Dropbox Setup Guide

Follow our setup guide to connect Dropbox to Fivetran.

Prerequisites

To connect Dropbox to Fivetran, you need:

• A Dropbox account
• A Dropbox folder containing files with supported file types and encodings
• The URL of your Dropbox folder that you want to sync
• The ability to grant Fivetran permission to read from this account

Setup instructions

Begin Fivetran configuration

1. In the connection setup form, select the sync strategy: Magic Folder or Merge Mode.
2. Enter the Destination schema name of your choice.
3. If you selected Merge Mode as your sync strategy, enter the Destination table name.
4. Click Authorize. You will be redirected to your Dropbox account to authorize Fivetran's access.

Authorize Fivetran

1. Log in to your Dropbox account.
2. Click Authorize Connection to authorize Fivetran's read access to your files. Once you have finished, you will be redirected back to Fivetran.

Add Dropbox configuration

Magic Folder

In the setup form, enter the Folder URL path from your Dropbox account. Make sure your URL looks similar to the one illustrated below and doesn't have any extra characters after the folder name. The URL specifies the folder path in your Dropbox account in which you'd like Fivetran to look for files. We examine any files under the specified folder, except the nested subfolders, for files that we can sync.

Merge Mode

1. In the setup form, choose your configuration options. Using these configuration options, you can select subsets of your folders, specific types of files, and more to sync only the files you need in your destination. In addition, setting up multiple Dropbox connections targeted at the same file system, but with different options, can allow you to slice and dice a file system any way you'd like, to get exactly the data you want into each table.

   You can use the following configuration options:

   • Primary Key used for file process and load - Use this option to let Fivetran know how you'd like to update the files in your destination. When you modify a previously synced file, the option you select determines if we should replace the rows in the destination table or append new rows to the table:

     • If you select Upsert file using file name and line number, we will upsert your data using the surrogate primary keys _file and _line. If a file has a unique name, we will sync the data for that file as new data.
     • If you select Append file using file modified time, we will upsert your files using the surrogate primary keys _file, _line, and _modified. You can track the complete history of a file or a set of files, and your files will have a combination of old and new data or data that is updated periodically.
       If we upload new files or modify the existing files once the sync starts, we exclude these files from the current sync and include them in the subsequent sync.

     • If you select Upsert file using custom primary key, you can keep the most recent version of every record, and your files will have a combination of the old and new data or data that is updated periodically. You can choose the primary keys you want to use after you save and test. For more information, see our documentation.
     To ensure data integrity, we recommend that you don't change the primary keys once the initial sync is complete.

   • (Optional) Folder Path - Use the folder path to specify a portion of the file system in which you'd like Fivetran to look for files. We examine files under the specified folder and all of its nested subfolders for files we can sync. If you don't provide a prefix, we'll look through the entire file system for files to sync.

     For Dropbox Business accounts, if you are using Namespaces and if your folder is located in your home namespace, you must remove the home_path (home namespace path) from the URL. For example, if your URL is https://www.dropbox.com/home/MyNamespace/testFolder, where the home_path is /MyNamespace, enter the Folder URL as https://www.dropbox.com/home/testFolder.

   • (Optional) File Pattern - Use a regular expression as the file pattern to decide whether or not to sync specific files. The pattern applies to everything under the prefix (folder path). If you're unsure what regular expression to use, you can leave this field blank, and we'll sync everything under the prefix.

     For example, if under the prefix you have a folder data, which has sub-folders, subFolder1, subFolder2, etc. These sub-folders have JSON files with the format report_03/12/2050.json. Use the following regex patters to decide whether or not to sync specific files:

     • data/.* matches all files in the data folder, including those in subfolders.
     • data/.*json matches all JSON files in the data folder, including those in subfolders.
     • data/subFolder2/report_.*\.json matches all the JSON files in the subFolder2 folder that has a name that starts with the prefix report_.. For example, report_file.json.
     • report_\d{2}/\d{2}/\d{4}\.json matches all the JSON files that begin with the prefix report_ and are followed by a date format of DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY. For example, report_03/12/2050.json.
     You can learn to write your regex and test it out.

