How do SFTP connections work?
Updated 4 days ago
With an SFTP connection, your customer exports a file from their HR or benefits system and uploads it to our SFTP server. We read each file, map it to our unified models, and you read the data through the same Bindbee API as any other connector.
When to use SFTP
The provider has no API, or its API leaves out the data you need.
API access is costly or not enabled for the customer.
How it works
Your customer creates a report in their system that follows our file template for that integration. The steps are in How do I connect by uploading files over SFTP? in Setup Guides.
They upload the file to our SFTP server, either manually or on an automated schedule. Once the schedule is in place, deliveries run without anyone touching them.
We ingest each file and normalize it into the unified models. Columns with no unified field can be returned as custom fields.
What to know
SFTP connections are one-way and read-only. We ingest the files, and we don't write data back to the provider.
Data is as fresh as the last file we received. Forcing a resync re-reads that last file.
Coverage is limited to what the export includes, so two customers on the same integration can return different models.
If your customer's export stops arriving, the connector keeps returning data from the last file and shows no error. Check modified_at in API responses to see when the data last changed.