Partner onboarding for file transfer processes is a common challenge for IT organizations in every industry. As companies seek to simplify their business processes to stay agile and competitive, the lengthy process of scripting partner onboarding stands out as an obstacle to their goal.
Coding custom scripts to automate transfers across clients and servers may work when you only have a few users, but doing this on a larger scale causes problems:
- Scripting is time-consuming and limited to developers.
- Point-to-point file transfers often break.
- There’s no centralized way to track transfers between servers/clients.
Luckily, the right managed file transfer (MFT) solution can solve these issues. Thru’s multi-protocol MFT service has functionality that enables simple management of trading partners via a web-based portal—all without coding.
Continue reading to learn how Thru’s MFT solution simplifies partner onboarding to create easily configurable automated file transfers between enterprises and their partners.
How MFT Automates File Exchange with Partners
First, let’s understand how Thru performs file transfers between enterprises and their partners while learning the terms used within the portal:
- The enterprise and its partners are set up as Organizations. Each can drop off and pick up files in folders from different Endpoints.
- Thru orchestrates deliveries of files between Source and Target endpoints based on Flows (i.e., workflow processes).
- Flows can also be integrated and mapped with integration platform (iPaaS) workflows from MuleSoft or Boomi via Thru’s connectors or APIs.
Figure 1 – Thru can act as a file exchange gateway between your organization and trading partners, orchestrating all automated file transfers.
This design simplifies onboarding of new partners and management of endpoints and file routing. Additionally, complete visibility of all file transfer traffic is available within the portal.
How MFT Enables Faster Onboarding of Partners
Now, let’s take a deeper dive into how a company sets up file exchanges with partners. Company ABC wants its partners to send files to the central repository at Company ABC headquarters.
Within Thru’s easy-to-navigate web-based portal, the company’s MFT administrator performs the following actions:
Step 1: Create Organizations and their Endpoints
- Create an Organization for the company and for each of its partners that it exchanges files with on an automated basis.
- Add corresponding Endpoints—such as SFTP, FTPS, MFT Agent, Amazon S3—and their credentials to the Organizations.
Step 2: Create File Transfer Flow with Subscribers
- Create file transfer Flows. Each flow is directional: either to or from the trading partner endpoints.
- Subscribe the company and trading partner Organizations to the flow(s):
- Multiple partners and multiple endpoints can be added to the same flow, reducing the number of connections the organization must manage.
- If a subscriber of a flow is disabled or a flow endpoint is not connected, the flow still works for other endpoints and subscribers.
Step 3: Add and Configure Flow Endpoints
- From the organizations subscribed to the flow, add Source and Target flow endpoints, specify file paths for pick up or drop off and set up any additional configuration. Refer to Features List for available functionality »
- Within the Target Flow Endpoint, ensure the mapping of source file path to target file path is correct and configure flow endpoint settings and functionality, if not configured previously.
Step 4: Review and Test File Transfer between Company and its Partners
- View the changes and, if correct, push changes to the flow.
- From within the Flow Studio, easily send a file to test the newly configured flow.
Step 5: View Status of File Transfer in Activity Screen
- Navigate to the Activity view to see the status of the file transfer and monitor file transfer activities.
Watch Demo of How to Create File Transfers with Partners
To see how to setup Thru, please watch our getting started demo »
To learn more about transferring files, go to our File Transfer Automation page »
[Note: This blog was first published on November 19, 2018, and continues to be updated to align with current product offerings.]
