Overview

Data Axle delivery options fall under two categories: Search and Subscribe.

Search

Business data is looked up and retrieved on demand from the Data Axle real-time database.

Subscribe

Listen to a specific set of of businesses or type of update. Retrieve new updates over an API or with files.

Search Options

Any field can be used to match and filter business records. All results are live, real-time data.

The Data Axle Search API is a familiar interface for finding best matches. Advanced customers use the Scan API to retrieve an entire list of records matching a filter.

Subscribe Options

Data Axle supports a powerful suite of ways to subscribe to the business database. Understanding these options requires definition of terms:

Subscription - Defines attributes and records to deliver, along with the format and frequency of delivery.

Changes API - A real-time feed of all transactions for a subscription.

Scheduled Snapshot - A point-in-time capture of all records in a subscription, generated on a schedule.

Incremental Delivery - Contains only records that changed within a time period, generated on a schedule.

Diff Delivery - A comparison between two snapshots and includes only records with changes.

Standalone Snapshot - A point-in-time capture of records, without an ongoing schedule.

Delivery Frequency

The frequency required helps determine the recommended type of delivery.

File Formats

Data Axle supports JSON, XML, and CSV as output formats for file deliveries.

The JSON format best represents Data Axle data, supporting types and nested structures. Files are delivered as newline-delimited JSON objects. Read more about the Data Axle Delivery Schema.

Retrieving Delivery Files

All delivery files are available over the File Delivery API and within the Data Axle web interface.

• Automate downloads of Scheduled Snapshots and Incremental Deliveries with the File Delivery API.
• Use the web interface to retrieve an initial set of sample data or a standalone delivery.

Regardless of type, a delivery is comprised of various types of files:

Data Files - Contain business records. Large feeds are split into smaller, manageable files with a numeric suffix. Each file maxes out to about a million records.

Insight Files - Fill rates, value frequencies and max lengths for each field in the delivery.

Sample Files - 1000 records in the same format as the data files. Samples are only available for snapshot deliveries.

Schema Files - Describe the fields and layout of the data files.