Users can be created, updated with audience attributes, and optionally deactivated by routinely uploading a file containing user data via SFTP. Brand Super Admins may subscribe to email confirmations when a file is processed via SFTP. This confirmation email includes information on updates to user access, and a link to a report on any errors.

To update the mailing list for these notifications, please contact Support.

User Sync Actions

Users may be created, updated, blocked or unblocked via User Sync.

User sync processes user records by comparing a newly uploaded CSV file (referred to as the Latest File) against a previously synced CSV file (the Previous File) and existing user statuses in Studio.

• In Previous File & In Latest File → Update
  The user exists in both files: update their profile data based on any changes.

• In Latest File & Not in Previous File → Create / Update / Unblock

  A new user has been added or re-added: the sync will either create a new profile, update an existing one, or unblock the user if they were blocked.

• In Previous File & Not in Latest File → Block

  A user that was previously active but is now removed from the latest file: their account will be blocked.

• Not in Latest File & Not in Previous File → Do Nothing

  Users that are not managed by the user sync file: accounts will not be updated.

Be aware that manually blocking or activating users in Studio may be result in the following:

• If a manually blocked user is re-listed in the latest file, they will be unblocked.

• If a manually activated user is in the latest file, they are updated.

• If users are not in the latest file, the sync does nothing, preserving their current manual status.

It is best practice to always manage user's active status through user sync.

Errors

Errors preventing the entire file from being processed will be shown in the body of the confirmation email. If any records could not be processed due to an error, details on the error(s) (limited to the top 100) will be included in:

• A hyperlinked report. To access this report, ensure you are first signed in to Creator Studio as a Brand Super Admin.
• An attached spreadsheet.

Universal Identifier or Email may be used as the Unique ID for users. If Universal Identifier (usually an employee ID) is used, then the email address for a user may be updated via the SFTP file. However, if Email is used as the Unique ID, then a user's email address cannot be changed. Updating a user's Unique ID will result in a duplicate user being created, or an error will prevent the record from being processed.

Two different users found.

Cause: The Universal Identifier and Email address in the file belong to two separate accounts.
Solution: Ensure that correct data is being uploaded. If the uploaded data is correct, then forget at least one of the two accounts.

• Forgetting the user that has the Email in the file will result in your next upload updating the Email address of the user with the correct Universal Identifier.
• Forgetting both users will result in your next upload creating a new account for the uploaded user.

Cannot assign additional identifiers to email users.

Cause: The account for this Email Address has a different Universal Identifier to the file. Universal Identifier is the Unique ID and cannot be updated.
Solution: Find the existing user that the email address belongs to. If searching by email returns no users, please refer to: Identifying Non-Searchable Email Users.

If the existing user has a new Universal Identifier, this must first be updated in Studio. Once updated in Studio, the next uploaded file can process without the error if both Universal Identifier and Email are aligned between file data and Firstup profile. Alternatively, forget the user with the old [Universal Identifier]. This will free up their Email Address to be used by a new account, which will be created when the next SFTP upload is processed.

Emails value [email address] has already been taken.

Cause: The Email address is already in use by a different user with a different Universal Identifier.
Solution: Find the existing user that the email address belongs to. If searching by email returns no users, please refer to: Identifying Non-Searchable Email Users.
Either:

1. If the Email belongs to a new employee, forget the user with the old Universal Identifier. This will free up their Email to be used by a new account, which will be created when the next SFTP upload is processed.
2. If the Email belongs to the same employee but their Universal Identifier has changed, update the user's Universal Identifier in Studio. Their account should then sync the next time a file is processed.

Identifying Non-Searchable Email Users

When a user's email address is updated, their old email address is not deleted. Although no longer used as the primary email address for campaign delivery, email address history is stored for each user meaning an email address can still be considered "taken" after it has been updated to a new email address.

Audience builder can be used to do a more advanced email search using the "Email" filter. This will search all emails for a user, not just their primary email.

This audience can then be previewed without saving to identify the user.

One or both of email or identifier must be specified.

Cause: The Universal Identifier and Email in the file are missing.
Solution: Update the record to ensure data is included for both the Universal Identifier and Email.

