KnowledgeTree Hot Folders | KnowledgeTree Document Management Software

KnowledgeTree Hot Folders

KnowledgeTree Hot Folders for Windows is a simple, high-volume integration interface for third party applications, such as back-office document imaging workflow applications and fax servers that are capable of writing documents directly to a Windows® file share.

How does Hot Folders work?

KnowledgeTree Hot Folders is installed as a Windows Service. The KnowledgeTree Hot Folders Install Wizard adds three processing folders to the application folder on the local file system - the archivefolder, the failurefolder, and the watchfolder. These folders act as the upload mechanism and portal to the KnowledgeTree DMS.

Step 1: Documents are dragged, copied to, or uploaded into the watchfolder

•	Each document is accompanied by an XML file, which specifies the metadata for the document.

•	The file name (excluding extension) of the document must exactly match the filename (excluding extension) of the accompanying XML file.

•	When using Advanced upload mode, you must predefine the filename format of the XML file - either '.xml', or '.ext.xml'.

•	When the filename of the uploaded file and its XML file do not match, upload fails.

Note: See below for an explanation of Hot Folders document processing modes as well as

the XML language reference.

Step 2: Hot Folders monitors the watchfolder to process uploaded documents

•	When using Basic mode, documents are uploaded to the watchfolder with a default XML file. The metadata specified in the default XML are applied to all files uploaded.

Note: The default XML file is built into KnowledgeTree. There is no need to provide an XML

file when uploading documents.

•	When using Advanced mode, Hot Folders extracts the metadata from the accompanying XML file in order to store the document and auto-populate the document metadata in the repository.

•	Successfully processed documents are moved to the archivefolder (along with their XML file)

•	Unsuccessfully processed documents are moved to the failurefolder (along with their XML file)

What are the Hot Folders Document Processing Modes?

KnowledgeTree Hot Folders provides two modes of document upload:

•	Basic - documents are uploaded without default/basic metadata. A default, built-in XML file applies to all uploaded documents.

•

Advanced - documents are uploaded with their metadata pre-defined in an accompanying XML file (one XML file for each uploaded document). Hot Folders harvests the metadata for auto-population in the KnowledgeTree DMS. When using Advanced mode, you will need to pre-define the filename format (either '.xml' or '.ext.xml') to ensure that the XML and the document to which it relates are correctly associated in the KnowledgeTree DMS.

Advanced Upload Mode, XML Files, and the KnowledgeTree XML Schema

XML Filename Rules for Advanced Mode

When choosing Advanced mode, you will need to select one of two available filename formats (see Table below), which is applied to name the XML file used by Hot Folders to extract document metadata for documents uploaded to the watchfolder. The filename format of the XML and the document must match so that Hot Folders can correctly associate the XML and the document it refers to.

Note: The format used is selected on the KnowledgeTree Hot Folders Settings Window.

.ext.xml

The XML file must have the same filename including the extension of the document it describes, plus the added extension .xml

Example: mydocument.pdf is accompanied by an XML named mydocument.pdf.xml

.xml

The XML file must have the same filename excluding the extension of the document it describes, plus the added extension '.xml'

Example: mydocument.pdf is accompanied by an XML named mydocument.xml.

Note: This format does not allow XML files to be uploaded.

How do I select or change the document processing mode and the XML filename format?

XML File and Document Metadata

Each document uploaded to the watchfolder is accompanied by a single XML file.

The Hot Folders XML file is a standard 'template' that contains pre-defined parameters (KnowledgeTree metadata, such as document type, document title, filename, field, fieldset, mime type etc.). Before uploading documents, users may open the XML template in a text editor to manually add metadata values for the pre-defined parameters, or to modify the metadata parameters, for a single document or for bulk uploads. You can also use third party applications to automate the creation of the XML files.

KnowledgeTree Hot Folders can only process XML files that are created and modified in compliance with the KnowledgeTree XML schema, which is specified in a XSD file that is included in the KnowledgeTree Hot Folders application folder, and which is documented in detail in a Developers Guide on the KnowledgeTree wiki.

Example XML Files

An example XML file is available for download in the Developer Guide on the KnowledgeTree Wiki. You can use the example XML file as a guide to creating the XML files for use with KnowledgeTree Hot Folders:

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