Pulling imports from your SFTP server
Inbound SFTP lets HousingSurvey Pro pull specific data types from a folder on your own server — always previewed first, and never on a schedule you didn’t explicitly run.
What it is
Three data types can be pulled this way: property/UPRN stock, Schedule of Rates schedules, and tenancy records. Every pull is a manual, two-step action against a configured server: preview, which reads the files, classifies each row as a create, update or error, and shows a sample of what it parsed — without writing anything — and confirm, which re-fetches the files, re-verifies their content hash against what you previewed, and only then writes the import. There is no scheduled automatic import; a human runs Pull preview, reviews it, and decides whether to confirm.
Before you start
Configuring an inbound import needs organisation-admin access to Settings, the Platform plan, and an SFTP server already added under Settings → SFTP servers — see Sending and pulling files over SFTP.
How to do it
- Open Settings → SFTP servers, choose a server, and go to its Inbound imports.
- Set the folder path for the data type you want to pull — properties, SOR schedule, or tenancies.
- Click Pull now. This only previews: it fetches the files, parses them the same way a manual CSV upload would, and shows counts of rows to create, update, or flag as errors, plus a sample.
- Review the preview. A row that can’t be matched to an existing property or tenancy is flagged for manual review rather than silently dropped or guessed at.
- Click Confirm to actually write the import — the files are re-fetched and their content hash re-checked first, so what gets written is guaranteed to be what you just reviewed, not something that changed in between.
How it integrates
The integrity gate is deliberate: if the files on your server change between preview and confirm, the confirm step is refused with a “the files have changed — preview again” error rather than silently importing something you never actually reviewed. Imported rows land in the same property register and tenancy register that manual CSV uploads and the New survey form write to — see The property register and Repair rates catalogue for what each destination looks like once data has arrived. Every preview and confirm is written to your organisation’s SFTP activity log, alongside outbound sends and connection tests.
Common problems
- Confirm fails with “the files have changed”. Someone (or an automated job on your side) modified the files after you previewed them — run Pull preview again and confirm from the fresh result.
- A row didn’t import. It couldn’t be matched to an existing property or tenancy record and was flagged for manual review instead of being guessed at or dropped.
- I want this to run automatically overnight. It’s a deliberately manual, always-previewed action — there is no scheduled inbound import. Use the nightly EDI export if you need an unattended nightly job in the other direction.
Related