Integrations — SFTP | HousingSurvey Pro

For housing systems that exchange files rather than calling an API — the way a lot of housing IT actually works. HousingSurvey Pro connects out to a server your team already runs and controls; it is never a listener you connect into. Tiered — Basics for what's possible, Deep dive for setup, Technical for developers and integrators.

Basics — connecting your systems

SFTP lets HousingSurvey Pro send files to your server (EDI exports, survey/works-completed/letter PDFs, invoices, your tenancy register) and pull specific data types from your server (property/UPRN stock, SOR repair-rate schedules, tenancy records), all over a standard SFTP connection to a server your IT team already runs.
You stay in control of the server the whole time — there's nothing to install on your side beyond adding one public key (or a password) to an account you already manage.
Configured under Settings → SFTP servers by an org admin. SFTP is a Platform-tier feature — the same tier as the REST API, webhooks and EDI exports it's typically used alongside.

Deep dive — setting up

Add a server: Settings → SFTP servers → Add server. Enter the host, port, username and where files should land (remote path). You can add as many server entries as you need — one per housing system, one per environment, whatever fits how your IT team organises things.
Authentication: SSH key (recommended) or password, or both. If you choose a key, HousingSurvey Pro mints the keypair for you — click Mint key and you're shown the public half once, with the exact line to add to your server's authorized_keys. The private key is generated and stays on HousingSurvey Pro's backend; it is never shown again and never travels anywhere else.
Test connection: runs a real handshake, authentication and a read-only check of the remote path — it never writes a file. The first successful test shows your server's host-key fingerprint; confirm it matches what your IT team expects, then pin it. From then on, if that server ever presents a different key, every connection is refused until someone re-confirms it — this catches both a legitimate re-key and a compromised/intercepted connection, and treats both the same way until a human looks at it.
Sending things: once a server is configured, a Send to SFTP option appears next to survey reports, works-completed records, resident letters and (for platform invoicing) invoices — pick the destination at the point you send, no separate setup needed. EDI exports can instead be configured to deliver automatically to a chosen server every night, alongside the existing download/link delivery (SFTP is additional, not a replacement — the usual export is never blocked by an SFTP problem).
Pulling things in: under a server's Inbound imports, set a folder path for property/UPRN stock, SOR schedules and/or tenancy records, then Pull now. This previews what would happen — files found, rows to create/update, anything that failed to parse — without writing anything. Confirm only after reviewing the preview, and it double-checks the files on your server haven't changed in the meantime before writing anything. For tenancies specifically: a row matches by tenancy reference when your housing system supplies one, otherwise by property + tenant name; a row that can't be matched to a property still imports, flagged for manual review.
Sending your tenancy register: from the Tenancies tab (alongside Properties), Send to SFTP builds a fresh CSV of your whole register and delivers it to a chosen server the same way any other outbound file does.

Technical — for developers & integrators

Client only: HousingSurvey Pro never listens for inbound SFTP connections. It is a client of your server, using the ssh2 library over a standard SFTP session.
Keys: ed25519 by default, RSA-4096 available for servers that don't support ed25519. Each server entry has its own keypair — there is no shared or organisation-wide key. Re-minting a key for an entry replaces it; remove the old public key from authorized_keys once the new one is installed.
Host-key pinning: trust-on-first-use, fail-closed. Once pinned, a fingerprint mismatch aborts the connection before authentication — no file is ever read or written on a mismatch.
Outbound writes: every file is written to a temporary, hidden name in the target directory first, then renamed into its final filename — a process watching that folder never sees a partially-written file under the real name.
Inbound scope: CSV only, three data types — property/UPRN stock, SOR repair-rate schedules, and tenancy records — reusing the same validation rules as their existing manual-upload importers. There is no scheduled/automatic pull; every inbound transfer is a manual action.
Activity & audit: every test, delivery and pull is logged to your organisation's SFTP activity feed (visible to manager-level users and above), with the specific failed step named on any failure — nothing fails silently.

Rollout note: the set of things HousingSurvey Pro can send and pull over SFTP may grow over time; the security model (per-server keys, private key custody, fail-closed fingerprint pinning) is fixed. Confirm what's currently supported on your Settings → SFTP servers page.

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