The source data flat files can have any extension. The rows can have any string as the row or column delimiter, as long as the delimiter is supported by Data Vault. The number of rows in each flat file file must be less than 2 billion.

The order of column data in the flat file must match the order of columns in the master XML file, because ssaservice uses the ordering information when it parses the flat file to get column values. For optimal Data Vault performance, the recommended size of a flat file is from 100MB to 5GB and the recommended number of rows is 1 million to 10 million.

You must create a signal file named

<BCP-FILE-NAME>.ok

to signal to the bulk file uploader that the flat file is ready to be loaded to Data Vault. When you are ready to run the bulk file uploader, save the

<BCP-FILE-NAME>.ok

file in the directory where the flat file is located. This directory is specified by the FILE_PATH value in the master XML file. The contents of the file itself are irrelevant and you can leave the file empty.