What: BlueConic CSV connections allow for the automated synchronization of BlueConic data out to various CRM and digital marketing platforms.
About BlueConic: The BlueConic customer data platform harnesses the data required to power the recognition of an individual at each interaction, and then synchronizes their intent across the marketing ecosystem.
Why: BlueConic features a unique data collection engine that captures data at the customer level for known and anonymous users. For known users, or once a user becomes known, having this data in your CRM will arm your call center and other communication platforms with relevant details about your customers' explicit and implicit intents.
Exchanging customer profile data with other sources via CSV files
BlueConic offers several ways to exchange data with your marketing system via CSV files:
- Amazon Web Services (S3) Connection
- Azure Blob Storage Connection
- Azure Data Lake Storage Connection
- Google Cloud Storage Connection
- Google Drive Connection
- SFTP Connection
To learn more about connecting with BlueConic data via CSV, contact your Customer Success Manager at support@blueconic.com.
Configuring file and field handling for CSV imports
When you import data to BlueConic via CSV files, you can customize how your files and their fields should be handled. The SFTP and S3 connections offer the following options for file and field handling:
Field separator: Usually ,, ;, or \t (for tab-separated files).
Decimal separator: Choose whether to use a point . or a comma , for decimal or currency values.
Optional: Click Show advanced settings for additional file and field settings:
Multi-value separator: Typically , or | between multiple values within a single field.
Quote character: If your CSV file uses quotation marks around values, you need to specify your quote character here. If your CSV does not use quotation marks, you can remove the default character.
Escape character: If your CSV file uses an escape character, you need to specify your escape character here. If your CSV does not use an escape character, you can remove the default character.
Note: It is possible to specify no escape character in many of the CSV connections, however, removing the character can sometime result in issues with BlueConic parsing the file. If you are seeing instances where the file preview is not showing the number of columns and is not allowing you to preview the file, the issue can be cause by the removal for the escape character.
Date format: Specify the date format used in the files so BlueConic can import these fields correctly. BlueConic offers a wide range of date format options. For example: the format "YYYY-MM-DD" results in "2021-11-30". For a complete list of supported date formatting options, see instructions for setting a custom date format, and selecting your time zone.
Timezone: Specify the timezone used in the files so BlueConic can import or export date fields correctly.
Click Preview date and time to test if the date values in the detected files match your selected date format.
Rename files: Select this option to add a ".done" suffix to the end of the file name when the file is imported.
Process CSV data: You can add BlueConic data processors to transform or filter the data in your CSV, so BlueConic imports the data correctly. Contact your Customer Success Manager to learn more about data processors.
Delta file: Specify whether the imported file is a change file containing only new data since the first import. Using a change file can speed the import. Note: All of the selected data is imported the first time you import data into BlueConic. For subsequent imports, BlueConic creates a delta or change file.