In a previous post I described my initial experiments with Microsoft Logic Apps. For this post I have created a trigger on Content Manager so that the Logic App can react to modifications to Records. To make this work I needed to make a small modification to the ServiceAPI code, this could be applied to an existing CM installation via a ServiceAPI plugin.

Connect to Content Manager from Microsoft Logic Apps (or Flow) using a custom connector. A new, very simple, OpenAPI definition is available to assist in creating the Logic Apps custom connector.

Configuring the Web Client and Office integration to use Azure AD for authentication is a multi-step process. Here I run through a simple scenario to get this working, first in a video and following some sample config.

When writing a web service that uses the CM SDK you need to take into account the fact that different users may be in different time zones. The SDK date/time object, TrimDateTime operates, buy default, in the same time zone as the operating system. To ensure you set dates correctly you need to convert it to operate in the same time zone as the user. The sample code demonstrates how to do this, for more detail have a look at this video.

Using the new Power BI connector I have created a To Do Item sample showcasing some of the techniques that might be useful when creating reports in Power BI.

The new Power BI connector simplifies accessing CM data from Power BI, as long as you have a ServiceAPI instance available.

This new sample add-in allows you to compose the Record Title from other properties and fields, replacing text in angle brackets with the matching property or field.

When posting a date to an Additional Field in the web service the date returned in the response is incorrect, even though the date set in CM is correct. The problem is caused by a bug in handling time zone offsets. The scenarios in this post assume that:

• all actors (web service, client, WGS) are using the same time-zone settings, and
• dates are always sent as UTC (not local) dates.

As of Monday 15th July 2019 I have moved the hosting for this web site from Squarespace to Github pages. The main motivation for this was to consolidate with our samples repo. The only annoyances I expect for readers of this blog are:

1. links to individual posts have changed, all posts can be found in the index
2. the RSS feed link as changed, select the RSS link at the bottom of the page to subscribe to this blog.

While grouping search results is not something that CM does out of the box it can be achieved with little work. These samples demonstrate how you might group Record search results by owner Location.

One of the outputs from my recent experimentation with PowerBI and Power Query is this saved search connector. I do not spend much time in Excel myself but I know that it is popular out there in the real world. If you would like to see something more/different contact me on the forum or through the usual channels.

If you prefer to receive a JSON error response when downloading a file then append format=json in the query string.

It might be the case that some CM users have permission to view a Record metadata but not the electronic document. In this case they will get a message like the one below when they open a document link.

The steps are not too difficult but I manage to forget them between times, so here they are.

Spending most of my days alone in an office I love the occasions when I get to meet some of the people who use CM. One of the most enjoyable experiences is hearing directly from people who need a particular fix/feature and then being able to go back to my office and make that happen.

I, along with various other CM developers, will be at Realize this year, I will not venture beyond Melbourne but members from the dev team will be at all the Realize events.

Come along, tell us your stories and shine a light into the long lonely months in the office.

The scenario:

1. open Excel

2. create a worksheet

3. check the worksheet into CM using the Office Integration

4. close Excel

5. a temp file is left behind in Documents\Micro Focus CM

6. the file is deleted the next time you open Excel (or another Office application).

The problem

The scenario described above occurs because Excel retains a handle on the file until it has completed closing, at which point the Office Integration has been unloaded and is unable to delete the file. Other Office applications (e.g. Word) release the file before they close allowing the Office Integration to delete the temp file.

A Workaround

While a future version of CM may contain a solution for this problem a work-around available today is to run a powershell script from the windows task scheduler to delete left over files.

The Script

The script below finds all files scheduled for deletion in the managed docs XML file, deletes them and removes the entry from the XML file.

$filePath = $env:APPDATA + "\Micro Focus\Content Manager\OfficeIntegration\managedDocs"


      

The scenario:

1. Open WebDrawer using Google Chrome

2. find a record with a PDF document

3. View it (using the Trapeze viewer

Last week I took some time out of my schedule to experiment with Power BI. While Power BI can access many data sources, including a JSON/REST web service such as the ServiceAPI, it is simplest to access data sources for which a connector exists. This led me to experiment with Power Query custom connectors.

The connector I show in the video below is not production ready but is far enough along to demonstrate its viability. Before proceeding I would like some feedback from anyone who might use this to answer questions like:

• Is Power BI of interest?

• What data would you want to extract from CM in Power BI?

• What sort of Dashboards / Reports would you produce?

One nice thing about a custom connector is that it could quite easily be backwards compatible, so would work with existing CM implementations.

If you have any interest in this space and want to see this experiment go further send me a private message at the CM Forum.

There are a few features in CM that you might not notice unless they are pointed out, one is parameterised saved searches. These can be used to provide users with pre-defined but customisable searches.