Question

Possibility for automated check-in of documents in Aurena

  • 19 May 2021
  • 5 replies
  • 208 views

Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Hi,

This is related to a prospect customization in Aurena App10 (UPD9):

One of our Customers has a requirement to open documents (Word or Excel) in an editable mode once it is uploaded to IFS DocMan through the attachment panel. Then the User is allowed to do required changes to the document content, and upon closing the document it should be automatically checked-in to IFS.

I would highly appreciate if you can respond whether this is a feasible solution or if you have any previous experience related to this.


5 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +30

It can be done, and it has been done, and it relies 100% on an auto-close or autosave macro running in Word or Excel (we only did it for Word as I remember it). The check-in has to be done from the macro itself (calling an Aurena projection) since there is NO WAY for Word or Excel to "tell Aurena" to check in the file. Even if you get the macro to work, you should know there will be the side effect that Aurena does not know the file has been checked in, so the user will need to refresh the record or the page to see that the status has been changed to Checked In.

Perhaps you/they should look into what Addovation is doing in this area?

Ping @AndreasIsengaard 

A cheaper option: They could also try to educate their users to check in the document after they have edited it :)

 

Userlevel 4
Badge +8

We don’t enforce the users to check in but we do heavily remind them (see picture) :)

We also support the scenario in where users “accidentally” edits a view-copy (and allows them to easily check in document on a new revision and more seamless detects what meta-data that applies against IFS).

Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Thank you @AndreasIsengaard and @Mathias Dahl. It’s helpful :slight_smile: .

By the way, does this mean auto check-in can be done only for macro enabled documents ?

Userlevel 4
Badge +8

I believe so.

Userlevel 7
Badge +30

Implementing automatic check-in or, as is also often asked for, automatic delete of local temporary files  (when you have viewed them) is not as easy as one would think. Either the program that opens the file needs to do it upon close, with a macro as above or, the DMS (in this case) would need to monitor/keep a lock of the file while being opened, such that it can check-in or delete it after it is closed. It’s not easy and it’s even harder from a web browser-based client. The day when we all edit all or most of our documents inside the web browser, this might become simpler, but we are not there yet.

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