   • File Type - Use the file type to choose the parsing strategy for files without file extensions. If you save your files with improper extensions, you can force them to be synced as the selected file type.

     • If you select infer, we infer the type from a file's extension (.csv, .tsv, .json, .avro, or .log).

       If you have XML files, don't select infer. We sync XML files only when you select the file type as xml. For more information about the file size, see our documentation.

       If you have Excel workbooks, don't select infer. To identify the data range you want to sync in Merge Mode, the connection must sync only the spreadsheet data.

     • If you choose a file type, we interpret every file we examine as the file type you select, so make sure everything we sync has the same file type.

       For example, if you have an automated CSV output system that saves files without a .csv extension, you can specify the type as csv, and we will sync them correctly as CSVs.

     • If you select xml, we load your XML data into the _data column without flattening it.

     • If you select xls/xlsx/xlsm, make sure you have selected the top-left cell of the spreadsheet that you want to sync. We analyze and identify eligible data sets from the specified Excel worksheet. To determine the cell references for the sync, do the following:

       • In the Spreadsheet to find data to be synced field, enter the Dropbox URL.
       • Click Analyze sheet.
       • In the Cell Reference for Syncs drop-down menu, select the cell reference.

   • (Optional) JSON Delivery Mode - Available when JSON or JSONL is selected in File Type. Use this option to choose how Fivetran should handle your JSON data.

     • If you select Packed, we load all your JSON data into the _data column without flattening it.
     • If you select Unpacked, we flatten one level of columns and infer their data types.

   • Compression - Use the compression option to choose the compression strategy to decompress files without compression extensions. If your files are compressed but do not have extensions indicating the compression method, you can decompress them according to the selected compression algorithm.

     • If all of your compressed files are correctly marked with a matching compression extension (.bz2, .gz, .gzip, .tar, or .zip), you can select infer.

     • If you select uncompressed, we do not decompress the files and sync the uncompressed files.

     • If you choose a compression format, we decompress every file using the format you select.

       For example, if you have an automated CSV output system that GZIPs files to save space but saves them without a .gzip extension, you can set this field to GZIP. We will decompress every file that we examine using GZIP.

   • Error Handling - Use the error handling option to choose how to handle errors in your files. If you know that your files contain some errors, you can choose to skip poorly formatted lines.

     • If you select skip, we ignore improperly formatted data within a file, allowing you to sync only valid data.

     • If you select fail, we fail the sync with an error when finding any improperly formatted data.

       We recommend that you select fail unless you are sure that you have undesirable, malformed data.

     You will receive a notification on your Fivetran dashboard if we encounter errors.

2. (Optional) To use the advanced configuration options, set the Enable Advanced Options toggle to ON.

   You can use the following configuration options for specific use cases:

   • Modified File Merge - Use this option to let Fivetran know how to update files in the destination. When you modify a previously synced file, should we replace the rows in the destination table or append the new rows to the table:

     • upsert_file replaces records in the destination, using the filename and line number as the primary key.

     • append_file appends records.

   • (Optional) Archive Folder Pattern - Use a regular expression to filter and sync files from archived folders. We sync the files in compressed archives with filenames matching the specified pattern. If there are multiple files within an archive (TAR or ZIP) folder, you can use the archive folder pattern to filter file types.

     For example, if you specify the archive folder pattern as .*json, we will sync only the files that end in a .json file extension from the archive folder.

     This is only used to filter the files within the archived folder.

   • (Optional) Null Sequence - Specify the value indicating null if your CSVs use a special value indicating null.

     Only use this field if you are sure your CSVs have a null sequence. CSVs have no native notion of a null character. However, some CSV generators have created one, using characters such as \N to represent null.

   • (Optional) Delimiter - Specify the delimiter. The delimiter is a character used in files to separate one field from the next. Fivetran tries to infer the delimiter, but in some cases, this is impossible. If your files sync with the wrong number of columns or use a unique delimiter, consider setting this value. For example, if you have tab-delimited files, you must enter \t, and if you have pipe-delimited files, enter |.

