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Updating EA's from a DCT

SethHickel

I've found posts about deploying EA's and other activities around EA's but not anything specific to a requirement I have.

I would like to provide my users with the ability to use a DCT to enter EA values at the same time they are creating or editing a file. They have the need to add, via a DCT, metadata that will be included in the generated file (used for Endeca searches) as well as enter values for EA's that can be searched against within TeamSite ContentCenter. They do not want to enter this information twice: via the DCT and then as part of the tagging of the generated file.

Is it possible to capture values from the DCT and then use a call to apply those values as EA's to the generated file?

If this is possible can someone point me to examples or the correct InterWoven documentation that will help me research how to provide this solution and perhaps some hints as to the types of commands that I would need to invoke?

Thank you.

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nipper

It is possible ? Yes. Is it trival ? no.

There are a few ways to accomplish this. Initially put the data in the DCR.

Then after the save event has completed, run a callserver with the data to be created and push that to the EAs. The downside is that this is asyncronous and no real way to get feedback if the set ea fails. I also have never tried a callserver and close DCR. What happens to the call server running if parent process dies, it *should* continue.

You could also put this into the TPL or the workflow if the EAs can be set sometime later than the DCR change happened. IMHO, the WF is the best place, if the delay will not matter. It can check for errors easily and if there are a bunch of EAs to set a 10 second delay in a WF is no big deal but a 10 sec delay of a TPL would be.

Finally, if you are doing mulitple EAs, learn to love the XML mode for EAs. It will allow you to attach multiple EAs with one call. There are some thread you can search for with some examples.

HTH

Andy

SethHickel

Thank you. Any suggestions on how to narrow my thread search would be very helpful - or which documentation PDF to look at.

Thanks again.

nipper

Here is a thread that shows the XML mode. It was a pain to find.

For documentation, pick an approach first & then the docs will be easy to figure out.

SethHickel

Nipper - thanks and sorry for the time lapse in getting back to this thread ...

So - from your input and that 2002 post it sounds like it is possible to gather EA values in a template, create an XML file from those values and feed that file into a call to iwextattr from a workflow.

It sounds like the rub may be capturing any failures/errors produced and responding to them. Any experience with what happens if an EA has not been defined but is included in the XML?

I would assume that even with this CLT solution the following files would still need to be affected for any EA's not provided out of the box:
1. iwsearch-home\etc\FieldMapping.xml
2. iw-home\local/config/datacapture.cfg
3. \verity\vdk\style\style.dft
4. \verity\vdk\style\style.ufl

How would you rate this solution with respect to best practices? It sure would save my users a lot of time since they want to have the values both as metadata in the generated files and in the EA's for internal TeamSite search using drop downs in the advanced search interface.

Thanks.

Adam Stoller

Nipper - thanks and sorry for the time lapse in getting back to this thread ...

So - from your input and that 2002 post it sounds like it is possible to gather EA values in a template, create an XML file from those values and feed that file into a call to iwextattr from a workflow.

It sounds like the rub may be capturing any failures/errors produced and responding to them. Any experience with what happens if an EA has not been defined but is included in the XML?

I would assume that even with this CLT solution the following files would still need to be affected for any EA's not provided out of the box:
1. iwsearch-home\etc\FieldMapping.xml
2. iw-home\local/config/datacapture.cfg
3. \verity\vdk\style\style.dft
4. \verity\vdk\style\style.ufl

How would you rate this solution with respect to best practices? It sure would save my users a lot of time since they want to have the values both as metadata in the generated files and in the EA's for internal TeamSite search using drop downs in the advanced search interface.

Thanks.

Any metadata added to the file (via iwextattr calls) will not be visible within the Metadata Capture form unless that form is configured to display it - however - the metadata itself will remain, even if you modify the metadata in the Metadata Capture form and save it - the "hidden" metadata remains (at least in 6.7.1 SP1 P2 on Solaris - where I just tested it)

As for the other files - '1' is important if you want the metadata to be searchable, '2' is important if you want the metadata to be visible within the Tag UI. I'm not sure about '3' and '4' - I see no reference to those files in any documentation, but then I've done very little with TS Search thus far.

gzevin

I've found posts about deploying EA's and other activities around EA's but not anything specific to a requirement I have.

I would like to provide my users with the ability to use a DCT to enter EA values at the same time they are creating or editing a file. They have the need to add, via a DCT, metadata that will be included in the generated file (used for Endeca searches) as well as enter values for EA's that can be searched against within TeamSite ContentCenter. They do not want to enter this information twice: via the DCT and then as part of the tagging of the generated file.

