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Expire Content notification

kellyrmilligan

Hello, I am still new to developing templates, workflow, etc, and am starting a project that requires sending an email prior to a piece of content's expiration date. I would think this would be done via workflow, but am unsure where to start. Any ideas?

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Comments

sajiddc

Start the job (i.e an usertask), attach the file to the job, and then transition to a dummytask with a timeout element. After the dummytask completes, transition to an externaltask to send out the email and then expire the content.

BTW, does expiring a piece of content means that you need to delete it??

Sorry, but your post was not very clear.

kellyrmilligan

That makes sense, I don't need to delete the content, just let the business user know when it it up for review. This could be months and months though. There is an input for a date on the DCT, and I want to send an email to whoever created the DCR a specified amount of time before this date field on the file. Is this still the answer? Thanks for your response..

mogoo

We have a cron job that runs nightly, checking the value of the "archive date" field in the DCRs. When the cron finds a page up for archival, it puts it into a workflow.
maureen

Bubas_IWOV

Hi would it be possible for you to send me that cron script as i have the need of a script just like to my current job.

thanks in advance
Bruno

mogoo

We don't have exactly what's being discussed here. But let's take, for example, a press release section. Within pr, we have "current" and "archived". Basically, the day before a page is due to become archived, we regenerate it through the archive tpl. Those pages are then put into a workflow for approval. I'll walk you through the basics of how we've set it up...

We've set up a "crondata" workarea in our branch, where the only one checking files/making edits in this workarea are our automated processes, including cron jobs. So every night, crondata is iwupdated. This assures that you're working with the latest staging files, and there's nothing "in progress" in the workarea.

Here it depends on the specifics of what you're trying to do. You can use this to find today's date on your server...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
use Time::Local;
#figures out the current date in YYYYMMDD format
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) =localtime(time);
$year = $year + 1900;
$mon = $mon + 1;
if (length($mday) < 2){ $mday = "0$mday"; }
if (length($mon) < 2){ $mon = "0$mon"; }
my $today = "$year$mon$mday";
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We find the only html pages through File::Find. We start with the html files to assure we're only getting live pages, not any DCRs in progress (not yet live or previously expired pages).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
use File::Find;
find(\&name_files, @directory);
sub name_files {
@dirs = $File::Find::dir;
foreach $d(@dirs){
@files = $File::Find::name;
foreach $f(@files) {
if ($f =~ /\.html|\.htm/ig){
push(@htmlfiles, $f);
}
}
}
}
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, check the value of its DCR's Archival Date field against the $today variable. Pages that are due to expire can be pushed into an array -- in the example below, the @expiredfiles array. At that point, instantiate an xml approval workflow, then push the files of the array into the workflow using iwaddtaskfile.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
my $jobid = `$iwhome/bin/iwjobc $wft`;
chomp($jobid);
unlink("$wft");
my $rc = `$iwhome/bin/iwinvokejob $jobid`;
my $taskid = `$iwhome/bin/iwgettaskbyname $jobid YOURSTARTTASK`;
chomp($taskid);

my @submit_file = ();
my $nochanges = 1;
foreach (@expiredfiles){
$iswf = `$iwhome/bin/iwgetfilejobs $dir$path`; #is this file is already in a wf?
if ($iswf !~ /job=/) { push(@submit_file,$path); } #if not, put it in this one
$nochanges = 0;
}
if($nochanges) { exit(0); }
foreach my $file (@submit_file){
`$iwhome/bin/iwaddtaskfile $taskid $file 'expired file'`;
}

exit($jobid);
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does that explain things? Hope so,
maureen

Adam Stoller

I am not sure about the overall process being discussed here - as there are many ways of implementing a solution for handling archival and expiration (most involve databases) - but I find it difficult to watch certain snippets of Perl code go by that could be easily improved ....

Date information:

use Time::Local;
#figures out the current date in YYYYMMDD format
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) =localtime(time);
$year = $year + 1900;
$mon = $mon + 1;
if (length($mday) < 2){ $mday = "0$mday"; }
if (length($mon) < 2){ $mon = "0$mon"; }
my $today = "$year$mon$mday";

First, why bother with use Time::Local when you are not using it (and do not need it).
Second, why bother defining a bunch of variables that you do not need.
Here is a somewhat simpler approach for the above code:

my @tm = localtime();
$tm[4] += 1;
$tm[5] += 1900;
my $today = sprintf("%d%02d%02d", reverse(@tm[3..5]));

We find the only html pages through File::Find. We start with the html files to assure we're only getting live pages, not any DCRs in progress (not yet live or previously expired pages).--------------------------------------------------
use File::Find;
find(\&name_files, @directory);
sub name_files {
@dirs = $File::Find::dir;
foreach $d(@dirs){
@files = $File::Find::name;
foreach $f(@files) {
if ($f =~ /\.html|\.htm/ig){
push(@htmlfiles, $f);
}
}
}
}
--------------------------------------------------

I'm not entirely sure what the above was meant to do - I'm assuming that @htmlfiles is a global array somewhere - and you want it to include a list of all HTML files within the current workarea - yes?. If so, I think the following code might be a tad bit more efficient...

use File::Find;
my @htmlfiles;
...
find(\&name_files, @directories);
sub name_files{
 push(@htmlfiles, $File::Find::name)
  if ($File::Find::name =~ m|\.html?$|i);
}

