Managing Actions

Types of webMethods.io MFT actions

There are two types of webMethods.io MFT actions:

• Post-Processing actions enable webMethods.io MFT to perform a specific task or set of tasks when a user uploads, downloads, or deletes a file. Any configuration changes in the post-processing action now gets applied to all the active user sessions as well.

• Scheduled actions enable webMethods.io MFT to perform a set of tasks at a specified date and time.

Adding a Post-Processing Action

You can define a post-processing action for execution when a user uploads, downloads, or deletes a file.

To add a post-processing action

1. On the navigation pane, select Actions > Post-Processing.

2. On the Post-Processing actions page, you can do one of the following:

   • If you want to create a new action, click .
   • If you want to create a copy of an action that already exists, select an existing action, and click .
     
     

3. To define the conditions that trigger the action, specify the following details:

   Field	Description
   Action name	Type a unique name for the post-processing action.
   Description	Type a brief description for the post-processing action.
   Active	Click the toggle button to activate or deactivate the action.
   Criteria	Click . In the Criteria dialog box, configure the following criteria based on which webMethods.io MFT will execute tasks, and click Ok.
   Execute the tasks below when a user performs the file operation	Select the file operation from the list. Note: If you specify an action based on the deletion of a file, make sure that any subsequent tasks you define for the action do not rely on the presence of the deleted file.
   Virtual folder	To specify any folder or a particular folder, select Any folder or Specific folder respectively. For Specific folder, type a specific folder name in the box. You can use wildcard characters in the folder name box (for example, *baseName). By default, webMethods.io MFT considers file activity in any folder structure when evaluating action criteria.
   File transfer status	To specify a file transfer status, select Success or Failure, Success, or Failure.
   Task execution by	To enable webMethods.io MFT to execute the action for file operations performed by particular users, groups, or roles, select Any user or Specific users and click , select the users, and click OK.
   Execute tasks	To specify whether to execute the tasks immediately, after the user exits all sessions, or after the user is idle for few seconds, select Immediately, After the user exists all sessions, or After the user is idle for and type the number of seconds to wait before executing the action in the box.
   Tasks	Select one or more of the following tasks, and define configurations for each of the tasks in the Properties section accordingly: File operations - Find Task Configuration - Copy Task Configuration - Move Task Configuration - Delete Task Configuration - Rename Task Configuration - Encrypt Task Configuration - Decrypt Task Configuration - Zip Task Configuration - Unzip Task Configuration Send Email Task Configuration Jump Task Configuration Exclude Task Configuration Error Task Configuration For descriptions of fields for task configurations, see Task Configuration Definitions. Tip: Click to disable a task, click to enable a task, click to delete the task, or click to copy the task. By default, a task is enabled when created.
   	Parallel processing
   Enable parallel processing	Select this option if you want to enable parallel processing of files in multiple threads.
   Start parallel processing for files after	Select the task after which webMethods.io MFT must start parallel processing of files in multiple threads from the list. webMethods.io MFT first executes the task you select here, and any other tasks before it, sequentially.
   Maximum number of parallel processes	Type the maximum number (between one and 999) of parallel threads that webMethods.io MFT can create to simultaneously process files.

4. Click Add. The new post-processing action appears in the post-processing actions list.

Adding a Scheduled Action

You can define a scheduled action for execution at a specific date and time.

To add a scheduled action

1. In the navigation pane, select Actions > Scheduled.

2. On the Scheduled actions page, you can do one of the following:

   • If you want to create a new action, click .
   • If you want to create a copy of an action that already exists, select an existing action, and click .
   
   

3. To define the conditions that trigger the action, specify the following details:

   Field	Description
   Action name	Type a unique name for the scheduled action.
   Description	Type a brief description for the scheduled action.
   Active	Click the toggle button to activate or deactivate the action.
   Schedule settings	Click . In the Configure criteria dialog box, select one of the following options from the list to specify how often webMethods.io MFT should execute the tasks associated with an action, and click OK: Run once: Specify the Date and Time to execute the task. Click the calendar icon to select a date from the calendar. Yearly: Specify a date range, the months, the days within the month, and the time interval you want to execute the task each year. Monthly: Specify a date range, the days within the month, and the time interval you want to execute the task each month. Weekly: Specify a date range, the days of the week, and the time interval you want to execute the task each week. Daily: Specify a date range and the time interval you want to execute the task each day. Hourly: Specify a date range and the time interval you want to execute the task each hour. Fixed interval: Specify a date range and the time interval that should wait before executing the next task for a scheduled action.
   Tasks	Select one or more of the following tasks, and define configurations for each of the tasks in the Properties section accordingly: File operations - Find Task Configuration - Copy Task Configuration - Move Task Configuration - Delete Task Configuration - Rename Task Configuration - Encrypt Task Configuration - Decrypt Task Configuration - Zip Task Configuration - Unzip Task Configuration Send Email Task Configuration Jump Task Configuration Exclude Task Configuration Error Task Configuration For descriptions of fields for task configurations, see Task Configuration Definitions. Tip: Click to disable a task, click to enable a task, click to delete the task, or click to copy the task. By default, a task is enabled when created.
   	Parallel processing
   Enable parallel processing	Select this option if you want to enable parallel processing of files in multiple threads.
   Start parallel processing for files after	Select the task after which webMethods.io MFT must start parallel processing of files in multiple threads from the list. webMethods.io MFT first executes the task you select here, and any other tasks before it, sequentially.
   Maximum number of parallel processes	Type the maximum number (between one and 999) of parallel threads that webMethods.io MFT can create to simultaneously process files.

