Deliver by DDEX (API or SFTP)

If your label or distribution business has its own catalog system, you can send releases to HILLS Music as DDEX ERN messages instead of typing them in. DDEX delivery is for partners only; artists and labels, direct ones included, use Bulk upload.

Full technical details (folder layout, markers, endpoints, scopes and test reports) are on the developer site: DDEX deliveries and Test folder.

Three ways in

Way	How	Who
Portal	Import → DDEX inbox: deliver a zip, or the XML with its files	Every partner
SFTP	Your inbox’s /production and /test folders	Every partner, once the login is set up
API	POST /v1/ddex with an API key (scope ddex:write)	Partners on Enterprise and Custom plans

Whichever way a batch arrives, it’s handled the same way and listed under DDEX inbox → Batches.

What happens to a batch

1. The batch is read and checked: the XML, the HILLS rules, the audio, artwork and video files, and UPCs and ISRCs against the catalog.
2. Each release becomes a draft on the account it’s for: your own catalog, or one of your artists or labels.
3. You check the drafts and submit them, or let them submit themselves (below). They then go through review and delivery to the stores as usual.

A release that already exists as a draft with the same UPC is updated. Takedowns and updates of releases in review or live are never applied automatically: they’re flagged for our team.

The batch shows what was done: drafts created, music videos, releases left out and why, and messages that couldn’t be read.

Test first

You can test a message or a whole batch before you deliver it. A test runs every check a delivery gets and creates nothing: no release, recording, artist, code or delivery.

• Portal: DDEX inbox → Test, with an ERN message or a package. Choose an account to also check UPCs and ISRCs against its catalog. Sample ERN files are there to compare against.
• SFTP: upload into /test/<batch>/; the report is written next to it.
• API: POST /v1/ddex/validate.

Tests are listed under Test reports on the DDEX page.

Set up your SFTP inbox

Each account gets exactly one SFTP login for DDEX deliveries, under DDEX inbox → SFTP accounts. Depending on your setup, you make it yourself or our team makes it for you.

1. Pick its username. It can’t be changed later.
2. Choose how it signs in: a password (generated and shown once), an SSH public key, or both.
3. Note the host, port, username and host key shown on the page.
4. Use Test the connection: upload any small file such as ping.txt into /test. The page turns green when it arrives.

Deliver into /production/<batch>/: the ERN XML and the files it points to, finished by its marker (BatchComplete_*.xml or any *.complete). A batch folder that never gets its marker is removed after 7 days.

Submit automatically

Tick Submit for review automatically when a delivered release is complete to skip the manual submit. Off, releases stay drafts until you submit them. The setting applies to the portal, the API and SFTP.

The API

The API belongs to partners on Enterprise and Custom plans. It uses one kind of key (hm_live_…), made on your Developers page. Start with the developer documentation.