CustomerGauge makes it easy to load (manually or automatically) data into the system. 


When creating your data files there are a few things to consider and they are summarised below. All of the information is located within the system documentation but this post pulls them together into one list for easy reference.


Note that CustomerGauge performs extensive testing of the data you load and will catch and report most errors.


File Size Maximums:


Please ensure your file size follows the below limits in order to avoid upload failure.


  • API: The Data File Size Limit for API's is 2MB.
  • In-App Upload: File Size cannot be greater than 20MB (The Data File can contain up to 5000 rows)
  • sFTP: File Size cannot be greater than 20MB (The Data File can contain up to 5000 rows)


Accepted File Formats:


Data can be uploaded in CSV, XLS or XML format.


Duplicate Data


You should de-dupe each individual file before loading. Do not worry about de-duping across files as CustomerGauge will handle that.


The file de-duplication should be based on the duplication rules operating in your system.


Segment Information 

1. Email

Ensure you only load valid email address.


The email must not contain any spaces or invalid characters. It must contain an @ sign. There shouldn't be any spaces before, in the middle of, or after the email address.


Note that in most cases, Email is a required field - the exception is when you send surveys with SMS .


Example valid email address:

first.name@example.com


Example invalid email addresses:

 first.name@example.com (space before the email)

first .name@example.com (space in middle of email)

first.nameexample.com (no @)


2. SMS Telephone

If you're sending SMS messages from your CustomerGauge system, you need to provide a valid phone number.


The Phone (also knows as SMS_Telephone) number must be only numbers, no dashes, symbols, characters, etc.

The phone number must be prefaced by the local country sending code (e.g. "1" for the United States, "57" for Colombia, etc.).


Example valid phone numbers:

15553201084

575553201084


Example invalid phone numbers:


+15553201084

+57 123-456-7890

555-320-1084

5553201084 (missing country code prefix)



3. Agent Name/ Agent Email


Your load file needs to have either both (AgentName AND AgentEmail) OR neither. 


The load will fail if you have AgentName and no AgentEmail. 

Also you can’t have the same AgentEmail for every agent. 

AgentEmail needs to be unique for each AgentName.


4. Date Formats

All dates in load files need to be formatted as yyyy-mm-dd. 


This includes Excel files. In Excel you may need to adjust the column formatting to get this layout.


5. Date Order

The Order Date in your file is the date on which the CustomerGauge system will actually send your email invite. 

  • If you load data with a future dated Order Date the system will hold the invite until the Order Date and then send it.
  • If you load data with an historical Order Date, the invite will be sent immediately.


6. No Data in a Segment?

If you have a segment that does not contain any data (for the record or all records) you have two choices:


  1. Fill the XML tag or Excel column with nothing, i.e. blank
    1. Don't use spaces or the word "NULL" as these will be interpreted by the system as segment values and clutter your reporting views. This is a good approach where you only have data for some records. For those records with no data load a blank.
  2. Exclude XML tag or Excel column from the file: 
    1. Just remove the entire tag or column from the data load file. You don't have to have every field in the file.


Note that were a data element is required, e.g. email, you need to provide a valid value.


7. Consistent Segment Values

CustomerGauge creates reporting groups based on the data that you load. 


It does this using the text of the data loaded so you need to take care to be consistent when create labels, particularly from different systems. If you load data for the same segment value with different capitalisation or spacing CustomerGauge will create multiple reporting segments.


For instance, loading these values in the same segment field will create three different segment values for reporting purposes:

  • SegmentOne
  • Segmentone
  • Segment One


So ensure that you are consistent with labelling your segment values.


A note on value format: case sensitivity


The first time you load a value into the system, this version will save, and after that it is not case sensitive - so say for example, you load 'CustomerGauge' in a field, and after that upload 'CUSTOMERGAUGE, customergauge' or 'CustomerGauge' - they are all considered the to be the same value, but will display in the system as 'CustomerGauge' because that was the first version added.


8. Country


The two-digit ISO country standard. E.g. US, CO, DE, etc.


A full list of supported ISO country codes can be found here here: https://support.customergauge.com/support/solutions/articles/5000685089-country-codes

 

sFTP Data Loads


If you are loading data to the sFTP site you need to ensure that every file has a unique file name. CustomerGauge processes each filename only once so if you load multiple data sets with the same filename, CustomerGauge will not process the new data when it is loaded.


See this help file for more information on sFTP date loads: sFTP data load