What is the process for setting up an SFTP with Blue Ocean Brain for my organization?

SFTP servers are set up by Blue Ocean Brain to allow customers to automate the upload of employee listings to the server. The BOB team then automates the processing of employee listings to the BOB site.

When setting up SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) servers with Blue Ocean Brain, the BOB team sets up the SFTP server on their end, provides you with the credentials to access the server, and works with your team to enable successful uploads of employee listings.

• Why are employee listings provided to BOB?
• What are the pros and cons of setting up an SFTP with BOB?
• How do I set up an SFTP server with BOB?
• What do I need to know about the automation of the processing of my employee listing in BOB?

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Why are employee listings provided to BOB?

Employee listings allow for your organization to add users to BOB so they will receive their welcome emails at launch and/or their micro-communication emails containing the lessons after launch.

• If your company uses a login with a username/password provided by BOB, the import of your learners enables the learners to receive their login credentials.
• If your company uses SSO and has just-in-time provisioning available for new users, those users may take longer to find BOB within your LMS or communication channels and create their accounts, and pre-loading users in BOB helps them discover the learning more quickly.

The ongoing updating of employee listings to BOB will help your organization maintain your license usage. This ensures that new employees are added and assists in protecting your employees' PII (personal identifying information) by removing termed employees from BOB.

What are the pros and cons of setting up an SFTP server with BOB?

There are two ways that employee listings can be processed within BOB:

• Self-service user import: employee listings can be updated in BOB through an Admin feature available to your designated Learner Admin users
• Setting up an SFTP:  your team can automate files to be added to the SFTP site and our automation will upload the file into BOB

How do I set up an SFTP server with BOB?

Step 1: Configure your employee listing.

The employee listing should be a list of all employees who should have a BOB license. Anyone not included in the listing will be removed from BOB upon processing.

The employee file should meet the following criteria:

• The file should be in CSV format.
• The file name should be configured in the following format: "Blue Ocean Brain - [Your Company's Name] Employee Listing - [MM/DD/YYYY]"
• The file should contain only one row of headers.
• No additional rows should be placed above the header or below the employee data.
• The file should be comma-delimited only.
• The file should contain the following required fields:
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email
  • SSO NameID (if your company uses SSO and the SAML subject/Name ID is different from email)
  • SuccessFactors ID (if your company has purchased a SuccessFactors integration with BOB)
  • Workday ID (if your company has purchased a Workday integration with BOB)
• The file should not contain any filters.

Other items you can add to your file are the following:

• You can add up to 25 additional fields to be added to your employee listing if you want to report on additional fields.
• You can PGP-encrypt your file if desired. Your Blue Ocean Brain IT contact can send you the key needed to encrypt the file.

This document contains BOB's most current employee listing instructions.

Step 2: Send BOB your public key and company IP address(es) needed to access the SFTP.

As you work on configuring your employee listing, you can begin the SFTP setup process by sending the following items to your Blue Ocean Brain IT contact:

• Public key. For the security of your employee data and for the automation of processing your employee file, the SFTP will be set up with key-based authentication. If you don't already have it, your company will need to generate a key pair that will be used to access the SFTP. The public key should be in open-ssh (ssh-rsa) or SSH2 format and may end in .pub.
  
  • Send your public key (it will end in .pub) to the BOB team. *You should never share your private key with anyone!*

• IP address(es). The IP address(es) needed should be company IP address(es) that will be used to access the SFTP site. LAN (Local Area Network) IPs, or personal IPs, should not be provided, as they are insecure (they are often connected to individual's home internet networks, they are subject to change, and they may be shared by thousands or millions of ISP customers).

Once the BOB IT team receives your public key and IP address(es), they will configure the SFTP server on their end and send you the credentials.

Step 3: Connect to the SFTP server with the credentials provided and provide a test file.

Once the SFTP server has been set up, the BOB team will provide you with your access credentials, including the user/folder name. If you will have more than one BOB group configured, you may be asked to provide more than one employee listing, and the BOB team will provide you with those paths.

After you receive your credentials, attempt to connect to the SFTP site by selecting your private key. Once you're able to connect successfully, please add a file to the SFTP server and inform your Blue Ocean Brain IT contact. They will then confirm the successful receipt of the file.

Step 4: Add the production file to the SFTP/Automate the file uploads to the SFTP server.

After you've confirmed the successful receipt of your test file, you can then add the production file to the SFTP server.

At this time, you can also configure the automation of sending the employee listing to BOB on a routine basis. You can have the file processed daily, weekly, or monthly.

Step 5: Provide your SFTP contact information to the BOB team.

The BOB team will automate the processing of your file sometime after your company's launch with BOB. Once the team is ready to configure the automation, your Blue Ocean Brain IT contact will reach out to you.

The BOB IT team will request the email address(es) of anyone whom you would like to receive an email with an error message in case the processing of your employee file from the SFTP fails. The BOB IT team will also receive the same email and will proactively troubleshoot with you in the event of any errors.

Once the BOB IT team receives those email addresses, they will automate the processing of your file and reach out once this is completed. They may also reach out during this process if they run into any errors with your employee file.

What do I need to know about the automation of the processing of my employee listing in BOB?

• The SFTP integration will check for new employee files hourly.
• If the file is a brand-new file, it will add/update all users listed in the file and remove users no longer listed in the file. The file will then be deleted from the SFTP server.
• The most recent file will be uploaded to BOB.
• If the file is exactly the same as the previous file, it will not be processed.
• If the file fails, the file will remain in the SFTP until removed. The email addresses listed to receive error messages will be notified about that file every 24 hours until someone removes the file.
• If you plan to make changes to the file or if you want to upload an ad hoc file, please notify your Blue Ocean Brain IT contact in advance.