Synagro Replaces Manual FileZilla Pulls From UltiPro With Files.com

Synagro Technologies manages organic residuals and biosolids across distributed field and scale-house sites in North America, collecting, treating, and returning municipal and industrial organic waste streams to beneficial use.

The data follows the same pattern. It lives in systems Synagro owns and systems it does not: scale-house software, an in-house application, a NetSuite ERP, and vendor SaaS platforms. Payroll sits at the far end of that spectrum. Synagro runs it on UltiPro, and the general ledger (GL) files it produces have to come back out for the rest of the business.

The workflow survived because the source system was not Synagro's to change. UltiPro was the vendor's platform. Synagro could not install software inside it or change how it exposed files, so the obvious fixes were off the table. Any replacement had to meet the payroll system exactly as it was.

Payroll Files Left UltiPro by Hand

Getting them out was a manual job. Someone at Synagro opened FileZilla, a desktop FTP client, connected to UltiPro, and pulled the GL files down by hand. FileZilla offered no schedule, so the retrieval happened only when a person was there to run it. It offered no cleanup step either, so the exported files sat in the payroll system until someone removed those too.

The whole path lived on a workstation, outside the site-wide access controls Synagro used for other file traffic. A recurring movement of payroll data depended on a person remembering to do it.

That set the requirements. The fix had to reach the vendor's system over the connection it already offered, run on a schedule with no person involved, delete the source files once they were safely retrieved, and put the path under real access controls. Synagro selected Files.com to be that layer.

Mounting the Vendor's Payroll System as a Folder

Synagro's IT team connected UltiPro to its Files.com site as a Remote Server Mount, so the payroll system's files appeared there as an ordinary folder. Nothing was installed at UltiPro and nothing changed on the vendor's side; the mount spoke to the interface the vendor already exposed.

Once the files were addressable as a folder, they belonged to the same automation engine as everything else on the site. A scheduled Files.com Automation retrieved the payroll GL files, and a scheduled delete removed them from UltiPro after retrieval, so stale exports did not build up at the source.

The retrieval also ran inside a site Synagro had hardened. Its IT team required two-factor authentication for users and restricted which countries connections could come from, so the payroll path sat behind the same controls as the rest of the company's file traffic.

A Scheduled Pull Under One Set of Controls

With the mount and Automations in production, Synagro replaced a person-and-a-client workflow with a scheduled retrieval that no longer depends on someone being there to run it.

• The pull is unattended. Nobody connects a desktop FTP client to the payroll system, and the retrieval no longer depends on a particular person or workstation being available.
• The source stays clean. Retrieved GL files are deleted from UltiPro on a schedule, so old payroll exports do not sit in the vendor's system waiting for someone to remember them.
• The path is governed. Payroll files now move inside a site protected by two-factor authentication and country restrictions, controls a standalone FTP client never carried.

The payroll flow also stopped being an exception. It now runs on the same Files.com site as Synagro's machine-to-machine traffic, including integrations involving its in-house application, NetSuite, Celigo, FIS, and scale-house systems. Connecting payroll took a mount and a schedule rather than another standalone tool.

Automating a System Synagro Does Not Control

The instructive part is what Synagro never had to do: ask its payroll vendor for a new export or any change inside UltiPro. Files.com met the system as the vendor exposed it and moved the human step into automation on Synagro's own site. Nobody at Synagro carries that job anymore.