Data feeds

A data feed is an automated daily transfer of bulk data from your community that you can download from the CSRconnect Admin Portal or set up to deliver to an SFTP.

For example, consider using data feeds when you want to:

  • program certain data to pull from the SFTP folder to manipulate it in an internal system.

  • regularly access bulk transactional data without building an export in CSRconnect.

Each night, the system generates a file for each of your enabled data feeds. The process starts in the evening and files are delivered overnight.

For a list of all available data feed options, see Current Data Feed Offerings.

You can manage your data feeds from CSRconnect Admin Portal, Admin tools, Reporting, Data Feeds. You must have the Can Access Data Feeds and Can Download Data Feeds permission. See Manage Roles.

Activate data feeds

To activate data feeds, contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) or Implementation Manager. They will create a task for the team to activate the data feeds in the CSRconnect Admin Portal. Additional activation through SFTP can take up to four weeks. There is no additional cost for the setup or support of the feeds.

While data feeds are usually low maintenance, there can be some additional work required based on your reporting needs. For example, the Volunteer data feed is denormalized and includes all information about the employee, event, hours, etc. However, if you need a combined view of volunteer hours and donations for an employee, you will need to load that data feed information into a reporting system of your choice to merge the content and then report from it.

Set load type

The Load Type Settings configure the data included in SFTP deliveries and data feed downloads from the CSRconnect Admin Portal.

  1. From CSRconnect Admin Portal, Admin tools, Reporting, Data Feeds, select Select load type.

  2. Select a load type option:

    • Starting year: Includes data from the start of the selected year through yesterday. This option with the current year selected is the default setting.

    • Incremental: On the day after selecting this load type, includes an initial pull of all data. On all subsequent days, includes only new or modified data.

    • Full: Includes all data.

  3. Select Save.

Changes to Load Type Settings will take effect the following day.

Note: Admin Roles, Board Membership, Employees, Groups, and SDG data feeds will always use the full load type.

To ensure all data is sent since the last successful feed, we normally send a full file from the beginning of the year. There are no "retry" capabilities, but if there is a transmission failure on a particular day, the file for the following day will contain all of the data.

Set up SFTP delivery

The system can deliver your data feeds to an SFTP. Data feeds must be sent to the same SFTP used for HR and payroll files. From the chosen SFTP and any specific folder drops set up, your team downloads the data or writes scripts to pull data from the folder(s).

When using the SFTP delivery functionality, PGP encryption is required due to the sensitive nature of this data. A private PGP key will need to be added in the settings when setting up the SFTP delivery options. Clients can provide their own private PGP key or YourCause can use its private key and provide the public PGP key to use for decryption.

Note: When receiving encrypted data feed files, they are in a zipped .gz format. Teams must decrypt the files first and then unzip the files.

Your Implementation Manager (for launching clients) or Customer Success Manager (CSM - for clients who have launched) will work with you to set up your SFTP credentials; there is typically an exchange of credentials needed.

  • There is currently no process for removing your files, so it is important for you to maintain and remove files once they have been downloaded.

  • It is also critical to protect your SFTP access credentials and to only share with proper internal team members.

You can manage your SFTP settings from CSRconnect Admin Portal, Admin tools, Reporting, Data Feeds, Edit SFTP Configurations. See SFTP settings for more information.

Download your data feeds

If you’re not using SFTP delivery, you can access and download each file from CSRconnect Admin Portal, Admin tools, Reporting, Data Feeds.

View the Data Dictionary

The Data Dictionary is a csv download that includes the latest details on all columns included in the data feeds.

To download, go to CSRconnect Admin Portal, Admin tools, Reporting, Data Feeds, then select Download Data Dictionary.