About the User Bulk Uploader 

Do you ever find it challenging and time-consuming to manage hundreds or thousands of users and their associated data? With the User Bulk Uploader, a java based application for Verint it reads a CSV data file and uses it to create and/or update user data in Verint. In addition to uploading/updating user profile data the tool allows you to add users to security groups and each user’s manager. 

System Requirements:

• Java 8 or 11 SE (Standard Edition) Runtime Environment

Key Features: 

1. Offers easy user management at a larger scale

2. Allows you to bulk manage user profile data

3. A java based application 

4. Ability to bulk upload community members

Run the User Bulk Uploader

1. Open Command Line (application) on your PC/ MAC

1.1 The simplest way to run the tool is to execute this command at the command line.

java -jar telligent-userimporter-1.0.x.jar

1.2 The tool will look in the current directory for a file named application.properties, which is the file that contains the configuration for the tool.

1.3 ​​Optionally you can pass one or more of the properties on the command line.  In this example, we are passing the Telligent password on the command line.  The tool will read the properties from the application.properties file first, and then apply any properties passed at the command line as an override.

      java -jar telligent-userimporter-1.0.x.jar --telligent.key="MyKey"

Configure the User Bulk Uploader

The following is a list of properties that can be passed to the tool by placing them in the application.properties file, or by passing them as arguments on the command line.

Example application.properties File

telligent.url=http://127.0.0.1

telligent.key=3yxa2gl4pi

telligent.user=admin

infile=./files/userdata.csv

Formatting the CSV File

The user importer takes as input a CSV file that contains your user data along with column headings that provide the tool with information that it needs to create or update the user profiles.  The following is a checklist of items needed when generating your CSV file, below which is a section that explains each of these items.

• Create a valid CSV file with your user data in it.

• When updating existing users ensure that at least one locator type column is present.

• When creating users ensure that all of Telligent’s required user fields are present.

• Add columns for out-of-the-box fields to the CSV.

• Add custom profile field columns to the CSV.

• Specify roles that the users should be added to.

• Specify the manager for each user.

Creating a Valid CSV

A valid CSV (Comma Separated Values) file contains rows of data, with each value in a row delimited by a comma.  And for each value that contains a comma within the value, or a new line, it is required that the value be surrounded by double-quotes.  And for double-quoted values that contain double-quotes, you must double the double-quotes.  And for occasions where double-quotes aren’t required, you can still use them any way you want.  Below are some examples.

Row 1,Value One,Value Two,Value Three

Row 2,"Value One","Value Two","Value Three"

Row 3,Value One,Value Two,"Value Three has a comma, in it"

Row 4,Value One,Value Two,"Value Three has a quote"" in it"

Row 5,Value One,Value Two,"Value Three has a newline

 in it”

Character encoding is important, and when possible use UTF-8 or plain old ASCII.  This is especially true when using non-English alphabet characters.  If you are seeing strange characters in Telligent after importing data, the character encoding of your data file is likely the cause.

For Microsoft Excel users, be on the lookout for Microsoft-specific characters because they often won’t translate well.  This includes smart quotes, apostrophes, ellipses, and em-dashes.  This can occur when you copy-paste data from MS Word or MS Excel.  If after importing user data into Telligent you see unknown characters in place of quotes (single and double), ellipses, or dashes, then you will want to review your source data for Microsoft-specific characters.

The key to the user importer being able to read your data is the column headings you provide in the CSV file.

Provide Locator Column(s) When Updating Users

Telligent provides three ways to lookup an existing user; by their ID, by their username, and by their email address.  When you provide one or more locator columns in the CSV file the tool will try each of these to attempt to load an existing user.  If it finds a matching user, the record will be updated, and no match is found then a new user will be created.

The three Locator columns headings are id, username, and privateEmail.  Add one or more of these columns to your CSV like in the example below.

Provide Required Columns When Creating Users

When we say “required” fields we are talking about the minimum set of fields that Telligent needs to create a new user record.  The required fields are username, password and privateEmail.  The example CSV below includes the minimum fields required to create new user records.

Provide Required Columns When Creating Users

The following Out of the Box profile fields are supported by the user importer.

Adding Columns for Other Custom Profile Fields

Use this format when adding columns for custom profile fields. 

Comma-separated List and Multiple Select - have to be defined in one cell with comma-separated values. 

Note: you can’t use commas in the field values!

profile.{fieldkey}:{type}

         Replace {fieldkey} with the name of the profile field in Telligent.

         Replace type with next possible values: bool, number or decimal.

Most profile fields by default have string values, but checkboxes have booleans, numbers are numbers and decimals are decimals.

Adding User to Roles

The following column can be used to add users to one or more permission groups.

roles

           A comma separated list of role names to add the user to.

Note: commas in role names are not supported!

Column Options

Column options allow you to set options on how the user importer works for each column.  Options are added to the column heading by separating options with colons (:).

For example, if you wanted to apply ‘option1’ and ‘option2’ to the username column, you would use the heading “username:option1:option2”.

If you are using column options, when you run the user importer it will print out a summary of column heading that is using options.  In addition it will validate the options to avoid errors caused by mis-typing an option name.  If there are any validation errors with the options they will be displayed and the program will exit.

The following is a list of column options.

Steps to Run the Report

1. Make sure the following files are under under the same folder on your computer:

Application.properties

.jar

.csv

1. Update the application.properties file to include the following highlighted in yellow.

Open

1. Check your .csv file for the correct required fields and profile fields

Open

1. Open up the “command prompt” on your computer add the line: java -jar telligent-userimporter-1.0.0.jar, hit return. The file will then run

FAQs

Q: I see warnings when running the importer, what do they mean?

A: If you are using Java 9 or Java 10 you will see a warning like the one below.

WARNING: An illegal reflective access operation has occurred

WARNING: Illegal reflective access by ...

WARNING: Please consider reporting this to the maintainers of ...

WARNING: Use --illegal-access=warn to enable warnings of further illegal reflective access operations

WARNING: All illegal access operations will be denied in a future release

These warnings are due to a new feature that was introduced into the Java 9, which was released in September of 2017.  At this time some widely used Java libraries trigger this warning due to how they work.  The vendors of these libraries are working on making changes that will fix this warning, but as of now they have not been released.

If you are using Java 9 or Java 10 these warnings represent no danger and are simply an annoyance.  Java 11 will be released in late 2018, and at present time there is no indication that this tool will stop working with that version.

Support

Need support or want to talk to us?  Please send an email to:

contact@socialedgeconsulting.com