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About the Raw Data Files (RDFs)

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The raw data files (RDFs) are CSV files that you receive from Galileo once per day. These files contain low-level extracts of the prior day’s activity from Galileo's databases.

The files are securely delivered each day. With the raw data you can build your own data store to compare with your production database, build statements and reports, and provide your customers with long-term transaction histories.

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Note

RDFs are available in Production but not in CV.

Base RDFs

This standard RDF suite is provided as the default set of RDFs. Click each file to see the field definitions.

Service RDFs

These files contain enhanced data on basic functionality in the Galileo system. Click each file to see the field definitions.

  • Expired Authorizations — Data on authorizations that expired the previous day. (The time elapsed between authorization and expiry is based on your program's settings.)
  • Settlement — A BIN-summary report that is the equivalent of the Settlement Bin - Summary report in gAnalytics. It includes all of the settled transactions per BIN.
  • Dispute and Chargeback — Dispute information for the prior day. It is similar to the Dispute Tracker Log report in gAnalytics. Includes all current (open) disputes, so an open dispute will be included every day until it is closed.
    • Reg E — Disputes that fall under Regulation E
    • Reg Z — Disputes that fall under Regulation Z
  • MC SAFE — The SAFE report that was sent to Mastercard over the last seven days, which is a BIN settlement summary report (similar to gAnalytics).

Product RDFs

These files contain data that are specific to a Galileo product or feature. Click each file to see the field definitions.

  • Overdraft Details — Information related to overdraft accounts.
  • Early ACH — Data for incoming ACH credit transactions that were posted early, along with the number of days they were posted early.
  • ACH Returns — Data on ACH transactions that were returned on the previous day.
  • Incoming ACH — Data on all incoming ACH transactions for the prior day, including both ACH debits and ACH credits.
  • Outgoing ACH — Data on all outgoing ACH transactions for the prior day, including both ACH debits and ACH credits.
  • ISS — Data on savings account interest accrual, interest year-to-date, and annual percentage yield earned for a savings account
  • Frequent Disputer — Dispute-related data on individual accounts, including statistics on dispute frequency and funds lost and won.
  • Direct Deposit Switch — Data on direct deposits set up using the switch.
  • B2B Customer Master Supplemental — Showing which RTF or Corporate Credit funding accounts are linked to which spending accounts.
  • MSI Installments — Data on MSI installments, a Mexico product.
  • Bad PAN Authorizations — Authorization requests from card numbers with your BIN, but the PAN does not exist in the Galileo system.
  • Fleet Data — Data on all transaction activity of fleet-card profiles along with additional level 2 and 3 data.

Legacy Base RDFs

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Important

The legacy RDFs will be discontinued on 15 Jan 2025. Work with Galileo to migrate to the CSV Base RDFs.

Formerly the default suite, these fixed-width files include only a subset of all possible fields in each file. Click each file to see the field definitions.

Headers and trailers

The first row of each RDF contains the column names, and the last row contains the string TTRAILER xxxxx, with xxxxx representing the number of records in the file.

RDF samples

Galileo has sample Base RDFs that you can see for example values and formats. In addition, you can consult the card transaction scenarios to see examples of how different transaction types are represented in the Authorized Transactions and Posted Transactions RDFs.

Accessing the files

The RDFs are generated early every morning and contain activity from the previous calendar day, which is from 00:00:00 (midnight) to 23:59:59 Galileo system time.

  • Because Galileo generates many different RDFs every day, availability times are staggered throughout the morning. Consult with Galileo for the times when you can expect your files to be ready.
  • In general, the Base RDFs are available a few hours before the other RDFs.

Galileo uses Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) to deliver RDFs. You can arrange to retrieve the files from Galileo's SFTP server, or Galileo can push the files to your SFTP server. Connections are secured using SSH keys.

RDF filenames include a date, formatted as %Y%m%d. The date represents the day when the file was generated, so a file that is dated 20271010 contains data from October 9, 2027. The precise filename format is provided in the reference section for each file.

  • The RDFs are comma-separated value files (CSVs).
  • The files are PGP-encrypted using your public PGP key.
  • By default, Galileo consolidates the data for all of your programs into one RDF. You can also request that Galileo perform extra setup work to create one file for each UNIQUE PROGRAM ID.

Exceptions

  • If there is no activity in your program during a calendar day, you will receive files that contain headers and footers but no records.
  • If there is a system or connectivity failure that prevents the files from being delivered at the usual time, the files will be delivered as soon as it is possible instead of waiting until the next day.
  • If there is a problem with the files, and a corrected file must be sent, Galileo will notify you through established channels what the corrected filename is.

PCI compliance

Some of the fields contain PCI-sensitive information. If you are PCI compliant, you have the option of requesting that these values be masked or replaced by spaces. If you are not PCI-compliant, these values will be replaced by spaces:

  • CARD NUMBER (PAN)
  • ID when ID TYPE: 2 (Social Security number)
  • DATE OF BIRTH

Building a datastore

Galileo strongly recommends that you use the RDFs to create a datastore of transactions and customer records that is separate from the production or caching datastore that you create from the Events API or Program API. (For more information on building a caching database see the Transaction History guide.)

Use the RDF-based datastore to:

  • Ensure that there are no missing or incorrect transactions in your production database. Where there are discrepancies between the RDFs and your records, you should consider the RDFs to be authoritative.
  • Run reports and perform data analysis when large queries would overly tax your live production environment.
  • Produce longer-term transaction histories in your app or on your website instead of using costly endpoint calls to Get Transaction History or other Program API endpoints.

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Tip

Because RDFs are daily differential files instead of complete histories, you can read the files into your own data histories every day, which allows you to maintain a complete history by stitching together each day’s entries.

Keep in mind that when you are the system of record, the Galileo system may not have all of your transactions, depending on which transactions you report to Galileo. For example, Galileo may not have your card loads or other deposits.

Performing queries across tables

With each RDF in its own table you can perform complex queries. If you need to join two Base RDF tables in a query, join on these two fields:

  • UNIQUE PROGRAM ID
  • GALILEO ACCOUNT ID

With other RDFs, select fields that uniquely identify the account or transaction:

  • auth_id + network_code uniquely identifies card transactions
  • pmt_ref_no uniquely identifies an account
  • bal_id uniquely identifies balances, though you should keep in mind that multiple accounts can transact on the same balance

Building statements

See Creating Statements from the RDFs for instructions on using your RDF datastore to build customized statements for your customers.

Updated about 1 month ago

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