User Import with sFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol)

Summary
sFTP is a secure way to manage large or regular imports of user data in to Learn Amp.

Main Features

Establish a secure connection to migrate data to Learn Amp
Upload a CSV of user data to your sFTP server to sync users to Learn Amp

Information that can be synced

Learn Amp can import user data from a CSV file (sync_users.csv) uploaded to our sFTP server. The first row of the CSV is the header row, and may contain the following lowercase headers. The header row can be customised with a field mapping configured within your Company Settings. Optional fields are indicated below.

User field	Details

User field	Details
first_name	The user's first or given name.
last_name	The user's surname.
email	The user's email address
job_title	The user's job title e.g. 'Managing Director' or 'Junior Developer'
manager	Optional: Set the user's 'override manager' (direct manager, not the primary team manager). This column should contain the user identifier for the manager. This is usually email address, but may be a custom field.
coach	Optional: Set the user's coach. This column should contain the user identifier for the coach. This is usually email address, but may be a custom field.
primary_team	Optional: Name of the primary team they belong to e.g 'Tech' or 'Sales' etc. If the team does not exist, a new team will be created.
secondary_team	Optional: For other teams, please use a comma seperated list within the team field, e.g. 'Customer Support,Sales,Marketing'. If your teams contain commas (,), please use the backslash (\) as an escape character. E.g. 'Tech\, London, Tech\, San Francisco' If primary team is empty, the first team in the list will be designated as the user's primary team.
role	Optional: User's system role on the Learn Amp platform. learner curator reporter learning_desginer hr admin
language	Optional: The language code of the user's Primary language. Eg. 'ja' for Japanese, or 'de' for German. Default is 'en' (English). en = English (UK) en-US = English (USA) English (USA) de = Deutsch German es-CO = Español (Latino) Spanish (Latino) fr = Français French it = Italiano Italian nl = Nederlands Dutch pt-BR = Português (Brasileiro) Portuguese pl = Polski Polish ru = Русский Russian no = Norsk Norwegian sv = Svenska Swedish da = Dansk Danish zh-CN = 简体中文 Simplified Chinese zh-TW = 繁體中文 Traditional Chinese ja = 日本語 Japanese ar = العربية Arabic
location	Optional: The user's location, eg. 'London'. If the location does not exist, a new location will be created.
time_zone	Optional: User's Time Zone. Abu Dhabi Adelaide Alaska Almaty American Samoa Amsterdam Arizona Astana Athens Atlantic Time (Canada) Auckland Azores Baghdad Baku Bangkok Beijing Belgrade Berlin Bern Bogota Brasilia Bratislava Brisbane Brussels Bucharest Budapest Buenos Aires Cairo Canberra Cape Verde Is. Caracas Casablanca Central America Central Time (US & Canada) Chatham Is. Chennai Chihuahua Chongqing Copenhagen Darwin Dhaka Dublin Eastern Time (US & Canada) Edinburgh Ekaterinburg Fiji Georgetown Greenland Guadalajara Guam Hanoi Harare Hawaii Helsinki Hobart Hong Kong Indiana (East) International Date Line West Irkutsk Islamabad Istanbul Jakarta Jerusalem Kabul Kaliningrad Kamchatka Karachi Kathmandu Kolkata Krasnoyarsk Kuala Lumpur Kuwait Kyiv La Paz Lima Lisbon Ljubljana London Madrid Magadan Marshall Is. Mazatlan Melbourne Mexico City Mid-Atlantic Midway Island Minsk Monrovia Monterrey Montevideo Moscow Mountain Time (US & Canada) Mumbai Muscat Nairobi New Caledonia New Delhi Newfoundland Novosibirsk Nuku'alofa Osaka Pacific Time (US & Canada) Paris Perth Port Moresby Prague Pretoria Puerto Rico Quito Rangoon Riga Riyadh Rome Samara Samoa Santiago Sapporo Sarajevo Saskatchewan Seoul Singapore Skopje Sofia Solomon Is. Srednekolymsk Sri Jayawardenepura St. Petersburg Stockholm Sydney Taipei Tallinn Tashkent Tbilisi Tehran Tijuana Tokelau Is. Tokyo UTC Ulaanbaatar Urumqi Vienna Vilnius Vladivostok Volgograd Warsaw Wellington West Central Africa Yakutsk Yerevan Zagreb Zurich
hire_date	Optional: The user's new hire / start date. Must be valid date format. We recommend YYYY-MM-DD
deactivate	Optional: If this column has a value of 1, true or yes, the user will be deactivated. Leave blank to not deactivate the user. To reactivate users, simply include them in the CSV data, and leave this column blank.

Syncing Additional Information

You may like to sync additional user data with Learn Amp using custom fields.

Please Note: Requests for custom fields will be handled by your Implementation Coach. The time taken to complete this work will be be deducted from your Implementation budget.

Known Limitations/ Considerations

Creating the sync_userscsv: How this CSV file is generated will depend entirely on your internal systems and processes. Usually, a user export can be easily generated from an existing IT or HR system which can then be manipulated and then manually moved on to the sFTP server.

Automating the sFTP process
It is possible to completely automate the sFTP process for user imports. This would first involve scheduling an export from an IT or HR system at a frequency of your choosing. A program/script would then need to be created to manipulate the spreadsheet to display Learn Amp’s column header structure, and then forward the file to the server. Whilst Learn Amp may be able to advise on this process, it must be undertaken by your company’s technical department.

sFTP server access: You will need to consider who will need access to your sFTP server to upload user data files if you are unable to schedule this from your IT or HR system.

Replace/overwrite existing data: The user import when performed via sFTP will always replace/overwrite existing data and add new data. It cannot be configured to only add new data like a manual user import (bulk invite).

Skills: The user import when performed via sFTP cannot assign skills to users. Skills can only be imported against users with the manual user import (bulk invite).

How the Platforms Connect

Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) is a secure file protocol for transferring large files over the web.

An SFTP server requires both communicating parties to authenticate themselves by providing and validating an SSH key. One-half of the SSH key is stored on the computer of the two clients, while the other half is loaded on the server and associated with their account public. Only when the SSH key pair matches then authentication can occur.

Required Stakeholders

IT Manager / Team; for setting up your sFTP server.

Owners or Admins; individuals who are recognized owners of any user data or content you will import using sFTP.

HR Managers / Team; for input around people processes in relation to new starters, changers or leavers.

Set up Instructions

Instructions on how to enable sFTP can be found in Company Settings on your Learn Amp account.

You will need to be the account owner to configure sFTP.

Other Frequently Asked Questions

How this CSV file is generated will depend entirely on your internal systems and processes. Sometimes a scheduled job can be created by someone in your organisation, that generates the file from your IT or HR system and uploads this to your sFTP server. Sometimes the file will need to be manually created and uploaded to your sFTP server. The CSV template is available to download from the Users Import page in Learn Amp.

Both options work when importing new users or updating existing ones in Learn Amp using sFTP. In most cases, it’s more efficient to push all users from your IT or HR system each time an export is created to capture all updates to existing users.

Related articles

What is sFTP and how to use it

How to enable sFTP