IC Import - Vendor Survey Data Integration

This document details the process for vendors working on projects with BDSMktg to provide the survey question answer data to BDS.

Vendor Call Form/Survey Setup

The vendor company will receive a spreadsheet for each project containing the survey questions answers and IDs for each of these. The vendor submits the data (questions, answers, store images, stores) for the project using the BDS-supplied IDs.

See example setup file spreadsheet to download at the end of the article

The spreadsheet contains the following tabs of call form configuration information:

Call Form Info - the Call Form (Survey) ID for the project
- Call Form ID is the project ID
Stores - list of stores to visit with store information and IDs
- BDS Store ID is the unique store ID
Questions - Question text and IDs
Question Choices - Question Choice text and IDs
Items - SKU names and IDs
- Often questions are organized in a grid and are asked for each of the client SKUs

The IDs contained in the setup file are, in return, provided back in the project data files submitted to BDS using the BDS SFTP site.

Submitting Project Data

The project data is submitted using the format and process detailed in the following sections.

Vendor Setup

An SFTP location is created for the vendor to upload the Project Data Files.

The vendor needs to email the following information to begin the setup process:

Vendor contact email address
Vendor IP address to whitelist for access to SFTP

Please email the information to icfeedback@bdsmktg.com and the BDS account manager.

BDS will provide back to the contact email address:

SFTP URL
Security credentials
VendorID
VendorName

Project File Configuration

The External Vendor Example files.zip file (attached) contains a sample upload folder and sample XML files.

The zip file contains two folders:

Sample Upload Folder
This is an example of the folder a partner uploads with the survey question answer data from store visits. It contains:

Call Data.xml – XML file of all call form questions and their answers with BDS associated IDs
done.txt - lets BDS process know vendor is done transmitting the data and the folder can now be processed.
Images - image files uploaded/associated with call form image question answers

XML Sample

Call Data.xml – example of the XML call form data file, also in the sample upload folder
Call Data.xsd – XML schema file to validate that the XML file is formatted correctly to BDS
standard. This file is not submitted to BDS.

Project File Setup/Processing Business Rules

Setup

A folder needs to be created using a unique folder name for each individual upload.
The name of the folder isn't critical, however, something meaningful like the date and time of upload and BDS CallFormID is helpful, ex. "202002201542 123" (YYYYMMDDHHMM CallFormID).
The folder, once created, will contain the XML file, any associated image files and a final, empty "done.txt" file indicating the upload to our FTP server is complete.
VendorID and VendorName values provided by BDS Information Technology.
ImageFileName naming convention is [VendorVisitID] + "-" + [BDSQuestionID] + "-" + [BDSItemID] + ".jpg"

Processing/Validation Rules

Processing

In production the files are processed when a folder is uploaded with the done.txt file present.
Upload folders are removed from the SFTP location when processed and success or issue feedback provided to the contact email address.

Validation

If any of the following rules fail the entire submitted folder is rejected.

VendorID required and needs to be valid
VendorName required
BDS Call Form ID required and needs to match provided Call Form ID
Vendor Call Form ID required and needs to be an integer
Vendor Visit ID required and needs to be an integer
Vendor Call Form Name required
BDS Store ID's required and needs to match supplied stores
BDS Question ID required and needs to match supplied questions
BDS Item ID required needs to be either 0 or from the supplied items list
Image File Name needs to be either empty or have a corresponding image file name in the folder

Project Staging and Production

The staging SFTP location is created during onboarding and should be used to upload test files. This same location becomes the production environment after the vendor and BDS are confident the files are processing accurately.

Test uploads can be created using the Third Party Call Form Setup file from the Account Team. After a test file is uploaded the icfeedback@bdsmktg.com email address should be emailed to alert the BDS project team to validate the upload folder.