WMX Attachment Behaviour (not updating/saving)

[TrevorHart1]

Hi

I have created a custom step which adds an attachment to a job and stores it in the database. Its working fine. The idea being that as part of the job creation process several attachments are pre-loaded onto the job. These would be MS Word templates etc that the user would fill out as part of the job.

However, contrary to what I recall with older versions of JTX, when I open the attachment and make a change the attachment is not updated in the database. If I check the "temp" folder (ie C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\ESRI\Workflow Manager\10.0.0.0) the file has been updated but its never updated in the database.

Does this behaviour still exist? I see the help says the following (which is a bit of a disappointment if the attachment has to be readded after modification);

The attachments can be saved from the job. This can be useful if you want to update the contents of the attachment based on findings on the job. You can save it to modify the contents, then readd this as an attachment for the job.

If this is the case is the only way around this to reference attachments via UNC path?

Thanks
Trevor

[TrevorHart1]

Anyone?

Seems like the functionality of opening/saving the MXD for the job does not translate to attachments.

I have re-engineered my custom step to make a copy of the template document (eg Template.doc), save the copy to a new job specific folder (eg \\UNCPath\..\Job123\Template.doc) and attach it to the Job in WMX as a linked attachment.

I would prefer it if the attachments reside in the database though. Maybe in 10.1?

[ChuanshengRen]

When you open the attachment and make a change, that change only goes to the current job's attachment. It's not going to be updated in the database. You have to reload the updated attachment to your custom step so that other jobs using that step can see that change.

Learner

[TrevorHart1]

Thanks, the issue though (as I mentioned) is that this isnt how the Jobs MXD document behaves. If you make a change to the MXD for the job and press Save in ArcMap the MXD for the job is updated in the database. Its just seems to defeat the purpose of storing attachments in the database as to work around this limitation Ive had to store attachments on the file system and attachthem as links to the Job.

[TopeBello]

Hi Trevor,

Basically you want a document management system, is that correct?
There is a requirement to explore this functionality in Workflow Manager but it will not be in the 10.1 release.
For now, using linked attachments with a UNC path is the way to go. If you have a document management system (SharePoint) in place, you can use a combination of "Linked Attachments" and the check out/check in capability that you get with MS documents to keep track of these changes.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Tope

[TrevorHart1]

Hi Trevor,

Basically you want a document management system, is that correct?
There is a requirement to explore this functionality in Workflow Manager but it will not be in the 10.1 release.
For now, using linked attachments with a UNC path is the way to go. If you have a document management system (SharePoint) in place, you can use a combination of "Linked Attachments" and the check out/check in capability that you get with MS documents to keep track of these changes.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Tope

Thanks for the reply Tope, Im not really after a DMS as such. The client already has a DMS as well as SharePoint. They really just need somewhere to store job related attachments without putting these on the file system. The linked documents is working fine for now though.