This is what we are currently doing:
- Data capture in Oracle Database
- Oracle process generates a csv file and push to sFtp
- Eloqua process picks up the file and load into Contacts
- Mapping is manually created for custom fields by our Eloqua resource for each campaign based on the data received
- Email is deployed manually (or triggered based on schedule)
Following is the issue we are having with API (snapshot of comments by our developer):
While uploading a contact info (general only) might be simple, custom field is another story. I had to look for an existing contact on Eloqua to dump whatever the API allows.
Here’s an example of a custom field:
{"type":"FieldValue","id":"100210","value":"MB-EUPDATES-WEB”}
The above id corresponds to the ‘LM_MB_CAMPAIGN_ID’ custom field on Eloqua for holding SAP Campaign ID. I did see some other custom fields – not sure how we use those since they differ in name – presumably used on a case by case basis.
So in order to determine all the necessary custom fields to set, I’ll need to code the necessary logic to grab all custom fields, look through each with another API call to determine the name and eventually mark the Ids to use when uploading the contact info. In brief, this is too much for a simple use case and would take long to implement and debug. On top of this, there’s still a lot of unknowns – I still haven’t been able to figure out how to subscribe a contact to the contact segment that takes care of sending out the email – documentation and forum example is lacking.
Going back to the custom fields, the way I believe it works when uploading a CSV, is that there is a configuration screen that allows mapping custom fields to columns from the CSV file – we are looking at doing the same thing but in code.
Let me know if this helps. We are trying to identify which API to use in order to set up custom fields.
thanks