Insight data powers your ecommerce features, such as RFM personas, the retail dashboard and reporting, product recommendations, and more.

We designed the import Insight data tool to help you get started using your account as quickly as possible.

Before you start

You must have the Insight data importer enabled on your account.
To do this, contact your Customer Success representative.
Your contacts must already exist. Importing Insight data doesn't create new contact records.
You need to download an SFTP client to connect to our SFTP server.
Some popular SFTP clients:
- Cyberduck
- Filezilla
- WinSCP
  Make sure that the temporary filename transfer option is disabled if you use the WinSCP client.

1. Prepare your data file

Your Insight data file must be in JSON format, and follow our v2 data schema.

The scheduled importer doesn’t currently support the v3 data schema.

Data schema examples

Order Insight data example

[
  {
    "key": "Order-123",
    "contactIdentifier": "Customer1@emailsim.io",
    "json": {
      "id": "Order-123",
      "currency": "GBP",
      "order_status": "completed",
      "purchase_date": "2020-11-03T13:03:32+00:00",
      "order_total": 99,
      "order_subtotal": 99,
      "products": [
        {
          "name": "Big BBQ",
          "price": 99,
          "sku": "68694",
          "qty": 1
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  {
    "key": "Order-124",
    "contactIdentifier": "Customer2@emailsim.io",
    "json": {
      "id": "Order-124",
      "currency": "USD",
      "order_status": "completed",
      "purchase_date": "2020-11-03T13:03:32+00:00",
      "order_total": 129,
      "order_subtotal": 129,
      "products": [
        {
          "name": "Baseball bat",
          "price": 99,
          "sku": "BB-123",
          "qty": 1
        },
        {
          "name": "Baseball glove",
          "price": 30,
          "sku": "BB-912",
          "qty": 1
        }
      ]
    }
  }
]

Product Insight data example

[
  {
    "key": "1",
    "contactIdentifier": "account",
    "json": {
      "id": "1",
      "created_date": "2024-01-28T00:00:00",
      "parent_id": "ABC1",
      "sku": "ABC123",
      "name": "Product name 1",
      "url": "https://example.com",
      "image_path": "https://example.com/mypic.png",
      "description_short": "Desciption of the product",
      "currency": "GBP",
      "price": 34,
      "stock": 4,
      "status": "Available"
    }
  },
  {
    "key": "2",
    "contactIdentifier": "account",
    "json": {
      "Id": "2",
      "created_date": "2024-04-02T00:00:00",
      "parent_id": "ABC1",
      "sku": "ABC1234",
      "name": "Product name 2",
      "url": "https://example.com",
      "image_path": "https://example.com/mypic.png",
      "description_short": "Desciption of the product",
      "currency": "GBP",
      "price": 23,
      "stock": 23,
      "status": "Available"
    }
  }
]

2. Create an SFTP user

You need to create an SFTP user to authenticate your connection to our SFTP server.

Expand the User menu and go to Settings > Access > SFTP users.
Select NEW USER. We automatically generate a unique user email address for you.
Enter a description to tell the difference between multiple users.
Enter and confirm a password.
Note the unique user email address and password. You need to use them in Step 4.
For Status, select Enabled to activate the user.
Select SAVE.

3. Schedule an import task

Create a new Insight data import:

In Dotdigital, go to Connect > Scheduled data importer.
Select NEW UPLOAD.
Select Insight data, then select NEXT.

4. Upload the file to the SFTP server

At this point, Dotdigital creates a folder for your import and displays the folder path.

On the upload screen, locate the Folder path field.
Copy the full folder path.
The final part of the path, for example, 13785, is your unique folder.
You must upload your file into this folder.
Open your SFTP client and connect using:
1. The username and password you created in Step 2.
2. Port 22
Open the correct folder using the copied path:
- Paste the path into your SFTP client remote directory field.
- If you can’t paste the path, navigate through the folders manually.
Upload your Insight data file into this folder.
Go back to Dotdigital, and under the label SFTP file, select the Refresh icon.
You see your file in the SFTP files list.
Expand the SFTP file drop-down menu, and select the file you want to upload.
For Encoding type, expand the encoding type drop-down menu and select the type of encoding you want to use.
For Email address, enter an email address to receive a notification when your import finishes.
Separate multiple email addresses with a comma.
For Name, enter a name to identify your import.
Select NEXT.

5. Schedule the import

On the schedule page, choose how often the import runs. The import includes all files that are in the SFTP folder path.

On the Schedule import page, for Frequency, select when you want the import to run.
There are four frequency options:
- Immediately
  The import starts running within 1 min of inserting a file into the SFTP folder path.
- Hourly
  Set the exact minutes past the hour when you want the import to run.
- Daily
  Set the time of day the import runs.
- Weekly
  Select a day or multiple days of the week, and set the time of day that the import runs.
Select SAVE.