Box Data Targets

Overview

DataBlend supports the following data targets for creating and modifying records in Box.

• Collaborations
• File Requests
• Files
• Transfer Folder
• Upload Files

Configuration

Advanced

History Retention

History Retention (Days) allows users to decide how long they want the information from their data targets to be stored. This field is optional.

Timeout (seconds)

The Timeout section allows users to determine if they would like to timeout collections taking longer than a set number of seconds to collect data.

Skip If No Records Found

The “Skip if No Records Found” button is used to eliminate sending information to Data Targets unnecessarily. Simply enable the “Skip if No Records Found” toggle. The use of this toggle is optional.

Agent

Run As allows users to select from a drop-down list of users to run the Workflow. This is optional. Please note that Run As is only available to Admin users. If a user is set as the Run As and then demoted to a Member, the user which demoted the Run As user will instead be set as the Run As.

Run As

Run As allows users to select from a drop-down list of users to run the Workflow. This is optional.

Collaborations

Manages collaborations (sharing permissions) on Box files and folders.

Available roles:

File Requests

Manages Box File Requests.

Files

Manages existing Box files.

Transfer Folder

Transfers ownership of a user's entire Box account contents to another user. This is an administrative operation typically used during employee offboarding.

Warning: This transfers all content from the source user's account. This action cannot be easily undone.

Upload Files

Uploads files to Box.

Mode 1 - Direct upload (single file):

The input stream is uploaded directly as a single file.

Mode 2 - Batch upload from data:

Each row in the data is uploaded as a separate file.

Note: Files larger than 50 MB are automatically uploaded using Box's chunked upload API. No configuration is needed - Datablend handles this transparently.

Common Concepts

Nested Fields

When Box returns nested data (e.g., a file's owner), the fields are flattened using dot notation. For example:
```json
{
  "owned\_by": {
    "id": "12345",
    "name": "Jane Smith"
  }
}```
Becomes two columns: `owned_by.id` and `owned_by.name`.
Array values are stored as JSON strings (e.g., `["tag1", "tag2"]`).

Rate Limiting

Box enforces API rate limits. If the plugin hits a rate limit (HTTP 429), it automatically waits and retries with exponential backoff. No action is required on your part, but large operations may take longer as a result.

Duplicate Handing

When a datasink receives multiple rows with the same identifier and operation type, duplicates are automatically skipped. Only the first occurrence is processed.