Box Setup Guide

Follow our setup guide to connect Box to Fivetran.

Prerequisites

To connect Box to Fivetran, you need:

A Box account
A Box folder containing files with supported file types and encodings
The URL of your Box folder that you want to sync
The ability to grant Fivetran permission to read and write from this account

Setup instructions

Select sync strategy

In the connection setup form, select the sync strategy: Magic Folder or Merge Mode.
Enter the Destination schema name of your choice.
If you selected Merge Mode as your sync strategy, enter the Table group name. We combine this with the destination schema to form the Fivetran connection name <destination_schema>.<table_group_name>. This enables you to create multiple Merge Mode connections per destination schema. The Table group name value is used only in Fivetran and does not appear in your destination.
In the Destination schema names field, choose the naming convention you want Fivetran to use for the schemas, tables, and columns in your destination:
- Fivetran naming: Standardizes the schema, table, and column names in your destination according to the Fivetran naming conventions.
- Source naming: Preserves the original column names from the source system in your destination. The source naming rules apply only to the column names, while the schema and table names follow the Fivetran naming rules.
If you want to modify your selection, make sure you do it before you start the initial sync.
Click Authorize. You will be redirected to your Box account to authorize Fivetran's access.

Authorize Fivetran

Log in to your Box account.
Click Grant access to the Box to authorize Fivetran's read and write access. Once you have finished, you will be redirected back to Fivetran.

Make sure your Box folder is not empty. Fivetran cannot sync empty folders.

Add Box configuration

Magic Folder

In the setup form, enter your Folder URL path from your Box account. Make sure your URL looks similar to the one illustrated below and doesn't have any extra characters after the folder ID. The URL specifies the folder path in your Box account in which you'd like Fivetran to look for files. We examine all files under the specified folder and nested sub-folders for files that are eligible for syncing.
Make sure your URL matches the format illustrated below and doesn't include any extra characters after the folder ID.
If you want to sync files from nested folders within the specified folder, set the Include subfolders toggle to ON.

Merge Mode

In the setup form, choose your configuration options. Using these configuration options, you can select subsets of your folders, specific types of files, and more to sync only the files you need in your destination. In addition, setting up multiple connections targeted at the same file system but with different options allows you to slice and dice a file system any way you'd like.

Format

File Handling - We process and sync all files based on the file handling option you select:
- Extract structured data into destination tables - Parse supported file types and sync structured data into destination tables. We recommend this option for most use cases.
- Replicate unstructured files Beta - Copy unstructured files in their original format without extracting data. This option is ideal for PDF documents, images, and other non-tabular file formats. Learn more about unstructured file replication in our documentation.
File Type - We process all files as the selected file type. Use the File Pattern field to select the file extensions you want to sync.
- If you select XML, we load your XML data into the _data column without flattening it.
- If you select XLS/XLSX/XLSM, proceed to the Configure Files section to determine how you want to analyze your spreadsheet.
- If you select CSV or TSV, then enter the following details:
  - (Optional) Delimiter - Specify the delimiter used in your CSV file. If your CSV file uses a custom delimiter, replace the default comma , with your specific delimiter. For example, if your file is tab-delimited, enter \t, or if it's pipe-delimited, enter |. If you leave this field blank, we'll attempt to detect the delimiter for each file automatically. However, note that automatic detection may not work in all cases. If your files sync with an incorrect number of columns or use a unique delimiter, consider specifying the delimiter. You can store files with different delimiters in the same folder. For more details on how delimiter inference works, see our documentation.
  - Quote character - Typically, CSVs use double quotes " to enclose a value. Set the toggle to off if you don't want to use an enclosing character.
  - Non-Standard escape character - Set the toggle to ON if your CSV generator uses non-standard ways of escaping characters like newline, delimiter, etc. Not standard in CSVs.
  - Null Sequence - Set the toggle to ON if your CSVs use a special value indicating null. Specify the value indicating null only if you are sure your CSVs have a null sequence. Typically, CSVs have no native notion of a null character. However, some CSV generators have created one, using characters such as \N to represent null.
  - Skip Header Lines - Use this option to skip over a fixed number of header lines at the beginning of your CSV files. Set the toggle to ON, and then in the Number of skipped header lines field, specify the number of header lines you want to skip.
  - Skip Footer Lines - Use this option to skip over a fixed number of footer lines at the end of your CSV files. Set the toggle to ON, and then in the Number of skipped footer lines field, specify the number of footer lines you want to skip.
  - Headerless files - Set the toggle to ON if your CSV-generating software doesn't provide a header line. Fivetran can generate generic column names and sync data rows with them.
  - Line Separator - Line separators are used in CSV files to separate one row from the next. By default, we use the new line character \n as the line separator. If you use a different line separator for your CSV files, replace \n with your custom line separator.
- If your file type is JSON or JSONL, then choose one of the following:
  JSON Delivery Mode - Use this option to choose how Fivetran should handle your JSON data.
  - If you select Packed, we load all your JSON data into the _data column without flattening it.
  - If you select Unpacked, we flatten one level of columns and infer their data types.

