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Importing Documents in Bulk to the Document Management System

If you need to import several documents at once, you can use the Data Transfer command, rather than the Check In button of the document management form. Data Transfer can be a quicker import method than using the Check In button.

Before bulk importing documents, ensure that the data records you want to attach these documents to already exist. For example, if you wish to bulk import multiple lease contracts, then the lease records for which you want to store the contracts must already exist in the Leases (ls) table. If needed, create the records before using Data Transfer.

1. Use Smart Client or Web Central to start a new view that displays the table for which you have documents to import.

   For example, to import documents into the Action Items (activity_log) table, you would open a view for the Action Items (activity_log) table. Or, if you are importing proposal documents for work package bids associated with a project, you would open a view that has the Work Package Bids and Contracts(work_pkg_bids) table.

2. Show the primary key for the table in the view.

   For example, for the Action Items (activity_log) table, turn on the activity_log_id.

   For another example, for the Work Package Bids and Contracts(work_pkg_bids) table, you would show the fields contributing to the multipart primary key for that table: project_id, work_pkg_id, and vn_id.

3. Ensure that all the document fields you want to use are visible in the view.

   For example, if you are bulk importing documents for action items into the Action Items (activity_log) table, you would make the Document (doc) field visible.

   For another example, if you are bulk adding operating procedure documents to the Equipment (eq) table, you would want to show the following three document fields in the Equipment (eq) table:

   • Emergency Operating Procedures (doc_eop)

   • Lockout/Tagout Procedures (doc_loto)

   • Standard Operating Procedures (doc_sop)

4. Use Data Transfer to transfer out the current data.

   The Data Transfer command produces a spreadsheet of the current data and also produces a folder with all of the document data named as files, such as: activity_log-doc-499.jpg.

   Spreadsheet and document folder are typically located in the WebCentral\projects\users\[user name] folder, such as:

• The spreadsheet can be found in WebCentral\projects\users\[user name]\dt
• The transferred-out documents are in WebCentral\projects\users\[user name]\[table name].

5. Copy the files that you want to bulk import into this folder and name them using the convention table-recordID-field.fileExtension. That is, name the file using the database Table Name, the record ID you are assigning to this record, and the database Field Name, each separated by a dash.
6. Edit the spreadsheet and fill in the document fields with the new file names.
7. Use Data Transfer to import the data. The new documents will import.

As other options:

• Use this sample view (http://localhost:8080/archibus/ab-ex-dt-activity-log-with-docs.axvw, found on the Process Navigator at Technologies / User Interface Add-Ins / Parts for Reports / Report with Data Transfer of Documents) to develop your view for importing.
• If you have a lot of files to import, or files to transfer from file system files to document files in the database, you can use a scripting editor to automate filling in the document field names.