Connecting a server
One connection is one SFTP server: host, port, username and how it authenticates. The host key field gets easier by being left blank first — the initial connection reports the fingerprint the server presents, and you compare that against what the other side says separately before trusting it. Nothing is trusted on first use just because a value appeared.What comes in
A feed watches a folder on that server for files matching a pattern, and imports each one through a saved import mapping you choose. Two things you set per feed:
A file that lands but can’t be processed says why rather than vanishing: too large to take in one
piece, still being written when it was read (left for the next pass), unreadable, or matched to a
feed whose saved mapping no longer exists.
What goes out
An extract is an interface, not a report: a file another system reads on a schedule, not something a person opens to look at. That difference shapes it —- It’s named and versioned. Within one version, columns may be added but never reordered or removed, so the other system’s own column positions never move under it.
- Every file ships with a manifest carrying the row count and a checksum, so the system reading it can tell a truncated transfer from a complete one instead of silently loading half a night’s rows.
- An extract can be incremental — it remembers a watermark (typically the last row’s timestamp) and each run sends only what changed since, rather than the whole table every time.
Runs
Every connection keeps a history of what it attempted: when, what it found, what landed, what it skipped, and the checksum that went into each extract’s manifest — the record for “did this file actually arrive” three weeks after the fact.Import
The mapping a feed imports through, and the same screen for a one-off file uploaded by hand.