SQL Contact Import

About the Hornbill SQL Contact Import Utility

The utility provides a simple, safe and secure way to create contacts on the Hornbill platform by synchronizing with data held in your Database. The tool is designed to run behind your corporate firewall, connect to your database, query the required contact information, transform and load into the Hornbill instance. The tool connects to the Hornbill instance in the cloud over HTTPS/SSL so as long as you have standard internet access then you should be able to use tool without the need to make any firewall configuration changes. The tool supports both the initial bulk import as well as incremental adds and updates. You can schedule the tool to run periodically to perform the import/update tasks as required.

Open Source

The SQL Contact Import Utility is provided open source under the Hornbill Community Licence and can be found here on GitHub

Installation Overview

Windows Installation

Download the package from GitHub
Extract zip into a folder you would like the application to run from e.g. C:\Hornbill_Import\
Open conf.json and add in the necessary configration
Open Command Line Prompt as Administrator
Change Directory to the folder with goDb2HcontactImport_x86.exe C:\Hornbill_Import\
Run the command goDb2HcontactImport_x86.exe -dryrun=true

Change "x86" to "amd64" depending on your architecture

Configuration Overview

Prior to configuring the .json file, it is advisable to read the following wiki page regarding Hornbill User Accounts as it will provide some context to the content on this page.

A default configuration file is provided conf.json, if a configuration file is not specified as a command line argument then conf.json must exist.

{

   "APIKey": "", /* this is the API-key which is associated to a user in the Hornbill instance [1] */
   "InstanceId": "", /* your Hornbill instance name : not likely to change */
   "ContactAction": "Create", /* options : Create/Update/Both ; on what action to assign roles to a user */
   "AttachCustomerPortal": true, /* options : true/false ; whether contact is allowed to enter the customer portal */
   "UpdateContactStatus": false,
   "SQLConf": {
       "Driver": "csv",
       "Server": "localhost",
       "Database": "CSV64",
       "UserName": "root",
       "Password": "",
       "Port": 5002,
       "ContactID": "FIELD1",
       "Encrypt": false,
       "Query": "SELECT * FROM adbc.csv"
   },
   "ContactMapping":{
       "logon_id":"{{.FIELD1}}",
       "firstname":"{{.FIELD2}}",
       "lastname":"{{.FIELD3}}",
       "company":"{{.FIELD1}}",
       "email_1":"{{.FIELD2}}",
       "email_2":"",
       "tel_1":"{{.FIELD4}}",
       "tel_2":"",
       "jobtitle":"",
       "description":"",
       "notes":"",
       "country":"",
       "language":"",
       "private":"0",
       "rights":"0",
       "contact_status":"0"
   }

An API key is set up against a user within Hornbill (accessed through: Administration > System > Organisationl Data > Users). For example, if admin user is doing the import, enter the API Key for the admin user.

Command Line Parameters

file - Defaults to conf.json - Name of the Configuration file to load
dryrun - Defaults to false - Set to True and the XMLMC for Create and Update users will not be called and instead the XML will be dumped to the log file, this is to aid in debugging the initial connection information.
zone - Defaults to eur - Allows you to change the ZONE used for creating the XMLMC EndPoint URL https://{ZONE}api.hornbill.com/{INSTANCE}/
workers - Defaults to `3` - Allows you to change the number of worker threads used to process the import, this can improve performance on slow import but using too many workers have a detriment to performance of your Hornbill instance.

Testing Overview

If you run the application with the argument dryrun=true then no users will be created or updated, the XML used to create or update will be saved in the log file so you can ensure the LDAP mappings are correct before running the import.

goSQL2HcontactImport.exe -dryrun=true

To actually do the import, use this:

goSQL2HcontactImport.exe -dryrun=false

Logging Overview

All Logging output is saved in the "log" directory which can be found in the same location as the executable. The file name contains the date and time the import was run SQL_Contact_Import_2015-11-06T14-26-13Z.log

Trouble Shooting

Common Error Messages

Below are some common errors that you may encounter in the log file and what they mean:

[ERROR] Error Decoding Configuration File:..... - this will be typically due to a missing quote (") or comma (,) somewhere in the configuration file. This is where an online JSON viewer/validator can come in handy rather than trawling the conf file looking for that proverbial needle in a haystack.
[ERROR] Get https://api.github.com/repos/hornbill/goAzure2HUserImport/tags: dial tcp xx.xx.xx.xx:xxx: ........ - this most likely indicates that you have a HTTP proxy server on your network between the host running the executable and your Hornbill API endpoint. Ensure the http_proxy environment variable is set (See the section on "HTTP Proxies" for more information) and that the proxy is configured to allow this communication.
[ERROR] Unable to Create User: Invalid value for parameter '[parameter name]': The text size provided (31 characters) is greater than the maximum allowable size of 20 characters for column [column name] - the contents of your directory attribute exceed the maximum number of characters that can be placed in the Hornbill database column.
[ERROR] Unable to Create User: The value in element <userId> did not meet the required input pattern constraints. at location '/methodCall/params/userId' - the user id contains characters that are not allowed. The User Id should be made up of alphanumeric characters. Full stops (.) and underscores (_) are also supported.
[ERROR] Unable to Update User: Invalid value for parameter '[parameter name]': Error setting value for column '[column name]'. bad lexical cast: source type value could not be interpreted as target - this error is indicating that the contents of your directory attribute are in a format that is not compatible with the type of the Hornbill database column. For example, you will get this when trying to place text into a database field that is of type "INT" (accepts integer values only).
[ERROR] Unable to Load LDAP Attribute: '[LDAP attribute name]' For Input Param: '[Hornbill Parameter name]' - When the import utility is unable to load a particular LDAP attribute, this means that the attribute field in your directory does not contain a value. This error will not prevent the user account being created or updated in Hornbill and can be considered more as a warning rather than an outright failure or problem.

Error Codes

100 - Unable to create log File
101 - Unable to create log folder
102 - Unable to Load Configuration File

HTTP Proxies

If you use a proxy for all of your internet traffic, the HTTP_PROXY Environment variable needs to be set. The https_proxy environment variable holds the hostname or IP address of your proxy server. It is a standard environment variable and like any such variable, the specific steps you use to set it depends on your operating system.

For windows machines, it can be set from the command line using the following:
set HTTP_PROXY=HOST:PORT
Where "HOST" is the IP address or host name of your Proxy Server and "PORT" is the specific port number.

Example

The following is an example of a successful import. The CSV file can contain the contacts you wish to import

Ensure the order is as shown in the example otherwise the data may populate incorrect fields

eg:

Populate the API key with the Hornbill user's API Key, enter the instance id and username and password.

This is an example of what the Schema.ini file would look like

eg:

The example JSON file below shows the fields that match the CSV file

eg:

This is an example of the actual run using the command prompt AS ADMIN user

eg:

Scheduling Overview

Windows

You can schedule .exe to run with any optional command line argument from Windows Task Scheduler.

Ensure the user account running the task has rights to ldap_import.exe and the containing folder.
Make sure the Start In parameter contains the folder where the executable resides in, otherwise it will not be able to pick up the correct path. eg: