Ingestion Viewer

The Ingestion Viewer (accessible under Ingestion > History in the Actions Center) provides near real-time visibility into the status, validation health, and processing history of local point of interest feeds.

Use the Ingestion Viewer to track daily feed uploads, monitor ingestion health, inspect item-level validation error stats, and verify the arrival of feed files.

Overview

The main Ingestion Viewer page displays a reverse-chronological log of every feed received by Google.

Ingestion lifecycle phases

Each feed submission progresses through the following sequential processing stages:

  1. File Acquisition: Google receives the feed file using SFTP.
  2. File Validation: The system verifies file integrity, decompression, and overall schema format.
  3. Entity Extraction & Validation: The pipeline parses individual local records (poi_id, address, coordinates, localizations) and checks for syntax, completeness, and policy compliance.
  4. Reconciliation & Matching: Valid entities pass to Google's matching engine to link with canonical Google Place IDs for serving.
  5. Report Generation: Summary metrics and grouped issue diagnostics are published to the Ingestion Viewer.

To view your feed ingestion history, complete the following steps:

  1. Sign in to the Actions Center.
  2. Open the Ingestion > History page.
  3. Filter, sort, and view the ingestion table using the column controls.

Ingestion list columns

The main summary table provides the following columns for each ingestion run:

Column Data Type Description
ID String Unique identifier for the ingestion run.
Ingested time (UTC) Timestamp Date and time (in UTC) when Google began processing the feed ingestion.
Ingestion type Enum Type of data acquisition (e.g., Feed).
Name String Name for the type of feed ingestion. This will be google.local_vss.
Status State Overall processing state of the ingestion (e.g. Done, Failed). See Status definitions.
Ingestion behavior Enum All local POI feeds are processed in Batch mode.
Errors Integer Total count of blocking error-level validation issues detected.
Warnings Integer Total count of non-blocking warning-level issues detected.
Items Integer Total number of local properties processed in this ingestion.

Status definitions

The Status column indicates the current operational state of a feed submission:

  • Done (STATUS_COMPLETE): The feed was successfully ingested, validated, and processed without fatal errors.
  • Failed (STATUS_FAILED): The ingestion encountered fatal schema, file corruption, or pipeline errors and couldn't complete.
  • Processing (STATUS_PROCESSING): Google is actively validating, matching, and storing the feed data.
  • Skipped (NOT_STARTED): The feed upload was skipped (for example, if the generation timestamp is older than a previously processed feed).

Ingestion Details View

Click any row in the Ingestion Viewer table to open the Ingestion Details View. This view provides comprehensive diagnostic cards and expansion panels for debugging issues.

Detail panels

The Ingestion Details page is divided into four expandable sections:

1. Basic info

Displays core metadata about the execution run:

  • Ingested time (UTC): Timestamp when Google started ingestion.
  • Ingestion type: Feed.
  • Name: google.local_vss
  • Ingestion behavior: Batch
  • Status: Color-coded status badge (Done, Failed, Processing, Skipped).

2. Validations

Lists all validation findings encountered during ingestion:

  • File Errors (Callout Box): If the entire feed file failed (for example, due to an unreadable archive or malformed JSON syntax), a prominent warning callout displays the root cause message.
  • Entity Issues (Accordion Table): Item-level validation issues grouped by severity and error code.
    • Issue Code: Specific error identifier (such as INVALID_ATTRIBUTE_VALUE, MISSING_RECOMMENDED_FIELD, or SAFE_SEARCH_POLICY_VIOLATION_TEXT).
    • Issue Info: Diagnostic description explaining the root cause and affected fields.
    • Records: The total count of property entities impacted by this issue.
    • Click any issue row to expand sample entity IDs (poi_ids) with direct links to inspect the properties in the Inventory Viewer.

3. Items

Provides item-level inventory delta scorecards for the ingestion run:

  • Total: Total number of local properties processed.
  • Added: Count of newly discovered business listings added to your catalog.
  • Changed: Count of existing properties whose attributes (e.g., name, address, coordinates, or images) were updated.
  • Removed: Count of properties dropped or omitted compared to the previous feed baseline.

4. Files

Displays the name of the uploaded feed file:

  • File Name: Name of the feed file (for example, local_feed.json.gz).

Troubleshooting Ingestion Failures

When troubleshooting feeds in the Ingestion Viewer, use the following guidelines:

Symptom Probable Cause Recommended Action
Status is Failed with File Error Corrupt ZIP/GZIP archive, malformed JSON syntax, or unsupported file encoding. Verify your feed is packaged correctly using the Feed Packaging Guidelines.
High Errors count in Validations Required schema fields (such as poi_id, structured location.address, or WGS84 coordinates) are missing from records. Review the expanded Validations accordion to identify the offending poi_ids, correct your POI feed pipelines, and re-import the feed.
Zero Items processed Feed file is empty or records failed root-level JSON array parsing. Check that your feed wrapper structure conforms to the VssPoi message specification. Refer to the Feed Packaging Guidelines.