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Sending data in bulk

When sending data in bulk a file containing all the objects to be advertised must be supplied on a regular basis. DV compares the new data file to the previous one and calculate the changes (new objects, changed objects and sold objects).

There is no need for the inventory management system to keep track of objects that have already have been sent to DV. Every batch run consists of collecting all the objects currently in the inventory management system and sending them to DV.

If images are sent as files alongside the vehicle data, it is preferred to only send new or changed images. This keeps the file size of the batches manageable. So, images that did not change since the last batch run do not need to be sent again.

Some other choices that need to be made:

  • One large file or one file per advertiser?
    The inventory management system can send one large file containing all the objects of all the advertisers, for example when it is an online web application with a central database. Or it can send a separate file for each advertiser, for example when the application runs offline at the dealership.
  • Transfer method
    Data can be transferred in various ways, for example:
    • The inventory management system sends the data via FTP to the FTP server of DV;
      We can create one account for the inventory management system or a separate account for each advertiser
    • DV fetches the data via FTP from the FTP server of the inventory management system;
    • DV fetches the data via HTTP from the web server of the inventory management system
  • Schedule
    Data can be sent at regular or irregular intervals. For example, twice a day at 12:00 and 17:00, or whenever the user feels the need to update the objects.
    If the files are transmitted to the FTP server of DV, DV automatically detects a new upload and process it as soon as the upload has finished.
    It is advised to send at least one batch a day, unless no changes to the stock have been made.
  • Data format
    DV accepts all common file formats that support structured data, like JSON, XML and CSV. Proprietary formats like XLS are not supported.
  • Character encoding
    DV supports the most common character encodings like UTF-8 (with or without BOM), ISO 8859-1, ISO 8859-15 and Windows-1252.
  • Combining multiple files and/or compression
    It is possible to combine the data file (containing the information of all the objects) and the (new and changed) images into one archive, for example in a ZIP- or TAR-file. For large data files compression is advised. Compressing the images is not needed, as images are usually already compressed (for example JPEG or webp images).