Exporting profiles

The export feature can be use to export the entire database in one go or to export only parts of the database. For example, you are able to export a single collection. An export creates a file that you can download or you can have it emailed to your address. You can export profiles and subprofiles to a tab delimited file or in other format.

If you want to receive information about clicks, opens, etc. as they happen you can also set up a WebHook.

The delimiter

The delimiter is a special character that is used to separate the fields in the output file. This normally is a tab, but you can also choose for a comma or semicolon. If the database contains columns that use the delimiter in field values (for example a hardcoded tab inside a postal code), you can choose for "Quoted columns". The values in the output file will then be wrapped in quotes to prevent conflicts with the delimiter.

FTP

Exports can be transferred over FTP as well as over SFTP (FTP over SSH). In the target tab you can choose if you want to authenticate using a password or public key.

The URL to the (S)FTP server should look as follows:

In case of FTP:

ftp://ftp.example.com/~/

In case of SFTP:

sftp://ftp.example.com/~/

We reformat the tilde used in the path to /home/username/ if you want a location different from the home folder, you can use absolute paths in the following way:

sftp://ftp.example.com/mnt/storage/

We use the name of the export as the filename and the extension is taken from the information entered in the specifications of the file. Supplying a username is mandatory. In the case of password authentication, the password has to be entered. When authenticating with public key, a private key has to be provided. For security purposes we encode the private key when the export is created and decode it when the export is run.

Exporting

The results of a mailing can be exported too. See this article for more information.

If you want to export profiles or subprofiles based on email results, you can create a selection with condition type Check on email campaign results. Use the export function in the Profiles section to download the profiles from this selection.

Exports in Publisher

To export a database or collection you need to select it under Profiles. Under Current view you can find the option to import or export.

Exports in Marketing Suite

You can export your database from the Marketing Suite in the database management menu located under the Gear in the top-right corner of the Database & Profiles section.

Extra remarks

There are some features of the export functionality that can be confusing, therefore we wil summarize the most important ones in the following:

  • The fields ID, Access code and Profile created are fields created by our system;
  • You can only export fields from one collection at a time to a CSV file. To export multiple collections, choose for export to XML;
  • UTF-8 is normally the best encoding for output files;
  • Date fields can be formatted in a the format that best suits your needs;
  • If you want to keep the export files small, you can compress them. This is especially useful if you want to send export files by mail.
  • For an export via SFTP, an RSA key must be used.

More information

We always recommend checking if your database is up-to-date before exporting data. You can then easily sync it to your own system or use it for your own statistics.