Before you begin
This article explains how to send a look as a one-time deliverable. If you often need to send the same look on a regular basis, you can set up a schedule instead.
Plans: Professional and Enterprise
Audience: Users and creators in Analytics (learn more)
Background and requirements
Analytics is powered by Looker, a third-party product embedded in your Fiix CMMS. The SFTP export functionality, outbound connection behaviour, logic, and file-write behaviour are all controlled by Looker and Google Cloud’s infrastructure.
For help troubleshooting a failed delivery, refer to the resources on the Looker Community page.
There are a few things to note before setting up SFTP delivery:
1. Authentication is username/password only
SFTP delivery only supports standard username and password credentials. SSH private key authentication is not supported. If your SFTP server is configured to require key-based authorization exclusively, you’ll need to either:
- Enable password authentication for the account Fiix will use, or
- Use a separate account/path configured for password access
2. Filename restrictions
Filenames support only alphanumeric characters, underscores (_) and hyphens (-). Any other unsupported characters you include in the schedule name will automatically be stripped out.
3. Host key algorithm compatibility
Some SFTP servers enforce modern SHA-2 host key algorithms. Older versions of the underlying analytics engine could fail to negotiate a connection with these servers.
Looker SFTP deliveries support the following:
| Host key algorithms | Encryption algorithms (ciphers) | Message authentication code algorithms |
|---|---|---|
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4. Testing a new schedule
When setting up a new SFTP schedule, we recommend that you first send a one-time test delivery. This allows you to confirm connectivity and file placement before starting to rely on the recurring schedule.
5. Destination folder
Include a trailing forward slash ("/") at the end of the destination folder (e.g. sftp://host/path/), otherwise the file will be saved in the parent folder, and ‘folder’ will be prepended to the filename.
Instructions
To send a look via SFTP:
- Open the look you want to send. To learn how, see View looks.
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Click the gear icon:
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In the drop-down menu, select Send:
- (Optional) To send your look using a different title, edit the text in the Title field.
- In the Where should this data go? field, select SFTP.
- In the SFTP details section, enter your SFTP address and credentials.
- In the Format data as section, select the file type you want to send.
- (Optional) If your look contains filters, use the Filters section to select the ones you want to apply to the file. For example, you could filter the file so that it only contains data for a single site.
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In the Advanced options section, configure any of the following settings. These will vary based on the file type you selected in step 7.
Setting Description Applies to Limit Select whether you want to include only the results displayed in the CMMS, or all the results. All file types Apply visualization options Select this option to apply the same visualization options (totals, row numbers, etc.) in the CSV as are applied in the look. All file types except JSON - Detailed, Inline Formatted data values Select this option to format data the same way it's formatted in your look. When this checkbox is cleared, the data is unformatted (no rounding, special characters, etc.) All file types except JSON - Detailed, Inline - Click Send.