     • If you leave this field blank, we infer the delimiter for each file. You can store files of many different types of delimiters in the same folder with no problems. For more information on the delimiter inference, see our documentation.

     • If you specify a delimiter, we parse all the CSV, TSV, and TXT files in your folder path with this delimiter.

     You can also specify a multi-character delimiter in this field. A custom multi-character delimiter (excluding "\t" and "\s") should be mentioned only if the source contains only csv files, else it might lead to data integrity issues for other files. The length of the custom multi-character delimiter should not exceed 15 characters.

   • (Optional) Escape Character - Set the escape character if your CSV generator follows non-standard rules for escaping quotation marks.

     Only use this field if you are sure your CSVs have a different escape character. CSVs have a special rule for escaping quotation marks compared to other characters; they require two consecutive double quotes to represent an escaped double quote. However, some CSV generators do not follow this rule and use different characters, like backslash, for escaping.

   • (Optional) Skip Header Lines - Use this option to skip over fixed-length headers at the beginning of your CSV files. Set the toggle to ON, and then in the Number of skipped header lines field, specify the number of header lines you want to skip.

     Some CSV-generating programs include additional header lines or empty lines at the top of the file. The header consists of a few lines that do not match the format of the rest of the rows in the file. These header rows can cause undesired behavior because we attempt to parse them as if they were records in your CSV.

   • (Optional) Skip Footer Lines - Use this option to skip over fixed-length footers at the end of your CSV files. Set the toggle to ON, and then in the Number of skipped footer lines field, specify the number of footer lines you want to skip.

     Some CSV-generating programs include a footer at the bottom of the file. The footer consists of a few lines that do not match the format of the rest of the rows in the file. These footer rows can cause undesired behavior because we attempt to parse them as if they were records in your CSV.

   • (Optional) Headerless Files - Set the toggle to ON if your CSV-generating software doesn't provide a header line for the documents. Fivetran can generate the generic column names and sync data rows with them.

     Some CSV-generating programs do not include column name headers for the files; they only contain data rows. When you set the toggle to ON, we generate generic column names following the convention of column_0, column_1, ... column_n to map the rows.

   • (Optional) Line Separator - Specify the custom line separator for your CSV files. The line separator is used in files to separate one row from the next.

     • If you leave this field blank, we use the new line character \n as the line separator by default.

     • If you specify a line separator, we parse all the CSV files in your folder path with this line separator.

Finish Fivetran configuration

Click Save & Test. Fivetran will take it from here and sync your data from your Dropbox account.

Fivetran tests and validates the Dropbox connection. On successful completion of the setup tests, you can sync your Dropbox data to your destination.

Setup tests

Depending on your sync strategy, Fivetran performs the following Dropbox connection tests:

• (Magic Folder Mode) The Validate Folder URL test validates your Dropbox account folder URL and checks the accessibility of the folders under the root folder you specified in the setup form.

• (Magic Folder) The Connect to Dropbox test validates the connection to your Dropbox account and checks the accessibility of the files in the Folder URL path you specified in the setup form.

• (Merge Mode) The Connecting to API test verifies whether Fivetran can successfully access the Dropbox folders.

• (Merge Mode) The Validating File Pattern test validates the file pattern regex you specified in the setup form. We perform this test only if you specify a regex in the File Pattern field.

• (Merge Mode) The Validating Archive Pattern test validates the archive pattern regex you specified in the setup form. We perform this test only if you specify a regex in the Archive Folder Pattern field.

• (Merge Mode) The Validating EscapeChar test validates the escape character you specified for your CSV files and checks the length of the character which must not be more than one. We perform this test only if you specify an escape character in the Escape Character field.

• (Merge Mode) The Multi-Character Delimiter Support test validates the length of the delimiter, which must be within 15 characters. We perform this test only if you specify the delimiter for your CSV files in the Delimiter field.

• (Merge Mode) The Finding Matching Files test checks if the connector can successfully retrieve a minimum of one sample file and a maximum of ten sample files based on the configuration you specified in the setup form in Merge Mode.

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