Then, check the value of its DCR's Archival Date field against the $today variable. Pages that are due to expire can be pushed into an array -- in the example below, the @expiredfiles array. At that point, instantiate an xml approval workflow, then push the files of the array into the workflow using iwaddtaskfile.--------------------------------------------------
my $jobid = `$iwhome/bin/iwjobc $wft`;
chomp($jobid);
unlink("$wft");
my $rc = `$iwhome/bin/iwinvokejob $jobid`;
my $taskid = `$iwhome/bin/iwgettaskbyname $jobid YOURSTARTTASK`;
chomp($taskid);

my @submit_file = ();
my $nochanges = 1;
foreach (@expiredfiles){
$iswf = `$iwhome/bin/iwgetfilejobs $dir$path`; #is this file is already in a wf?
if ($iswf !~ /job=/) { push(@submit_file,$path); } #if not, put it in this one
$nochanges = 0;
}
if($nochanges) { exit(0); }
foreach my $file (@submit_file){
`$iwhome/bin/iwaddtaskfile $taskid $file 'expired file'`;
}

exit($jobid);
--------------------------------------------------

Well, depending on what version of TeamSite you're using - I believe since 5.0, but certainly 5.5.2 you can use iwjobc -i to take care of both compiling and invoking the job in one step. Also, as of 5.5.2 [SP2[b?]] you can simplify the process of adding the list of files to the workflow to make it a bit more efficient (not necessarilly shorter) - turning the above code into something like this:

chomp(my $jobid = `$iwhome/bin/iwjobc -i $wft`);
chomp(my $taskid = `$iwhome/bin/iwgettaskbyname $jobid YOURSTARTTASK`);
my @submit_file;
# assume that $avpath got defined somewhere as the arevpath to a specific
# workarea - or that you are looping through a list of workareas when
# performing the following tests ...
# Further, assume that $avpath is using platform-specific path separators
# (e.g. '\' on Windows)
foreach my $e (@expiredfiles){
 $e =~ tr|/|\\| if ($^O eq "MSWin32");
 my $iwsf = `$iwhome/bin/iwgetfilejobs $avpath$e`
 push(@submit_file, "$e") if ($iwsf !~ /job=/s);
}

if (@submit_file){
 my $e_idx = 0;
 my $m_idx = scalar(@submit_file);
 while ($e_idx < $m_idx){
  my $s_idx = $e_idx;
  my $len = 0;
  while($e_idx < $m_idx && ($len + length($submit_file[$e_idx])) < 200){
   $len += length($submit_file[$e_idx]);
   $e_idx++;
  }
  $e_idx--;
  `$iwhome/bin/iwaddtaskfile $taskid "@submit_file[$s_idx..$e_idx]" "expired files"`;
  $e_idx++;
 }
}

(note the above piece of code was not thoroughly tested - may need tweaking)

--fish
(Interwoven Senior Technical Consultant)

Migrateduser

I'm also looking to implement a similar functionality of starting a workflow and attaching all the expired documents.

I've thousands of files in the workarea (html,pdf,doc etc) and I need to check expiration date of each of these. I'm able to compare the expiration dates etc, but the problem is time taken by the script.
Is it necessary to run the script on all the files whether changed or not?
Is there a way to first list-out files that are touched today and then check the expiry dates only for these files?

thanks

JonathonG

Take a look at the iwlistmod CLT:

Usage: iwlistmod vpath
vpath path to workarea or directory.
iwlistmod [-h | -v]
-v Show version.
-h Show usage.

This should return a list of all modified files in a workarea or directory.

Jonathon
Independent Interwoven Contractor

Migrateduser

If you only want to consider files that have been modified in a workarea, then look at the CLT iwlistmod. There are similar methods in OpenAPI and CS.

But why would you want to? Isn't it much more likely that expired files would not be modified?

Brinko Kobrin
Interwoven Staff Engineer

Migrateduser

Thanks Jonathan and Brinko.

Brinko,
I was thinking of checking the expiry dates of only the uploaded files assuming that for the other files, the expiry will already have been checked on the previous day. But that as you pointed out, wont work. I'll have to check the expiry date of each and every file.
Is there any smarter way to directly get a list of all the files that are expiring today?

Thanks
-Ashish

Migrateduser

Unless you maintain an external database of expiration dates or know something else about the files (for example, from their names or locations) then I don't know of a reliable way of finding the files that are about to expire without looking inside every file.

However, here are a couple of ideas to consider:

1. If the purpose of checking expiration dates is to detect files that have been sitting untouched for a long period of time, then you could filter by modification times. For example, if files expire after 6 months, then it is unlikely that a file that has been modified in the last month is about to expire. So ignoring recently modified files could speed up your checking. However, this heuristic is unreliable (the file could have been touched by an automated agent) and savings may not be substantial.

2. The other idea is to keep around a list of files that are about to expire. For example, suppose again that files expire after 6 months. You have one program that runs once a month that crawls over all files and builds a list of those files that will expire in the next month. (Those that are more than 5 months old.) It writes out this list of files, sorted by expiration date, along with the expiration dates. Then a second script runs each day that looks at this list. It can quickly identify just those files that "may" expire that day. It then examines the contents of those candidate files (because they may have been updated since the list was build earlier in the month.) This approach assumes that all files age steadily; i.e., that the expiration date can be set forward (to the future) when a file is modified, but can never be set backwards (accelerating the aging.)

Brinko Kobrin
Interwoven Staff Engineer