Connect to an Email Data Source

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Emails containing data can be used to easily set up automated data flows in Nexla. Data detected from an email source is automatically organized into Nexsets that can be transformed and sent to destinations like any other Nexset.

This article describes how to set up an email data source in Nexla.

Contents:

1. Begin Adding an Email Data Source
2. Configure the Email Data Source
3. Set Up Email Forwarding Rules

1. Begin Adding an Email Data Source

1. Log into Nexla with your provided credentials.
   

   If you need credentials, contact [e-mail].
   

2. Navigate to the Integrate section by selecting  from the platform menu on the left side of the screen.
   
   
3. Click  at the top of the Integrate toolbar on the left.
   
   
   
   
4. Select  from the data source list; then, click in the top right corner of the screen.
   
   

2. Configure the Email Data Source

1. Enter a name for the email source in the Data Source Name field.
   
   
   
   
2. In the Advanced Settings panel on the right side of the screen, select the part of each email Nexla should read for data and Nexset detection from the Dataset Detection Mode pulldown menu.
   
   
   • Email Attachments (Text) – This option configures Nexla to automatically detect data in email attachments that do not require optical character recognition, including file formats such as AVRO, CSV, EDI, XLSX, XLS, JSON, ORC, Parquet, TSV, XML, etc.
     
     
   • Email Content – This option configures Nexla to automatically detect data located in tables within the email body.
     
     
   • Image/PDF Email Attachments – This option configures Nexla to automatically detect data in email attachments that require optical character recognition, such as PDF or image files.
     
     
   
   
   
3. Optional: Nexla is automatically configured to detect the format in which each file should be parsed. To force all files from this email source to be parsed in a specified format, select the corresponding option from the File Content Format pulldown menu in the Advanced Settings panel.
   

   The pre-selected "Automatically Detect Format" option is appropriate for most use cases, including those in which the email source contains files in more than one format.
   

   
   
   
4. Optional: To configure Nexla to detect a single schema when reading data from this email source, select "Yes" from the Enforce Detection of Single Schema pulldown menu.
   

   When the detection of a single schema is enforced for an email source, new data will result in the growth of that schema. Newly detected data that is unrelated to the schema will be quarantined for reprocessing.
   

   
   
   
5. Click .
   
   
   
   
6. Copy the unique email ID generated for this email data source, and paste it into a word processing document for use in Section 3.
   

   The generated email ID is unique to this email data source—a new ID is generated for each email data source added to a Nexla account.
   

   
   
   
7. Click in the top right corner of the screen to save and create the email data source.
   
   
8. After successfully creating the email data source, it will be displayed in a flow view with the message "Waiting for data...", as shown in the example below.
   

   Important Note: Nexla will now begin scanning the email source for data, but the steps in Section 3 must be completed before Nexla can receive data from this source.
   

   
   
   

3. Set Up Email Forwarding Rules

1. Log into the email account associated with the email data that Nexla should read, and set up forwarding rules to forward relevant emails to the unique ID copied in Section 2, Step 6.
   

   See the email provider's documentation for instructions on how to set up email forwarding rules.

2. Once emails are forwarded to the email ID, Nexla will scan them and organize detected data into one or more Nexsets according to the settings specified in Section 2.
   

   Important Note: Nexla will scan the source for new email content at fixed intervals; thus, observing a 10-15 minute delay between an email appearing in the associated email account and the data that it contains becoming available in Nexla.