Zoho DataPrep supports importing data from Box, a cloud storage service that allows users to store, collaborate and manage files securely in an online folder system accessible from any device. 

To import data from Box

1. Open an existing pipeline or create a pipeline from the Home Page, Pipelines tab or Workspaces tab and click the Add data option.

Info: You can also click the Import data  icon at the top of the pipeline builder and bring data from multiple sources into the pipeline.

Note: If you had already added a Box connection earlier, click the Saved connections category from the left pane and proceed to import. To learn more about Saved connections, click here.

Note: Click the Add new link to add a new Box account. You can create as many Box connections as required.

4. Authenticate your Box account. You will need to authorize DataPrep to access your files when you do this for the first time.

Note: The connection configuration will be saved for importing from the Box in the future. Credentials are securely encrypted and stored.

5. Select the files you want to import and click the Import button. You can also use the Advanced selection option to import files that match a specific pattern. Click here to know more. 

Info: The recently created files in Box take 10 mins to get reflected in search results.

 

Note: You can also import files from shared folders in Box. The shared files will also be listed under the My drive tab.

7. If the file is password protected, enter the password, and click the   right arrow.

Note: Supported file formats are CSV, TSV, JSON, HTML, XLS, XLSX, and XML.

9. Once you have completed importing data, Pipeline builder page opens and you can start applying transforms. You can also right-click the stage and choose the Prepare data option and prepare your data in the DataPrep Studio page. Click here to know more about the transforms.

10. Once you are done creating your data flow and applying necessary transforms in your stages, you can right-click a stage and add a destination to complete your data flow.

Note:  After adding a destination to the pipeline, you can try executing your pipeline using a manual run at first. Once you make sure manual run works, you can then set up schedule to automate the pipeline. Learn about the different types of runs here.

Advanced selection

1. Click the Advanced selection link.

Advanced selection helps you perform dynamic file selection based on regex. This can be used for getting new or incremental data from your Box account. The newly added or modified file that matches the file pattern after the previous sync will be taken from your Box account.

Important: Advanced selection is used not only for incremental fetch. You can also use this option for bulk import of files based on the file pattern. 

2. Provide the below details:

• Folder path : The folder path where you want to search for files. Eg. 2023/ 
  
  If the files are stored in the drive without any folder, you can leave this field empty.

  

  The "Folder Path" is a directory path field and does not support regex patterns.
  Info: Folder path is case-sensitive.
  Note: The recently created files in Box take upto 10 minutes to get reflected during import in DataPrep.

• Include subfolders : You can also select the Include subfolders checkbox if you want to include subfolders while searching for a file.
  

• File pattern : The pattern used to match the file names in the account. This supports regex type matching. You can also use the pattern, ".*" to match any file in the path specified.
  Info: File pattern is case-sensitive.

Note: The file pattern match is a simple regex type match. For example, to fetch files with file names such as Sales_2022.csv , Sales_2023.csv , Sales_2024.csv , you can input the pattern Sales_.* 

Similarly to fetch files such as PublicData1.csv , PublicData2.csv , PublicData3.csv , use Public.*

If you want to import a single file, then specify the pattern using the exact file name.
Eg: leads_jan_2022.*

• Parse file as : Choose the required extension to parse the file. If your file format is not a commonly used one, you can use this option to parse the file into one of the following formats before importing the data into a readable format. The available formats are CSV, TSV, JSON, XML, and TXT.
  
  

• Merge files and import - This will merge all the files that match the pattern specified and import them as a single dataset. 
  

Important: You can use this option to merge files together during the import itself, without having to perform unions post import.

Info: This option can merge a maximum of only 5 files at a time.

Note: If this checkbox is unchecked then, only 1 file will be fetched at a time.

Eg. If your Box account has 10 files, the first 5 will be merged into one dataset and imported. During the next reload, the remaining 5 files will be merged and imported.

Similarly, if your Box account has 8 files, the first 5 will be merged and fetched first, followed by the next 3.

Note: We support only CSV, TSV, JSON, XML, TXT file formats for incremental fetch from cloud storages.

SEE ALSO

How to add a new pipeline?

How to import data from cloud databases?

How to import data from saved data connections?

How to schedule import?        

What other cloud storage options are available in Zoho DataPrep?  

How to export data to Box?