FileHold has a number of options to integrate data from external sources. For customers with using FileHold cloud there may be challenges to create network connections between your cloud instance and your external data which may be on premise or on another cloud. Disconnected synchronization provides a method where your data can be replicated in your FileHold cloud instance by creating a delimited text file with your data and sending it securely to your cloud instance using methods such as Secure FTP (E or I), SFTP,  AzCopy or Azure File Sync (AFS). External synchronization can be useful in non-cloud situations where the external source database is not directly accessible.

A packaged service is available to configure external data synchronization. The FileHold sales team can provide a quotation to cover your desired data sets.

One or more delimited text files can be sent including the complete source data set. This information will be compared against the current synchronized data set and records will be added, deleted or updated accordingly.

Preparing a synchronization request

Your set up request must include the following details:

• For FileHold Cloud systems and others where needed, the transfer protocol you wish to use. Include any non-standard ports, if any. Note that AzCopy or AFS may have additional storage costs. Systems on locally attached networks typically do not require a transfer protocol to be defined.
• The email address to send synchronization completion information.
• Should the completion information email include successes or only errors?
• Should completion information include all severity messages or just the most serious?
• The details for each data set.
  • The name you would like to use for your data set.
  • A representative sample of your data set.
  • Regular expression pattern to match the source data set filename. If you are unsure how to create a regular expression, you can just provide enough information to describe how the files will be named.
  • Should records be deleted if they no longer exist in the source data set file?
  • Field delimiter such as a comma or tab.
  • Row delimiter such as carriage return and line feed.
  • May fields be enclosed in double quotes?
  • The key field list. These are one or more fields in the data set that are unique for the record.
    • Field name.
    • Field type: text, date, boolean (additional types may be available on demand).
    • Maximum field length for text fields.
  • The non-key field list. Additional data for the record that is not related to the key.
    • Field name.
    • Field type: text, date, boolean (additional types may be available on demand).
    • Maximum field length for text fields.

Using synchronized data

The synchronized data can be used in a document schema lookup or a database managed dropdown menu. When you set up either feature, you will be asked for the technology type, a server name and authentication information. The technology is Microsoft SQL. The server name will be given to you when your configuration is ready to use and you will use integrated authentication. A variety of tables will be available to you, but the synchronized data will be in a database called <prefix>ExternalIntegration. The prefix, if any, will be provided when your configuration is ready.