There are several solutions on how you can integrate with Symplify. Which solution you should choose, depends on your circumstances and preferences. This document is a guide in the choice of integration method towards Symplify. We present the most common integration solutions and describe the situation in which each solution is best suited.
What kind of data can be stored in Symplify?
Recipient data
Attribute data connected to a recipient that can be extended to any number of attributes.
All attributes on a recipient can be used for segmentation of recipients or to be presented directly in your communication.
Purchase History data
Purchase history data is an add-on to your attribute data and enables you to import multiple events on existing recipients in your database. You can have up to 20 different parameters in your setup (of which ten parameters are predefined).
What can I do with this data?
Transferring data
Manual data update
It is easy to manually import files into a Symplify database using the Symplify import interface. Via the mapping feature, you can create an import scheme that imports your file data to the correct properties in Symplify.
Automated data updates
You'll get the most out of Symplify when you update your database automatically. There are different solutions for automatic imports to target your needs.
REST API
By using our REST API, you can access several features in Symplify, including the ability to update your recipients. The solution is suitable in cases when you want Symplify to be real time updated.
Scheduled import
Scheduled import is our most popular solution is easy and quick to implement and makes few demands on your own IT organization. The solution is based on a data file from your system which, once a day, is reflected into Symplify using file transfer. Data is transferred using FTP, sFTP or Secure copy, and one file contains all data about your recipients that you wish to import into Symplify. The file you export from your system should be a .csv/.txt file where each line of the file contains information about a recipient. At a given time Symplify will look for a new file to import and then update your Symplify database with the data in the file.
- Advantage – an extremely fast and very simple method to get a powerful integration.
- Disadvantage – large amounts of data, that are in no need of updating, might be moved (the larger parts of the data rarely changes within day intervals).
Scheduled import – multi file import
The Multi file import solution is an extension of the regular scheduled import, which makes it possible to send multiple files to Symplify saved into the same database. This solution is suitable if you want to import data into Symplify from different systems. This requires that all systems are using the same ID to identify the recipients.
Update the database and send a message
The Symplify trigger solution is based on a call to Symplify from an external system which generates a message. It is possible to either send a single message or multiple, which is explained below. You prepare the message in Symplify and the trigger call only needs to include the recipient data to send the message.
Our different trigger solutions are:
Transactional – single message
Transactional messaging is based on a web service where an http or https call to Symplify easily triggers a single send out of an email or SMS. It is suitable to use for welcome emails, invoices, reminders, passwords, etc. Transactional messages will receive priority status and will therefore be sent before other messages in queue.
Please note that this is an older method for setting up customer journeys. We recommend using Journeys for this automatic communication instead.
Batch Transactional – multiple messages
With this solution you can make a selection of recipients in a system outside Symplify and send a message to these recipients. The recipients will also be updated with, if any, new data.
This solution is suitable if you want Symplify to be used as a mailing engine of recurring emails from your own system. For example birthday messages or other types of emails which is of a recurring nature.
Symplify Batch Transactional can be executed by two different methods:
- Web service (call to Symplify’s web service updates recipients and sends a specific trigger message)
- File transfer (upload of a file, that is connected to a specific trigger message, updates and sends the message)
Send Campaign
Send Campaign is a file based solution for both updating recipients and sending a specific campaign to these recipients. The uploaded file contains the information Symplify needs to send a campaign. The file name should contain information about which database that should be updated, which delivery that should to be sent and which time.
This solution is suitable if you wish to, outside Symplify, make a selection of recipients of a specific campaign.