Maintaining the accuracy of your data is a critical part of the process. Out-of-date and inaccurate data can lead to poor customer experiences and a potentially lengthy update process. Ingram Content Group provides you with regular file updates on a fixed schedule to aid you in maintaining your data's integrity.
Once you have a plan for your ongoing update strategy, you will need to maintain a regular processing schedule to complete updates in a timely manner and prevent your data from getting out of sync (which could then require costly backlist or file restores).
After completing the initial backlist load, it will be your responsibility to maintain data integrity on an ongoing basis. If for any reason your data gets out of sync, please notify Ingram Data Services immediately so that we can help you get back on track quickly: data.services@ingramcontent.com.
Getting started
Upon receipt of a data subscription contract, Ingram Data Services will prepare a backlist of files based on your data license. These files may include bibliographic data, descriptions,* and images files. Most backlists are made available to you via a temporary FTP folder access. All remaining files required for the initial load are available for download from the Ingram FTP server.
Considerations
- Due to the current file sizes and projected growth, Ingram recommends that you process delta and delete files, as opposed to full file overwrites, each update period.
- For Data Slices: Titles can belong to more than one data slice. Handling of duplicate records will need to be considered when processing multiple slices.
- It is imperative that you process all delta files in sequential order.
- If you miss a delta file, you may request a full file at no charge the first time. All subsequent backlist requests will incur a nominal fee.
- You should process delta files first and then deletes.
- When processing deletes, you must also process deletes for all of your tables that are directly related to the item (images, descriptions, etc.). These are files that contain a primary key of EAN. Deleting these items from your system is required to stay in compliance with your data license and maintain data integrity.
- Publishers may distribute an image before the bibliographic data is provided. Be sure to retain images if no bibliographic is present, since the bibliographic data will be provided in a later update.
*Descriptions available for download will depend on your data license. These could include publisher marketing, brief descriptions, annotations, and jacket descriptions.