Question

Load large files through secure FTP

Forms

Updated June 1, 2023

asked on September 5, 2017

We have a secure FTP site that we have members load large files to. We would love to collect some information about these files that are being loaded - like member name, reporting dates, etc. We would also like to have these automatically named and routed. I was thinking that a form might be a quick solution for this, but

Can we link the form to a secure FTP site to load files to? Some of these are extremely large files with sensitive information. Are there limitations to the file size I can load via a form? We do not have forms yet, but are planning to purchase this if we have enough uses for it.

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SELECTED ANSWER

replied on September 6, 2017

Oh I understand what you mean now.

Yes, you can do that. Load the file through forms. Then use workflow to save the uploaded document to an FTP site. The file wouldn't need to stay in Laserfiche.

Is the FTP site local to your network and can you access it via a UNC path? Or do you need to use FTP to send it from the workflow server to the FTP site? EIther way, this can be achieved but you will need to use some script within Workflow.

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replied on September 6, 2017 • Show version history

Hi Danielle,

You could have workflow monitor the SFTP folder and import the documents. As for the metadata, there are a number of options but given I don't know how the documents are transfered to the FTP folder, I can recommend anything.

The Workflow could apply OCR and pattern-matching to scrape the document for metadata.
The metadata could be included as part of the file name, which is then split into fields.
A unique ID could be part of the file name, or scraped from the documents. The ID is then used as lookup to a database or Web API, to receive the rest of the metadata.

How does the FTP file coming in? Is it manually uploaded or placed there by another process?

Do you need a form for any other purpose? If so, the workflow could launch a Forms process and send it the EntryID for the imported document. Using Javascript, the form would display a link to the document in Web Access. It doesn't sound like you do, so this part can be skipped.

-Ben

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replied on September 6, 2017

Thanks for the response Ben.

I was hoping that the form could be the interface for loading to the SFTP site. The form would collect the member name, program, etc and that would be used as the metadata to name the file. It's just that these files can get insanely large, and I am wondering if there are limitations to loading them to the form interface? I don't necessarily even want to load them to Laserfiche, just the SFTP server is fine - they can hang out there. I just want to filter them through the form, maybe use Workflow to notify me of the file.

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SELECTED ANSWER

replied on September 6, 2017

Oh I understand what you mean now.

Yes, you can do that. Load the file through forms. Then use workflow to save the uploaded document to an FTP site. The file wouldn't need to stay in Laserfiche.

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replied on September 7, 2017

Great, thank you. I am unsure of the FTP set up, but I can check. I mostly just wanted to know if it was possible right now, because if it's possible, we have a reason to purchase forms and can get started trying to develop what we want to do with it.

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replied on June 1, 2023

Just know that forms do have size limits for attachments that can be uploaded using a form. We have extremely large video and audio files that we need uploaded and we cannot use forms because of that limitation. I believe it is 250 Mb, or at least it was since the last time I checked.

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