Configure files

(Optional) Base folder path - Choose the lowest common folder in a folder hierarchy that includes all the files you want to sync and enter it in the Base folder path field. This defines a specific location where Fivetran scans for files and helps ensure optimal performance.
For example, if the files are in files/exports/customers/data_20251016.csv and files/exports/products/data_20251016.csv, set files/exports as the base folder path.
Files - Use this option to map a file name pattern to a destination table.
- Click + Add files to specify destination tables and their corresponding file name pattern.
- Table name - Use names that are unique across all Box connections within the same destination schema.
- (Optional) File Pattern - Use a regular expression as the file pattern to decide whether or not to sync specific files. The pattern applies to everything under the prefix (folder path). If you want to sync everything under the prefix, leave this field blank.
  For example, if under the prefix you have a folder data, which has sub-folders, subFolder1, subFolder2, etc. These sub-folders have JSON files with the format report_03/12/2050.json. Use the following regex patterns to decide whether or not to sync specific files:
  - data/.* matches all files in the data folder, including those in subfolders.
  - data/.*json matches all JSON files in the data folder, including those in subfolders.
  - data/subFolder2/report_.*\.json matches all the JSON files in the subFolder2 folder that have a name that starts with the prefix report_.. For example, report_file.json.
  - .*/report_\d{2}/\d{2}/\d{4}\.json matches all the JSON files that are present in various folders and are beginning with report_ followed by a date format of DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY. For example, data/subfolder1/report_03/12/2050.json.
    We recommend that you test your regex.
- (Optional) Archive File Pattern - Use a regular expression to filter and sync files from archived folders. We sync the files in compressed archives with filenames matching the specified pattern. For example, if you specify the archive folder pattern as .*json, we will sync only the files that end in a .json file extension from the archive folder.
  You need to configure archive patterns per table. This is useful when an archive folder contains files following different naming patterns, allowing you to route each type to a specific destination table based on its pattern.
  For example, if the archive folder contains test12.json and check12.json, you can configure test.*\.json as archive pattern for Table1 to sync only test12.json to Table1, and check.*\.json for Table2 to sync only check123.json to Table2.
- (Optional) Click Preview Files to validate the file pattern.
  You can skip this intermediate test and proceed to the next step. However, if you choose to skip, we will perform this test once you have finished your configuration.
- If you have selected XLS/XLSX/XLSM as your file type, we automatically analyze your spreadsheet to identify the cell reference. If you opt to enter a cell reference of your choice, enable the Manually provide cell reference toggle. We use the cell reference to sync all contiguous data starting from the top-left cell in all the spreadsheets matching the name.
  - Analyze sheet - Identify the sample file you would want to sync. We analyze and identify the eligible data sets. To determine the cell reference correctly, perform one of the following steps:
    - Set the Manually provide cell reference toggle to ON to enter the cell reference.
      - In the Cell reference for syncs field, enter the cell reference in the '<sheetName>'!<startColumnName><startRowName> format. For example, if you want to sync data starting from cell 'C3' of the 'Data2' worksheet, enter 'Data2'!C3.
    - In the Spreadsheet to find data to be synced field, enter the file URL.
      This field is available only when you disable the Manually provide cell reference toggle.
    - Click Analyze sheet.
    - In the Cell reference for syncs drop-down menu, select the cell reference.
      Learn more about syncing Excel files in our documentation.
    - Click Save.
Primary Key used for file process and load - Use this option to let Fivetran know how you'd like to update the files in your destination. When you modify a previously synced file, the option you select determines if we should replace the rows in the destination table or append new rows to the table:
- If you select Upsert file using file name and line number, we will upsert your data using the surrogate primary keys _file and _line. If a file has a unique name, we will sync the data for that file as new data.
- If you select Append file using file modified time, we will upsert your files using surrogate primary keys _file, _line, and _modified. You can track the full history of a file or set of files, and your files will have a combination of old and new data or data that is updated periodically.
- If you select Upsert file using custom primary key, you can keep the most recent version of every record, and your files will have a combination of the old and new data or data that is updated periodically. You can choose the primary keys you want to use after you save and test.
You can't modify your primary key option once the initial sync is successful. However, if you selected Upsert file using custom primary key, you can change the columns selected as primary keys after the initial sync.

