With the attached document, I just want to share my experiences and struggles with the hope that it helps someone else trying to do similar things.
It follows on from my posts
I eventually worked out for myself how to import thumbnails, but - unless I've missed a trick somewhere - it isn't as straightforward as one would hope.
Should you be able to provide feedback / improvements / information about useful reference documents or if you have any questions I'd be happy to hear from you!
Tim
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This is just a record of my experience (as a non-programmer) trying to work out how to import the data for a demo system just using AML and Batch Loader. A lot of it was picking clues out from various sources plus a lot of educated guesses. The documentation is insufficient. What I did find was as below:
- A nice introduction, but just an introduction by Christopher Gillis on the Aras Forum
- The Programmer’s Guide in the Innovator Documentation. This includes a three-page reference, which feels a bit short.
- The documentation for Batch Loader includes some examples at the end
I would love to see further documentation and references, in particular:
- The full extent of what AML can and can’t do. Specifically:
- Can it include logic such as IF statements that depend on the content of the file being imported (i.e. an SQL where condition doesn’t help here)
- Can one concatenate input data. See below where this would have been useful for loading the thumbnail images.
- Can one import files (e.g. image files) along with the data by using pointers to the file locations with the import sheet?
- A full description of the error messages returned within Batch Loader. These are mostly very obscure and singularly unhelpful.
Software used
- Excel for
- Data
- Lookup for GUIDs to enable importing of Thumbnails
- Generating AML for Batch Loader
- Batch Loader. I assume that the reader has a basic understanding of using this program. If not
- MS SQL Studio. Other options also available. Used to get a list of files in the vault along with their GUID
...
Please see attached file for the rest of the document: