Managing Alfred Inflow

Managing jobs

The import of the files and their associated metadata is organized in jobs, which can be scheduled or executed manually.
On the main page, there is an overview of all jobs that are configured.

Alfred Inflow Dashboard

For each job the dashboard shows: * the name of the job * a summary of the previous run: time, number of documents and number of failed documents * the current status

Adding a job

To add a job, click on the button in the top left corner of the job table. You will be redirected to a form that let’s you configure the new job.

Creating a job

Some job parameters explained:

  • Extension
    The extension of the files that should be used for this job. E.g. *.pdf indicates only pdf files need to be processed by the metadata processor. At the moment, only one extension can be entered.
  • Destination server
    The Alfresco server where the files should be uploaded. See ‘Managing destinations’ section for more info.
  • Destination path
    The path of the folder in Alfresco where the files should be uploaded.
  • Schedules
    This setting can be used to trigger a job periodically or on a given point in time. Any chron job expression can be se to trigger a job run. Cron expressions can be easily generated with some handy tools.
  • Command before
    The command specified in this box, will be triggered before the job starts processing documents. You can use this to run scripts etc.
  • Metadata processor
    a.k.a. parser. Specify which metadata processor or parser will be used to for this job. Xenit provides some out of the box metadata processors, but mostly custom processors are used. The following parsers are available out of the box:
    • CsvMetadataLoader
    • EmptyMetadataAction
    • FileSystemMetadataAction
  • Metadata parameters
    A set of metadata that will be attached to all documents uploaded in this job.
  • Command after
    Similar to command before, you can also configure to execute a command after the documents are processed.
  • Allow residual properties
    Indicates if it is allowed to add properties that are not recognized by the document model installed on the destination Alfresco. If this is disabled and an unknown property gets uploaded, an exception will be thrown. This is deprecated
  • Disable packaging documents
    By default, Alfred Inflow packages documents to upload them in one transaction. If one document of the package fails, the entire package fails. For one document that goes in the document, all the documents the parser emits will be packaged.
    For e.g. CSV uploads, this can give problems since for 1 file that goes in the parser, a package with a lot of documents will be created. If one of these documents fail, the entire batch fails.
    Use this setting to disable the packaging behaviour of Alfred Inflow. If packaging is disabled, each file that comes out of the parser will be uploaded separately.
  • Move before processing to path
    Path where files should be moved, before starting to process the document.
  • Move loaded files to path
    If filled in, files that are successfully uploaded to Alfresco, will be moved to this folder.
  • Move not loaded files to path
    If filled in, files that failed uploading to Alfresco, will be moved to this folder.
  • Move unprocessed files to path
    Files that are not uploaded to Alfresco but keep behind the upload folder (e.g files that provide metadata), can also be moved to a directory with this setting.
    Not: this will not have effect on the files that are moved within the parser.
  • Send notification e-mails on error to If enabled, will send notifications to the provided e-mail addresses on error.
  • Relaxed unprocessed reporting If checked, no error report mails will be sent out when only new unprocessed files and no errors are encountered. However if an unprocessed file also occurred in a previous cycle, a report will be sent.
  • Send load reporting e-mails to If checked, will send load reports to the provided e-mail addresses.

Editing a job

To edit a job, click on the pencil icon on the left of the job. The same form for creating a job will appear and all the settings can be updated.

Deleting a job

To delete a job, click on the pencil icon on the left of the job. In the edit job window, scroll to the bottom and click the delete button.

Running a job

To run a job manually, click on the RUN button on the right. After refreshing the page, the status of the job will change to Running. The RUN button will change in a STOP button that can be used to stop the execution of the job.

Dashboard with a running job

Managing destinations

Destinations are Alfresco repositories. In order to move documents from a filesystem into an Alfresco repository, first the user has to define the destination.
The destination overview page lists all created destinations.

Destinations

Create a destination

To create a new destination, click the AlfrescoHttp button.

Creating a destination

Explanation of the parameters:

  • Name
    The name of the destination, this can be whatever you want. This is only used to specify the destination in the job form.
  • URL
    The URL to the Alfresco destination. Has to be of format: {{scheme}}://{{host}}:{{port}}/alfresco/service or {{scheme}}://{{host}}:{{port}}/alfresco/s. Note that there should be no ending backslash.
  • Username
    The username of the account that we want to use to upload the documents.
  • Password
    The password of the account that we want to use to upload the documents.
  • Number of store content threads
    On the Alfred Inflow backend, the first thing we do is storing the content to Alfresco. This number indicates how many threads we will used to upload content.
  • Number of create node threads
    After storing the content, the backend will try to create the node for the document. This number indicates how many threads will be used to create the nodes.
  • Create node transaction size
    This number indicates how many packages will be stored in a single transaction. E.g. 250 means that the Inflow backend tries to upload 250 packages of documents in a single transaction. Nevertheless, if the transaction fails, all packages will be retried individually.
    Be careful: The more threads that are used, the heavier this will be on the processor. A balance must be found between upload speed and processing power.
  • Max buffered reports If a document is created, a report will be buffered in the backend to send back to the client. This number indicates how manny reports may be buffered maximally in the Alfred Inflow backend.

Managing users

The users page gives an overview of all created users.

Users

A user account identifies who can use the Alfred Inflow application.

To create a user, click on the icon in the top left corner of the table.
To edit a user, click on the pencil on the left of the column of that user.
To delete a user, click on the bin icon on the right of the column of that user.

User roles

Assign a role to the user account to specify the tasks the user is allowed to perform.

The following table summarizes the roles with their associated tasks. Every role also has access to all the tasks of lower roles.

Role Explanation Task
System admin A system admin has access to all aspects of the application. View users
Add user
Delete user
Change user’s password
Job admin A job admin defines jobs. Create job
Edit job
Delete job
Schedule admin A schedule admin decides when jobs have to run. Add schedule to job
Delete schedule
Edit schedule
Run job on demand
Consumer A consumer views job reports. View (running) jobs/schedules
View report
Export report
Change own password

Depending on the role of the user the web interface will contain a subset of the available tabs.