How To Create Oracle Eloqua Data Export Pipelines

Oracle Eloqua allows you to export contacts, accounts, or activities like bounces, clickthroughs, sends, opens, etc. Those exports can be sent to your Openbridge data pipeline for loading into your preferred data warehouse such as Amazon Redshift, Amazon Athena, Redshift Spectrum, or Google BigQuery.

Getting Started: Prerequisites

First of all, if you want to export activities from Eloqua, your administrator must set up Oracle Eloqua to capture the activity data to an internal queue. To set up the external call to an internal queue, log in to My Oracle Support and create a service request.

After this configuration is complete, Oracle Eloqua will begin collecting the activity data going forward.

Activity data typically covers the following types of data:

customer
account
campaign

This guide uses an example of exporting campaign data. Please refer to the latest Eloqua docs as they may differ slightly from the process described below.

Step 1: Export Settings

The first step is to get a sample CSV of your campaign data. This will allow you to verify that it includes the data you need and save it for setting up the Openbridge Batch system in Step 2. Follow these steps to export a sample CSV:

Navigate to Audience > Tools, then click Data Export and Import
Click the Data Export tab and then Add button
On the Export Setting tab, configure the export: select the Compress File (.zip format) check box to compress the export file; click the Append Date Stamp check box and select the date format to add a date stamp to the export file.

Step 2: Set Up an Openbridge Batch Subscription

Now you are ready to set up an Openbridge Batch subscription for campaign data. Follow the Guide to Set Up a Batch Data Pipeline For CSV Files. At the end of the setup process, you will receive an instructions file with the delivery location and login info to complete the Eloqua set up in Step 3.

For this example, we will assume you set up an “eloqua_campaign” pipeline via the process outlined in the link above.

IMPORTANT: To complete this step you should have a sample “campaign” CSV that reflects the exported data. We use this sample data to “train” our system on how to process your data. To get a sample export, take a look at this Eloqua doc to download a sample file.

Next, we will configure the delivery location.

Step 3: Configure Delivery Destination

The next step is to configure your export from Eloqua. One of the first steps in that process is defining where you want Eloqua to deliver the exports. In this case, we will want to enter the connection details you received at the end of Step 2. Those connections details from Openbridge will look like this:

Host: pipeline-01.openbridge.io
Port: 22 or 443 (Note: port 443 is often used in the event a corporate firewall blocks outbound connections on port 22)
Database destination: athena-customer-database
Table destination: eloqua_campaign
Username: yourusername
Password: yourpassword

After entering the connection info into Eloqua you will need to:

Click “Test Connection” to ensure the information you entered is correct
Specify where to store the file export on the SFTP server in the Path text box. This is your delivery location. In this case, you must enter the name that you configured from Step 2 which is /eloqua_campaign/.

Openbridge also provides a “testing” directory /eloqua_campaign/testing for you to practice uploads to the system. Anything you send to /eloqua_campaign/ is assumed to be in production mode.

Lastly, you will notice that the path AND the table name are the same. We use the /eloqua_campaign/ path to route, process, and load data to a target table in your destination data warehouse. This aligns with what you configured in Step 2.

Step 4: Schedule Your Export

You have the option to run a one-time export or schedule an ongoing delivery:

To run a one-time export, click the On-Demand option
To schedule the export to run on a regular basis, click On these days and specify the schedule.

Step 5: Define The Data You Want In Your Export

Now you can configure which data you want to export. Click the Data tab to start configuration:

Specify what to include in the export, either all records or only records that change.

From the Data type, the drop-down list specifies whether you are exporting contact, account, or activity data.
If you selected contact data, configure additional options about the data to export: contact fields (all contact fields or only a specific contact view), contacts in a list, segment, or all contacts.
Click the Format tab to configure the format for the exported file. The default file extension should be CSV. The default structure of the file is column1,column2,column3.
Click Save

Step 6: Run Your Export!

To perform a one-time export click the Overview tab and click Run now. If you set up a schedule, the export will run according to the schedule you specified on the Export Settings tab.

Now your eloqua_campaign data will be automatically delivered to your destination warehouse. For each additional data feed, you want to upload, you would need to repeat this process.