FTP receive



FTP receive is a producer that downloads jobs from an FTP site and injects them into the flow. The semantics are similar to those of a submit hierarchy.

In case your system environment requires FTP connections to pass through a proxy server, you need to setup the FTP proxy preferences to provide Switch with the configuration details for the proxy server. In this case, FTP receive will fail as long as these preferences have not been set.

Keywords

Keywords can be used with the search function above the Elements pane.

The keywords for the FTP receive element are:


Connections

FTP receive does not allow incoming connections.

FTP receive injects folder filter properties into its outgoing connections so that it is possible to include/exclude certain subfolders in the incoming job folders for particular connections. Also see the "skip folders" property described below.

Properties

Property

Description

Name

The name of the flow element displayed in the canvas

Server type Select FTP or SFTP
Passive mode If set to "Yes", FTP receive uses passive mode, otherwise it uses active mode

FTP server address

The URL or IP address of the FTP server from which jobs are to be retrieved

Port

The port used by the FTP server

User name

The login name for the FTP server. For anonymous login, use "anonymous" as user name

Password The password for the FTP server. For anonymous use, enter an email address as password

FTP directory

The directory on the FTP site from which jobs are to be retrieved.

If the path starts with a forward slash "/", it is relative to the users's home directory. If the path starts with a double forward slash, it is relative to the FTP site's system root. This is only useful if the user has access to the complete file system on the FTP site

Leave originals on server

If set to yes, incoming jobs are left untouched on the FTP site; Switch never writes to the site so read-only access rights suffice; see Leaving originals in place for more details

If set to no (the default), incoming jobs are removed from the FTP site; Switch needs full access rights to rename, create and remove files and folders on the FTP site

Ignore updates

The Ignore updates option is available only if Leave originals on server is set to yes.

If set to yes, a job will only be processed once, regardless of any changes to the file size or modification date. This can be used for workflows where the input job is replaced by the processing result, to avoid triggering endless loops.

If set to no, the job will be reprocessed when its file size or modification date is different. This allows processing jobs which have the same file name as previously submitted jobs.

Minimum file size (KB)

Used to set the minimum file size (in KB) limit before Switch picks up the files or folders. To set no limits, leave it empty.

Check every (minutes)

The frequency of checking the FTP directory for new jobs

Time-of-day window

If set to yes, the tool checks for new arrivals only during a certain time of the day (specified in the subordinate properties)

Allow from (hh:mm)

The time-of-day window during which to check for new arrivals; the values are structured as "hh:mm" (hours, minutes) indicating a time of day on a 24 hour clock; an empty value means midnight; two identical values mean the tool always detects jobs

Allow to (hh:mm)

Day-of-week window

If set to yes, the tool checks for new arrivals only during certain days of the week (specified in the subordinate properties)

Allow from

The days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday) during which to check for new arrivals; two identical values mean the tool only checks for new arrivals on that specific day.

Allow to

Day-of-month window

If set to yes, the tool checks for new arrivals only during a certain day of the month (specified in the subordinate properties)

Day

The day in the month during which to check for new arrivals, as a number in the range [1 . . 31]; the default value of one means the first or the last day of the month (depending on the following property)

Relative to

Determines whether the day of the month is relative to "Start of month'" or "End of the month"

Subfolder levels

The number of nested subfolder levels considered to be hot folders (as opposed to job folders); see also the description on subfolders earlier.

Process these folders

Defines the initial set of folders that should be processed. This set can be adjusted by defining rules in the subsequent properties

Adjusted by (rule 1) .....(rule 5)

This property defines a rule for adjusting the set of folders to be processed, by including or excluding folders matching or not matching a folder name. Different rules can be applied and will be processed in the order as they are specified.

Additional properties for this rule are:


  • The Folder name used for matching

  • The Levels, limiting the range of subfolder levels on which the rule applies

  • A Restriction, based on the folder name of the parent or ancestors for the folder. If folder Y contains subfolder X; Y is X's parent folder. If folder Z contains subfolder Y; Z is one of X's ancestors. The folder that contains folder Z is also one of X's ancestors, and so on.

  • Nesting, defining whether this rule operates on all nested subfolders of the target folder, or on the target folder itself.

Attach hierarchy info

If set to yes, (part of) a job's submit location is added to its hierarchy location path as it is submitted in the flow; see Using hierarchy info for more details

Include FTP name

Only available if Attach hierarchy info is enabled.

If set to yes, the name of the flow element is included at the top of the remembered location path

Include subfolder levels

Identifies the number of hierarchy segments in the hierarchy information.

Save top subfolders

If set to yes, the top-most subfolders are remembered in the location path, otherwise the bottom-most subfolders are remembered

Attach email info

Email addresses and body text specified with the editor for this property are added to each job's email info as the job is injected in the flow; the information added can vary depending on the subfolder in which the job was located; see Using Email info for more details

Allow subfolder cleanup

If set to yes, subfolders created in the FTP hierarchy are automatically removed when they become empty

Starting at level

The number of upper levels for which not to cleanup subfolders