Delta Exports

Available Business Entity Types

Delta exports are available only for the following business entity types:

• For the following global stageable types, you can export deltas for a specific container:
  • Catalogs (you can configure Order Management to accept catalog delta exports)
  • Shared Libraries
  • Price Books
  • Global Metadata
• For the following site-specific stageable types, you can export deltas for a specific site:
  • Stores
  • Campaigns and Promotions
  • Coupons
• You can also export deltas for the following transactional types:
  • Customer Lists
  • Custom Objects
  • Inventory Lists

Limitations

Note the following limitations of delta exports:

• The initial run of a delta export job only includes changes that occurred since the change log was activated. It is not a full data export.
• Delta export data is always in the standard Salesforce B2C Commerce export format. Exported data files are named xxxxxx.zip, where xxxxxx is a 6-digit number that starts at 000001 and increments for each successful run of the export job. A corresponding metadata file called xxxxxx.meta is also produced. The metadata file is not needed.
• Delta exports can only be configured for entity types and containers (for example, products that belong to a particular catalog). You cannot configure them for a subset of a type (for example, products with certain characteristics).
• Changes that occur in production via replication are not tracked unless the Change Log Replication feature switch is also activated. All three feature switches must be activated in both staging and production for this to work.
• When delta exports are configured for a specific container, deleting that container is not considered in the delta. For example, if you are exporting deltas for the contents of a certain price book, and you delete that price book, then the next delta export file doesn’t include any data about that price book or its contents. Delta export data does include other entity deletions.
• Delta export data depends on the change log. Because the default retention time for the change log is 7 days, you must configure delta exports to occur at least once every 7 days. If more than 7 days elapse between delta exports, then any changes older than 7 days are missed.
• The system does not track consumption of the exported data. If you want to know whether the data has been read, you must implement your own checks on the consumer side.

Configuration

Configure delta exports in Business Manager by selecting Administration > Site Development > Delta Exports. The page shows a list of all existing configured delta exports.

To configure a new delta export job:

1. To open a new job Details form, click New. The form includes General, Schedule, History, and Status tabs.
2. Enter a name for the job in the Name text field and click Create. The name is used to form the WebDAV paths for the export files, so you cannot use any special characters.
3. Enter one or more consumer names in the Consumers text field, separated with commas. One export data file is created for each consumer. These names are used to form the WebDAV paths for the export files, so you cannot use any special characters. This field is limited to 22 characters, including commas.
4. By default, when a variation product is changed or deleted, only that variation product is included in the delta export data. If you want the base product and all other variation products of it to be included as well, check the Export Full Base Products box. This setting only affects product entities.
5. Select one or more entity types to include in the delta export and click Apply. A tab is added to the form for each consumer.
6. Select the Schedule tab.
7. Set a start date and time using the From and at controls.
8. Set a recurrence frequency using the Every controls. The delta export job must run at least once every 7 days, or it misses older changes. If the job is triggered and would contain no data (because the associated entities have not changed since the previous run), then that run is skipped.
9. Check the Enabled box.
10. Click Apply to set the job schedule. You can click Run Now to immediately queue the job to run once.

Delta Export Job Details

The Delta Exports page at Administration > Site Development > Delta Exports shows a list of all existing delta export jobs, with the following information:

• Profile: The number of entities selected for inclusion in the export data.
• Consumers: A list of all consumers receiving the export data.
• Enabled/Next Run: If the job is enabled, the date and time of the next scheduled run. If it is not enabled, "No."
• Last Run: The date and time of the most recent run.

Clicking the name of a job opens the Details form for that job. You can edit any fields other than the name of the job. The form includes the following tabs:

• General: The consumers and entities assigned to the job.
• Schedule: The job schedule and status, as well the Enabled checkbox.
• History: A list of the 20 most recent runs of the job. Any runs that were skipped (because there were no changes since the previous run) are not included. To open the standard Job History page, click Full History.
• Consumer: A link to the WebDAV folder where data files for the consumer are placed. A separate tab appears for each consumer of the job.
• Status: Recent log messages for the job.