Feeds provide your base location inventory data to Google. This daily Secure
File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) upload updates all of your base merchant or entity
records. Feeds specify which merchants or locations you support and any required
attributes to confirm that Google displays your inventory properly. Feeds are
uploaded to the SFTP dropboxes that are configured when you submit your SSH key
in
[Account Setup](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/integration-steps/prerequisites/account-setup).

Before beginning the Offers feed onboarding, partners implementing a net new
integration must upload and validate one of the following base location feeds:

- **Either** : [Entity Feed](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/reference/feeds/entity-feed) (using [`Generic`](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/reference/tutorials/generic-sftp) configuration with `reservewithgoogle.entity`) --- *Recommended path unless
  specified otherwise*.
- **Or** : [Merchant Feed](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/reference/feeds/merchants-feed) (using legacy `Merchant` configuration) --- *Only for partners who have Dining
  E2E capability on their platforms*.

| Feed | Description | Frequency | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Entity (Recommended)](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/reference/feeds/entity-feed) | Describes your merchant entities (flexible Generic schema). | Once every 24 hours | [Entity Feed reference](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/reference/feeds/entity-feed) |
| [Merchant](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/reference/feeds/merchants-feed) | Describes your merchants (standard E2E schema for Dining E2E partners). | Once every 24 hours | [Merchant Feed reference](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/reference/feeds/merchants-feed) |

## Uploading the feeds to your SFTP dropbox

Once you generate your Merchant or Entity Feed, you can upload your feed files
to the Sandbox or Production environment through your assigned SFTP dropbox. The
SFTP dropbox is initialized when you submit your public SSH key in
[Account Setup](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/integration-steps/prerequisites/account-setup).

The Google SFTP server is located at `sftp://partnerupload.google.com` on
port 19321.

Google reviews and validates feed files as soon as they are uploaded to the SFTP
dropbox. If your feed contains errors, an email notification is sent to your
configured technical contacts detailing the
[feed error codes](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/reference/feeds/feed-errors).
Once ingestion succeeds and merchant location matching against Google Maps
passes validation (\> 50% match rate), you can proceed to implementing the
[Offers Feed](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/offers/integration-steps/offers-feed).