Defining a read-only action for reading files

ION uses the Date Modified attribute of files to process files with a Read-Only action. ION stores the Last processing date for each Connection point – Document combination. During a file reading session, ION compares the Date Modified attribute with the Last processing date value. If no value is found or if it is less than the Date Modified value, the file is read and a new Last processing date is stored.

Note: A large number of files in the Read Location can cause performance problems during a read session. The number of files must be controlled by the files owner.

During a read session, these files are marked as read, (the Last processing date will be updated), but will not be processed by ION:

  • The file is encrypted and cannot be decrypted
  • No destination route is found for the file
  1. Start ION.
  2. Click Connect > Connection Points.
  3. Click New and select File (sFTP from Cloud).
  4. Click the Documents tab.
  5. Click Add. A new action is created and listed in the Action List.
  6. Select the action entry and specify the action type Read-Only to read a file and construct a BOD using the file content.
  7. In the File Format Template & Document Settings section, specify the Document Template or File Format Template to use when reading files.
    1. Document Template: Select from documents defined in ION Registry.

      File Format Template: Select from already defined templates or click New to define a new file template. To view the details of the selected template, click Details.

      See File templates.

    2. After the file template is specified, the BOD Noun that is associated with the specified template is filled. If the template does not have an associated BOD, an error occurs.
    3. Select the BOD Verb that you want to use in the read action.
  8. In the Read File Settings section, specify this information:
    Read Location

    Specify the read location in the file server from which the files is read. This is defined relevant to the hostname defined in the connection tab setting. This is a required field. For guidelines on how to define the correct location:

    See File share locations.

    File Name Pattern
    Specify the file name pattern that represents the name of the file or files that are read by that action. This allows the usage of wildcards (? for one character and * for multiple characters). This field is case-sensitive and required.

    We do not recommend that you specify a file name pattern of *.* or any pattern ending with *. This pattern allows the file connector to retrieve everything from the source folder.

    Note: Some sFTS servers have a built-in file renaming feature. This feature may result in unprocessed files.
    Compression
    Select which compression type is used for the files in read location. These are the available options:
    1. None: No compression is expected to be used for the read file.
    2. Deflate: The files are expected to be compressed based on the deflate algorithm, as described in RFC 1951. A combination of the LZ77 algorithm and Huffman coding, wrapped inside the zlib data format, RFC 1950.
    Note: When the document_id keyword is used in New File Name Pattern, the file must be inflated in the File connection point to read the document id property. This action can result in exceeding the ION message size limit.
    Do not include data from before
    You can specify the date before which ION will not read files from the Read Location. All the files where the Date Modified value is less than the defined date and time will be not processed.
    Note: If the Do not include data from before check box is disabled, January 1 1970 00:00:00 UTC (midnight) is used as the date before which ION will not read files from the Read Location.
  9. In the Schedule section, specify one of these options:
    Option Description
    Basic Scheduling In Basic Scheduling, ION is always polling the folder in the Read location. If there are no more new files found to be processed on a given polling attempt, the polling daemon goes in sleep mode. The duration of the sleep mode is specified in milliseconds by the property Daemon Sleep Time (ms).
    Advance Scheduling

    Specify an advance scheduling option based on a CRON expression. When a trigger is executed based on CRON, all matching files at that point in time are processed.

    See Advanced scheduling options.
  10. After the configuration for the Read File action is finished, click Test.

    A test is run to check if the specified Read location is valid and accessible. This also validates if the permissions provided to run the required action are sufficient. The Do not include data from before value is used for the testing, if no value is specified, the date January 1, 1970 00:00:00 UTC (midnight) is used. A message is displayed to inform you whether the test is successful or not.