitation e-mail for feedback. This is a more automated and less error-prone method than uploading participants manually. Most customer data systems (CRM) can gather and upload customer data (mostly in .csv format) without much custom development or configuration.

... back to top

1b. What are the benefits of FTPs?

• CSV or Excel files that you upload get processed automatically every hour. The files might need to be prepared by your IT team, but once this is set up, the process is automatic.
• We can track if something went wrong and what went wrong because files that failed to upload are moved to an "error" folder.

... back to top

2. Start uploading files via FTPs

2a. Steps to take

STEP 1: Contact us to start setting up the FTPs connection. Send an e-mail to your customer success manager or support@hellocustomer.com.

STEP 2: We will provide a username and password to login to the folder linked to your environment on our FTPs server.

• URL: ftp://import.hellocustomer.com/ (always use the URL, never the IP behind it as this can change).
• Your username & password
• Port:
  • 21
  • 990
  • 50000-50003

STEP 3: Create your file. Any customer data management system, capable of uploading the required file format to an FTPs server can be used.

STEP 4: We do the necessary settings on our side and testing can start. We always advise to first do a test with either dummy data or your own e-mail address.

STEP 5: After testing, it's time for the real deal. Your automated process is set up and you're ready to survey your customers in an automated way.

... back to top

2b. Content of the file

Similar to when uploading participants manually, you need to provide a file with all the information about your participants you want to add to the platform. Every row in the file is one participant and the columns contain following information:

• Participant information
  • E-mail address (mandatory): to be able to send out the survey.
  • Language (mandatory - in 2-character ISO 639-1 code): to be able to send the survey in the correct language to the participant.
  • First name (optional): can be used to customize, for example, the survey invitation.
  • Last name (optional): can be used to customize, for example, the survey invitation.
  • Customer ID (optional): to be able to identify your customer.
  • Phone number (optional): to be able to contact your customer by phone after they answered the survey.
• Extra metadata (optional):
  • Team filter: to link your data to make sure the correct data is shown to the different users.
  • All the extra information you know about your customer and their interaction with your company you want to use for analysis purposes.

... back to top

2c. File specifications

There are two formats supported to upload via FTPs:

• .xlsx
• .csv: avoid using quotes or double quotes in the values

Other specifications:

• File encoding is preferably UTF8
• The size of the file can not exceed 15 MB
• A header with column names is required in the first row
• A maximum of 200.000 participants can be uploaded per day

• As a best practice, the name of the file should be a combination of the touchpoint name and the date of upload, so you have a unique name.

  Example: touchpoint_NPS_Happy_Fashion_20240530

More details on how to create the perfect file can be found here.

Processing Timeline:

• Files are processed every hour on the hour (e.g., 9:00, 10:00, 11:00)
• Example: If you upload a file at 9:20, it will be processed at 10:00
• After processing, newly submitted participants will receive an e-mail survey according to the set parameters.
• After a participant answers the survey, it will take a maximum of 2 hours for the new answers to be displayed in the platform.

... back to top

3. Connecting to the FTPs server

• URL: ftp://import.hellocustomer.com/ (always use the URL, never the IP behind it as this can change).
• Your username & password
• Port:
  • 21
  • 990
  • 50000-50003

... back to top