Emails value is an invalid email address.

Cause: When a user's Email address is not valid (i.e, there is a space in the email or missing the @ symbol or period at end of it etc.) they will receive this error.

Solution: Ensure a valid Email address is used for all records.

Line X has invalid timezone [timezone].

Cause: Timezone has been uploaded in an unrecognised form.

Solution: Time zones should be uploaded in full TZ Database Name format, and not in their abbreviated form. For example, "America/New_York" is a correct time zone, and "ET" is not.
A list of time zones can be found here.

Alternatively, raise with support to have timezone unmapped from the standard timezone attribute. This will lift any validation, but will also result in the member experience profile attribute no longer being updated from the file.

Country must be in ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code format.

Cause: Country has been uploaded in an unrecognised form.

Solution: Countries should be uploaded in a standardised ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code format. For example, "US" is a correct country code, and "United States" is not.

A list of alpha-2 codes can be found here.

Line X has invalid [attribute] date.

Cause: The named attribute is not being uploaded in the correct date format.

Solution: Different date formats are configurable. Reupload the file with dates in the correct formard (e.g. yyyy-mm-dd). Contact Support if you are not sure of the correct date format.

Line X is missing [attribute], which is a required field.

Cause: A required field is blank for a line in the file.

Solution: Ensure required fields are filled in for all lines. The relevant required field will be named in the error message (e.g. employee_id, email, first_name, last_name).

"Line X has incorrect number (Y) of columns. It should be Z columns."

Cause: The uploaded file contains the incorrect number of columns.

Solution: Ensure the correct number of columns is included. Sometime, extra columns may be present but invisible due to extra commas at the end of each row. View the CSV file in a text editor to review this.

"There are employee IDs that are assigned to more than one user each, in the uploaded file.
The duplicate employee IDs include:
[employee ID], used twice Only one employee ID can be assigned to a user. Please remove any duplicate entries."

Cause: The uploaded file contains the same employee ID one more than one row.

Solution: Ensure that all employee IDs are unique. Each ID should belong to only one user and be used only once in the file.

The uploaded file is not properly encoded as [character set]

e.g. The uploaded file is not properly encoded as UTF-8

Cause: At least one character in the file cannot be read in the configured encoding language.
Solution: Ensure all characters are valid in the configured encoding language (most commonly UTF-8). A regex search [^\x00-\xFF] can be used in a text editor to identify non-UTF-8 characters in a CSV file and remove or replace them.

The uploaded file has an unsupported MIME type.

Cause: File is not in the expected format (CSV/PGP/TXT).
Solution: Convert to the correct format based on file setup.

Cause: The file was uploaded with a destination path that caused the system to save it without its filename/extension. Without the extension, the MIME type cannot be inferred and the file is rejected.
Solution: Ensure the upload command includes the full target filename (e.g., /uploads/filename.csv) or upload to the root folder so that the file extension is preserved. (e.g., filename.csv :.).

The uploaded file could block more than X% of the user base, which may not be intended.

The blocked percentage is the percentage of users in the previous file that will be blocked by the latest file based on their Universal Identifier or Email (depending on the configured Unique ID). If a user's existing ID is not in the latest file, and it was in the previous file, then this will contribute to the blocked percentage even if they are still in the file but with a new ID or have been replaced by another user.

By default, a maximum of 10% of the user base (users in the previous file) can be blocked by a user sync file. If a higher volume of users to be deactivated is expected, contact Support to temporarily increase the maximum blocked percentage.

Why is there a Total user number discrepancy in our HR file and Firstup Standard Metrics?

The number of users in the platform, and the number of users in the HR file may not match for several reasons - Users can be created outside of the user file process. For example:

• You have SSO enabled - users not in the Users Data File can be created if they have been granted access to our application on your IdP. Users are then provisioned when they authenticate through SAML unless they have been explicitly blocked in Creator Studio. They do not need to have been included in the user file - the user file is not an allowlist of users that can access the platform.
• You could also have created users through the Add User (or User Import) functionality that would not be in the user file.
• Users could have started registration through the 'Join Now' page and these registering users would be counted on the Users / Groups page but not in the total from the user file.