Data Import/Export Overview

You can use ETL, to implement data flow between a foreign database and Voyager. In this document, foreign database refers to earlier versions of Yardi Voyager and to databases created by other property management systems.

You can use ETL to export objects from a foreign database to Voyager if you have access to a comma-separated-value (CSV) or Extensible Markup Language (XML) file that was created using the foreign database.

After you export objects from a foreign database, you can use ETL to import these objects into Voyager. You can also use ETL to export Voyager data to a formatted file for use in a foreign database.

Yardi offers a conversion service to implement data flow between a foreign database and Voyager. For more information, contact Yardi technical support.

ETL Overview

When importing data, you can use ETL templates to associate foreign data-item codes with corresponding Voyager codes (objects). You first add a group of ETL objects that specify what to export or import. You then configure a foreign database profile, containing specific options about the data to export or import, as well as other ETL-process parameters, including the locations for import and export data files.

Import mode consists of a sequential extraction, transformation, and load process.

Extraction ETL extracts data from a file containing data in either CSV or XML format.

Transformation ETL transforms the data into logical values that are recognized by the Voyager database-table structure.

Load ETL loads the transformed data into a Voyager database.

Export mode consists of an extraction process.

Extraction ETL exports data from Voyager and saves it as a file in either CSV or XML format. You can also configure the export file to reflect the data-structure and data-object requirements used by your organization.

To set up ETL, you must specify where you want the exported data to be saved, the location of the data to be imported, and how you want ETL to transform that data. You specify extraction and load parameters by defining database locations, object lists, and import and export paths. You define the data transformation process by mapping tables and columns between foreign databases and Voyager databases.

ETL setup involves three primary procedures:

l	Adding groups of objects for ETL to export or import.

l	Configuring the ETL foreign-database options.

l	Mapping the import data to the corresponding Voyager data codes or values.

The mapping process ends with one of the following procedures:

l

Add both foreign-database and Voyager data-item codes and accounts to a CSV mapping file. You then import this information to mapping tables, which automatically display the relationships between the data elements. After mapping, use the mapping-validation procedure to verify that each foreign code or account has a matching Voyager code or account. You can also generate analytical mapping reports to review the details of the operation.

l	Manually map all your foreign-database codes to Voyager codes. If your import file contains only the non-Voyager data-item codes and accounts (or for a file in a non-specified format), you can add each of the corresponding Voyager codes/accounts to the mapping tables.

For more information about exporting and formatting .xml files from foreign databases, contact your database administrator or Yardi technical support.

After you set up ETL, Yardi Task Runner can automatically schedule ETL import and export operations. You can also use ETL to manually import and export property-management data. For more information about automatic and manual operation, see “ETL Import and Export Procedures Overview”.

ETL includes an advanced logging utility that lets you trace individual errors in your import-data files and the ETL import process. You can send email notifications regarding ETL activities to specified recipients, and generate reports and Task Runner activity logs to review and verify ETL processes and status. For more information about ETL logging and reports, see “ETL Reports”.

You can use the ETL Parser to break a large block of data into smaller files, in advance of the actual ETL loading sequence. The parsing specifications are authored in an Excel workbook, which the system reads and uses to create multiple ETL-ready .csv files. For more information about this advanced procedure, which can optionally merge default values to the created .csv files, see Appendix C, “ETL Parser.”