Best practices for DDS

Data Delivery Service (DDS) enables you to extract large amounts of company data from Sage Intacct and send it to a cloud location for analysis and usage with your own tools.

This topic offers guidelines to optimize the DDS extraction and delivery of your company data.

Data Delivery Service requires a separate subscription. For more information, see Subscribe to Data Delivery Service.
Subscription Data Delivery Service
User type Business user with admin privileges

1. Define the data to be exported

  • Determine the data strategies for your company.
  • Identify the purpose and uses for the data.
  • Determine the necessary data types and other parameters.
  • Define the objects to be included in the delivery. For more information, see Work with DDS objects.
  • Verify the size of the exported file to align expectations with the delivery time.

2. Verify the data schema

Before launching an export, validate the schema in the following ways to ensure successful delivery.

  • Verify that all the required columns are present.
  • Verify the order, size, and type of the columns are correct.
  • Check for columns with null values. If there are null values, Intacct must be able to handle missing data.
  • Verify that all required tables are present.

DDS jobs can fail when there are schema changes.

3. Verify your cloud service

  • Verify that your cloud service login credentials are valid and that DDS is allowed access.
  • Verify that you have sufficient space allocated for the export.
  • Verify connectivity to your cloud service and resolve any issues before starting the export.

4. Back up the data before the initial export

  • Ensure that you have a complete backup of your data before beginning the initial DDS export.
  • DDS is not a storage backup utility and shouldn’t be used as such.

5. Plan delivery frequency and data accuracy

  • Typically, it’s recommended that you perform an initial full data export followed by periodic updates of only the changed data.
  • Exporting of all of your data regularly is not typically recommended.
  • Using synchronization prevents reporting gaps. You set data synchronization when you configure data delivery. Synchronization ensures that all exported data accurately reflects the data in the database at the time of export. DDS can only synchronize changed data. Synchronization does not support the GL Account Balance and GL Resolve objects.
  • Determine the number of decimal places required for your data for optimum accuracy. The number of decimal places used in rounding can increase data accuracy.
  • Configure the decimal place setting on an application by application basis. The standard decimal place configuration is 2 decimal places. For more information, see Configure decimal places for data accuracy.

6. Plan for a delivery method:

Determine the delivery method that's best for your company data:

  • Automated: Export data to a cloud service destination automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. For more information, see Create an automated delivery with DDS.
  • Manual: Export data to a cloud service destination on demand. You can run a manual delivery anytime, independent of any active scheduled deliveries. For more information, see Create a manual delivery with DDS.

7. Verify the job queue

To reduce processing time, only one object of the same type is allowed in the queue or processing state at the same time. In addition, the DDS job queue allows only one job in the queue per GL object.

  • You can run one all extract delivery on a given object once every 24 hours.
  • You are limited to one DDS job per hour for a change extract on a DDS enabled object.

Following these guidelines streamlines the number of data extraction jobs in a day for optimum efficiency.

If you run a delivery with an object that is already in the queue, you receive an error message and your delivery job is canceled.

8. Manage delivery schedules

  • Verify the time zone that us set for your company. DDS jobs are run based on the time zone that's set in your company information.
  • Use Synchronization to export changed data that accurately reflects your current Sage Intacct data.
  • Only one object of the same type is allowed in the queue or processing state at a time. If you run a delivery with an object that's already in the queue, the delivery job is canceled.
  • Only run one all extract delivery on a given object once every 24 hours.
  • Only run one DDS job per hour for a change extract on a DDS enabled object.

9. Review previous delivery details

DDS provides a history of objects that were exported, when and how the data was exported, and if there were any errors. The DDS history is a log of all DDS activity with comprehensive job details. DDS history contains the following:

  • Job history: Provides a list of jobs run on DDS along with a brief description of each.
  • Service history: Provides details of the job, including the file names and the number of new, changed, and deleted objects.

For more information, see Work with DDS history.

10. Troubleshoot delivery issues

  • Verify that Sage Intacct can access your cloud service account. The most common failure for delivery is Sage Intacct not being unable to access the destination cloud service account.
  • Implement a Retry Process for DDS requests. When you kick off DDS requests using the API, it’s recommended to have a retry process in place. For information on API usage, see REST API, XML API, and developer resources.
  • The DDS service history contains details about each delivery with information that can be used for troubleshooting.
  • The history log Job column provides a list of errors encountered during the job. For more information, see Work with DDS history.
  • For more information, see Troubleshoot Data Delivery Service.

Next steps

  1. Get started with DDS
  2. Subscribe to Data Delivery Service
  3. Configure Data Delivery Service
  4. Configure decimal places for data accuracy
  5. Create an automated delivery
  6. Create a manual delivery