The Data changes export can be found under the Contacts menu, Data Export, Data changes.
As a quick reminder, here is the onboarding video about Contact Data Import and Export:
Introduction
With this feature, you select a number of database fields and define a time period, and Emarsys will export a list of all contacts whose values for the selected fields have been changed during this time.
This checks for data field updates which were performed in the Emarsys application (via registrations forms, contact profiles and duplication handling). In this way, you can synchronize Emarsys with another database.
In general, data changes that result from a manual or automatic import are not exported, in order to prevent configurations from using both automatic import and automatic export of data changes, resulting in an endless loop in which data is constantly overwritten.
Exporting a list of updated contacts manually
To make a manual export of updated contacts, proceed as follows:
- Export includes - Here you specify if you want to export all contacts in the database, a specific segment or a contact list.
From now on, all segment types are available for export (previously, you could only export segments containing contact, email behavior, geolocation or Smart Insight criteria). Please note that although you can export contact lists including Relational Data or Web behavior segments, you can only populate the exported list with contact fields (e.g. you cannot add fields from your Relational database to the exported file).
- Additional options - Here you can define whether to export only existing contacts (you will exclude new registrations during this time period), to include new registrations, or export only new registrations.
- Time range - Here you select the time period when the data fields were updated.
- This selector is disabled for dates older than 13 months as the reporting data is only available for this time period.
- When setting the time range, please consider that data changes made on the selected end date will not be taken into account. For example, if the selected time range is between 01.07.2019 and 02.07.2019, then the data updates that occurred after 02.07.2019 00:00:00 will not be exported.
If you would like to export data changes that were made on 02.07.2019, then set the end date to 03.07.2019.
- Started recording changes at - This is the earliest date that you can include in the export, and corresponds to when the account was created.
- Changes originate from - Here you specify the source of the update. This can be All origins, Administrator (manual changes to a contact profile), Form or Data merge.
- Data will be sent by - Here you specify by which channel you want to export:
- Email - You must enter a valid email address; you can specify a subject line or use the default text. This email address will receive a download link which is password-protected; for the download you must enter your own Emarsys user credentials, even if it is not your own email address.
- FTP/SFTP - You must enter the corresponding access data (i.e. a host address, user name and password; the directory is optional).
- Local Delivery - The content is exported to the WebDAV folder that was configured during your account setup, and requires no further action by you.
Note: This feature is manually configured during setup and will not be visible by default.
- Display Language - This language is used for the field names (e.g. first name, last name).
- Field Separator - This separates the fields in the .csv file. Since different language versions of programs like Microsoft Excel might use different characters for separating fields in .csv files, with this option you can adapt the .csv export to suit the version you use.
- Add field names to the first row of export file - This option is activated by default; it writes the field names to the top row of the exported file.
- File name prefix - This will be the prefix added to the .csv file. Only English letters, digits, underscore or dash (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _, -) are supported.
- Choose the fields for the export - Here you choose the database fields for the export.
In the left box, you can select more than one field by pressing the CTRL key on your keyboard and selecting fields with the mouse. Move your selection to the right box by clicking . You can remove an entry by selecting it and clicking .
Contacts will only be exported if changes have been made to the fields you select. Changes to fields not selected for the export are ignored, and those contacts will not be included.
When you have applied all desired settings, click Export Now.
During the export, the system assigns an internal ID to each record. In fact, this ID was generated at the time the record was created (via online registration, manual entry or import). It remains invisible until an export is started. The internal ID is unique and will later allow you to re-import the same file to Emarsys.
Scheduling an automated list export
To schedule an automated list export, follow the instructions described in Scheduling an automated export.
Exporting data changes with API
It is possible to export contacts changed within a specified period with an asynchronous operation. For more information on this, see Export Updated Contacts.