To File is an Orchestrator process that facilitates pushing data out to external systems and storage locations. Some of the high-level capabilities available with the To File process are:
- Define key-value pairs
- Define delimited columns
- Package as compressed file sent to a specified connection (i.e. S3, SFTP)
Example use cases
- Send customer attributes as key-value pairs to DMP (i.e. AAM)
- Send customer attributes delimited file to SFTP location (i.e. Adobe Core Services)
Process Configuration
The To File process configuration has the option of sending standard delimited file or key-value pairs. The following is only meant to provide an understanding of each screen and field.
Mapping
The Mapping screen provides an interface to select the fields from the source dataset to be packaged and sent to the output connection. To add fields click the green Actions box and select one of the options to add new fields and select the fields to be included in the output dataset.
Parameters
The Parameters screen provides the options to specify how the output would be configured so that it conforms to requirements of the external system the data is being sent.
Output File Format - Standard
Field Delimiter - character to delimit a new column
Row Delimiter - character to delimit a new row
Compression Type - compression type of the output file (i.e. Gzip, Lz4, Bzip2, Snappy)
Output File Name - full name of the file to be sent through output connection
External File Path - folder the file(s) will be written on the output connection
Incremental Load - slider to specify if the files should be written incrementally (i.e. daily loads)
Include Headers - slider to specify if the file should have the field names as a header row (Adobe Core Services customer attributes requires this)
Output File Format - Key Value
ID Field - specify identifier column (i.e. customer ID)
ID Delimiter - specify the character that separates the ID field from the key-value pair columns
Key Value Pair Delimiter - specify the character that delimits each key-value pair
Key Value Delimiter - specify the character the delimits the key from value
Array Delimiter - specify the character to delimit the values within a value array
Row Delimiter - character to delimit a new row
Compression Type - compression type of the output file (i.e. Gzip, Lz4, Bzip2, Snappy)
Output File Name - full name of the file to be sent through output connection
External File Path - folder the file(s) will be written on the output connection
Incremental Load - slider to specify if the files should be written incrementally
Additional Files
The purpose of this section is specify a file and contents (if needed) of the file that should be sent to the output connection after the initial file uploaded. An example of this in action is for Adobe Core Services customer attributes that requires a file with the .fin extension to be uploaded after the attributes file that tells Adobe the upload is complete and contents file can be picked up and processed.
Expected Output
The expected output of the To File process are one or more files configured with the contents and settings specified for this process. These files are then uploaded to the specified connection in the specified location in the parameters screen.