Data Injection via Mail Option

[awlionking]

Hi,

I've read the tutorial/info on data injection and I have some questions while testing it:

1. does the XML data need to be in body of the email, or as an attachment to the email?
2. in the mail settings for data injection, if the pop server requires secure login, can clay still access this email account? from what i understand, as of today, clay does not support secure pop or smtp servers.
3. ive set up an email address (secure, gmail service), entered the xml data in the body of the email, and set clay to check this email address. so far, nothing has been imported, i see nothing in the data injection folder on the clay server (success, failed, etc), and i have no real indication of where the issue may be. can you please help me figure out where im stuck?
4. does the username and password in the xml file need to be logged off from clay for clay to check the email address for import?

please, i need some help with this.

thanks,
ari@zapcellular

[ZevToledano]

1. It must be in the email body.
2. Correct. This will only be supported in the future.
3. Assuming no record was imported, and nothing appears in the failed folder, then it must have not passed the login. Test the email account in your email client and make sure it works without SSL/TLS.
You can also temporarily add debugging info to the ClayCentral.log if you are comfortable with the registry: hkeylocalmachine\software\digitalclay\central and add a string value LogLevel=4 ... don't forget to remove it afterwards.
4. Nope. It doesn't really login - it just checks the credentials.

[awlionking]

thanks zev...

records seem to be importing now, but im still testing...

one question, there is sensitive billing and personal information being injected. because clay doesnt support SSL/secure email at this time, I am concerned that this information may be stolen or hacked when transferred from email to clay.

the information will be captured via an internet form with an SSL certificate, however once the information is sent to an email address and pushed into clay, how can i make this last leg secure? should we be concerned that this information can be stolen or compromised?

thanks again

[ZevToledano]

This depends on your connection between ClayCentral and your e-mail server. You can minimize this connection - i.e. make sure it connects locally to your own internal mail server. You can connect the machines via an appropriate network configuration that makes sure the packets are not broadcasted. You can look into a VPN option. Or, as a temporary solution, you can use your own secure e-mail client to grab the e-mails and then save them as files for ClayCentral file injection.

[yehosef]

What is the timeframe for clay to connect to a secure mail server?

We're trying to avoid a VPN at this point and focus on an open but encrypted transfer.
Is it possible to secure the TCP connection? Do we need to do this at the firewall level or can we install an SSL certificate on Clay so it can accept secure TCP requests.

As a related side note - is there more documentation about how the TCP connection works - is it HTTP POST? Is there any sample code (esp. php).

Thanks

[ZevToledano]

It won't be done for several months at least. There is no definitive timeframe since new features are usually re-prioritized based on interest and paying customers. As always you can also try talking to your Digital-Clay representative about your requirements or new feature priorities.

The e-mail injection is a standard POP protocol over a TCP connection. There is no way to secure it via Clay unless we implement secure sockets.

I cannot help you with securing your network since this is obviously out of scope. But you can look into the options I suggested.