Is it possible to capture values from the DCT and then use a call to apply those values as EA's to the generated file?

If this is possible can someone point me to examples or the correct InterWoven documentation that will help me research how to provide this solution and perhaps some hints as to the types of commands that I would need to invoke?

Thank you.

I would advise strongly against using DCRs to store metadata. This is a deprecated technique and the tagging needs to be used to ensure future compatibility with the MetaTagger and also user experience.

Do not forget, that of (partially) from 6.7.1 SP1 and now with 6.7.2 you have the tagging UI as being identical to DCT, so the users potentially would not even notice the difference.

But yes, if you want to do this, you can, and this is not hard at all, despite nipper telling you so.

SethHickel

Thank you for your reply.

A clarification: What my users want is the ability to enter values for EA's in the same DCT that generates the file (in most cases html). They are trying to avoid using the tagging UI, which I had started to affect for the additional EA's they wanted to track.

For some reason they think it necessary to store as metadata in the generated html files the same key/value relationships that they want maintained in the EA's of the file. What I am trying to do is provide them with a way to enter the values once in the DCT, create an XML file from those values and feed that file into a call to iwextattr from a workflow.

I'm not 100% sure why the business need to have the same key/value pair in both metadata in the generated htmla and in the EA's - just trying to fulfill the requirment.

Seth

gzevin

Thank you for your reply.

A clarification: What my users want is the ability to enter values for EA's in the same DCT that generates the file (in most cases html). They are trying to avoid using the tagging UI, which I had started to affect for the additional EA's they wanted to track.

For some reason they think it necessary to store as metadata in the generated html files the same key/value relationships that they want maintained in the EA's of the file. What I am trying to do is provide them with a way to enter the values once in the DCT, create an XML file from those values and feed that file into a call to iwextattr from a workflow.

I'm not 100% sure why the business need to have the same key/value pair in both metadata in the generated htmla and in the EA's - just trying to fulfill the requirment.

Seth

what you need is to understand exactly the business needs and start calling things using right terms, at least in TeamSite terms. so far you are really confused and are over complicating the simple issue. Maybe it's because of your lack of experience with TeamSite and the metadata use in it.

try to spell out what you want, without mapping out the solution first.

SethHickel

gzevin: I'll not make the claim that I am a TeamSite guru and I appreciate all responses. I do understand what my users want - I am at the point of scoping out solutions that make sense from an InterWoven product and process perspective.

My users want two things: key value pairs as metadata in the file that is generated from a TeamSite template using the "meta" element AND for those same key value pairs entered in the template form to be stored as TeamSite extended attributes of the generated file for internal searching using the advanced search interface. They do not want to have to use the tagging interface to tag the generated file with TeamSite extended attributes.

Ghoti: Thank you for your repsonse. I've affected both the tagging interface and the search interface for the additional extended attributes that the business want to capture and search against.

So - let me go off and try and implement a solution.

Thanks to all.

Adam Stoller

gzevin: I'll not make the claim that I am a TeamSite guru and I appreciate all responses. I do understand what my users want - I am at the point of scoping out solutions that make sense from an InterWoven product and process perspective.

My users want two things: key value pairs as metadata in the file that is generated from a TeamSite template using the "meta" element AND for those same key value pairs entered in the template form to be stored as TeamSite extended attributes of the generated file for internal searching using the advanced search interface. They do not want to have to use the tagging interface to tag the generated file with TeamSite extended attributes.

Ghoti: Thank you for your repsonse. I've affected both the tagging interface and the search interface for the additional extended attributes that the business want to capture and search against.

So - let me go off and try and implement a solution.

Thanks to all.

You could handle the EA part either in FormAPI callServer code before the Save event, or in the PT (break out into an iw_perl block, retrieve all the values, create a temporary file and then apply them to the DCR with a single call to iwextattr).

The FormAPI method is perhaps a bit cleaner in an end-to-end solution because, presumably, if someone did change an EA through the tagger interface you'd want to make sure that change got reflected correctly within the DCR the next time someone went to edit it. If you're using 671SP1 and tagging individual files, or 672 and tagging individual or multiple files - you should probably be able to do the callServer from the tagging UI to effect the change to the contents of the DCR when the EAs are changed - otherwise you'd need to do a callServer on form loading of the DCR to retrieve the values from the EAs then.