Minutes and seconds wildcard specifiers preventing file selection from Safehouse in automation Studio activity

Question

Within Automation Studio we have a Data Extract activity that results in a csv file in safehouse. The issue we are experiencing is that the file naming pattern requires minutes and seconds eg

Filename_%%Day%%%%Month%%%%Year%%%%Hour%%%%Minutes%%%%Seconds%%.csv

Because of the minutes and seconds wildcard specifiers we are then unable to proceed with the automation next step which requires another data extract activity for the purposes of converting the file from utf-16 to utf-8 as it is impossible to know what the value of minutes and seconds would be and the same wildcard specifiers just return current minutes and seconds. Therefore the automation fails at this step.

If you have any suggestions on how to handle this would be very much appreciated

Also worth noting the automation is triggered by schedule not file drop.

Answer 1

Have you considered using the FILENAME_FROM_TRIGGER substitution string?

Use substitution strings in a file transfer activity or import activity in Marketing Cloud Automation Studio.

Place these substitution strings in the File Naming Pattern field of a file transfer activity or import activity. Use these strings to reuse the trigger file in a subsequent step of a file drop automation.

%%FILENAME_FROM_TRIGGER%%

This string returns the name of the file placed in the FTP folder. Prefixes, suffixes, and file extensions are not allowed. The automation engine doesn’t read file extensions, so any characters that follow the final dot [.] in a file name are excised.

Read more here: https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=sf.mc_as_substitution_strings_example.htm&language=en_US