Additional options

Compression - If your files are compressed but do not have extensions indicating the compression method, you can decompress them according to the selected compression algorithm. If all of your compressed files are correctly marked with a matching compression extension (.bz2, .gz, .gzip, .tar, or .zip), you can select infer. If you select uncompressed, we do not decompress the files and sync the uncompressed files. If you choose a compression format, we decompress every file using the format you select. For example, if you have an automated CSV output system that GZIPs files to save space but saves them without a .gzip extension, you can set this field to GZIP. We will decompress every file that we examine using GZIP.
Error Handling - Use the error handling option to choose how to handle errors in your files. If you know that your files contain some errors, you can choose to skip poorly formatted lines.
- If you select skip, we ignore improperly formatted data within a file, allowing you to sync only valid data.
- If you select fail, we fail the sync with an error when finding any improperly formatted data.
  We recommend that you select fail unless you are sure that you have undesirable, malformed data.
  You will receive a notification on your Fivetran dashboard if we encounter errors.

Finish Fivetran configuration

Click Save & Test. Fivetran will take it from here and sync your data from your Box account.

Fivetran tests and validates the Box connection. On successful completion of the setup tests, you can sync your Box data to your destination.

Setup tests

Depending on your sync strategy, Fivetran performs the following Box connection tests:

(Both Magic Folder Mode and Merge Mode) The Connecting to Box API test validates the connection to your Box account and checks the accessibility of the files in the Folder URL path you specified in the setup form.
(Merge Mode) The Finding tables test validates if you have specified at least one table in the files field to set up the connection.
(Merge Mode) The Validating Regex File Pattern test validates all the file pattern regex you specified in the setup form.
(Merge Mode) The Validating Archive Pattern test validates the archive pattern regex you specified in the setup form. We perform this test only if you specify a regex in the Archive File Pattern field.
(Merge Mode) The Validating EscapeChar test validates the escape character you specified for your CSV files and checks the length of the character, which must not be more than one. We perform this test only if you specify an escape character in the Escape Character field.
The Validating Infer FileType test validates whether infer is added as a value in the file_type parameter for connections created using the API. We perform this test only if you have set up your connection using the API.
(Merge Mode) The Multi-Character Delimiter Support test validates the length of the delimiter, which must be within 15 characters. We perform this test only if you specify the delimiter for your CSV files in the Delimiter field.
(Merge Mode) The Validating Excel Cell Reference Per Table test validates the cell references provided when the toggle is 'ON' per table for Excel file type.
(Merge Mode) The Finding Matching Files test checks if the connection can successfully retrieve a minimum of one sample file and a maximum of ten sample files based on the configuration you specified in the setup form.