4. Click Add. The new scheduled action appears in the scheduled actions list.

Task Configuration Definitions

After you add an action and define the conditions that trigger the action, you must define one or more tasks to execute when the action is triggered. After you define tasks for a post-processing or scheduled action activate the action as described in Activating or Deactivating Actions.

A post-processing action is triggered for each file based on the criteria configured in the action. The action is triggered by a file upload, file download, or a file delete. The action is executed for one file at a time. If an error occurs in the action, the file processing is stopped after processing the files in the current task.

For scheduled action, the “find” task is the first task that you define, by default. Otherwise, the scheduled action will fail. The files listed by the find task is the source of input files for the action. If the find task returns more than one file, the subsequent tasks will operate on all the files. Each task configured in the action will complete the operation on all the files in the list and pass on the set of files to the subsequent task.

If an error task is configured in the action, one error task is executed for each file transaction that has an error. If the find task returns an empty list, subsequent tasks will be executed with 0 files as input.

Find Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Find file operation task:

A find task retrieves a list of files from a specified location. The files listed by a find task are passed on to the subsequent task for processing. If there are multiple find tasks for an action, the files found by each “find” task are added to the list passed on to it from the previous task.

For example, consider the following sequence of tasks and the webMethods.io MFT behavior for each task:

Copy Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Copy file operation task:

A copy task copies all the files passed on from the previous task to the location specified in Destination location. However, the files copied to the specified destination will not be available to the subsequent task for processing. The list of files in the source location is passed on to the subsequent task.

Move Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Move file operation task:

A move task moves all the files passed on from the previous task to the location specified in Destination location. The files are removed from the source folder. The list of files in the destination location is passed on to the subsequent task.

For example, an action configured with the following tasks:

1. Find task: Find files in Source location = <source folder>
2. Encrypt task: Encrypt the files.
3. Move task: Moves the files to the Destination location = <destination folder>

The action results in the following:

1. Find task lists all the files in the <source folder>.
2. Encrypt task encrypts all the files listed by the find task.
3. Move task moves the files that are encrypted by the encrypt task to the <destination folder>.

Delete Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Delete file operation task:

A “delete” task deletes the files that are passed on from the previous task. The deleted files are not passed on to the subsequent task. If a file filter is configured in the task, only then the files that do not match the file filter are passed on to the next task.

Rename Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Rename file operation task:

A rename task renames the files passed on from the previous task. The files that are renamed are not passed on to the next task.

Encrypt Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Encrypt file operation task:

An encrypt task encrypts files passed on from the previous task. supports only PGP- based file encryption. The encrypted file is saved with the name Original-filename.PGP. After the successful execution of an encrypt task, the source folder location contains both, the original files and the corresponding encrypted files, but only the encrypted files are passed on to the subsequent task for processing. If you select Delete original file, the original files are deleted. If you configure a move task after an encrypt task, the move task moves the encrypted file and not the original file.

Decrypt Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Decrypt file operation task:

A decrypt task decrypts files passed on from the previous task and creates decrypted files without the .PGP extension. The source folder location contains both, the original files and the corresponding decrypted files. If you select Delete original file, the original files are deleted. For example, you have configured a post-processing action which is triggered by a file uploaded to a folder (for example, a folder named incoming) that points to a physical location. You have also configured the following tasks in the action:

1. Move task: To move a file that matches the filter, *invoice*.PGP from the incoming folder to the working folder.
2. Decrypt task: To decrypt the file with the Delete original file option is selected.

After the action is executed successfully, the decrypted file (without the PGP extension) is available in the working folder, and deletes the original encrypted file. If you want to make the files from the incoming folder available to an task that is configured to execute after the decrypt task, ensure that you do the following:

• Do not select Delete original file for the decrypt task.
• Configure a find task to find the original files from the incoming folder in the incoming folder.

Zip Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Zip file operation task:

The zip task compresses a specified file or a set of files and copies the compressed file to the location specified in Destination location. After the successful execution of the zip task, the original source files and the target zip file are available to the subsequent task. If the input path is that of a folder, does not compress the files/contents of the specified folder.

In single-thread, sequential processing, each action results in a single zip file. However, if the zip task occurs after parallel processing starts, each thread results in a separate zip file.

Unzip Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Unzip file operation task:

The unzip task decompresses the specified zip file. After a successful unzip task, both the original zip file and the extracted files are passed on to the subsequent task. If the “unzip” task occurs after parallel processing starts, all files resulting from the “unzip” task are treated as part of a single thread. Therefore, in the Activities section of the Action Log page, maintains the File Seq No of the original zip file for the particular thread until the action execution is completed.

Send Email Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the Send email task:

Based on the name of files specified in the source filter, the send email task sends emails to the recipients configured in a file task. Transfer of the specified files triggers the send email task.

In single-thread, sequential processing, runs the send email task only once for all files of an action, and includes the information for all files in a single, consolidated email. Therefore, each action results in one email. However, if the send email task occurs after parallel processing of files starts in an action, the number of emails sends depends on the number of threads in the action. Let us consider the example of an action having three parallel threads for processing. When the action execution is completed, sends one email for each thread, resulting in a total of three emails for the action.

Jump Task Configuration

You can define a Jump task that causes webMethods.io MFT to skip one or more tasks and execute a designated task in the action. A Jump task is unconditional by default. You can also define a jump condition based on which Jump task is executed. webMethods.io MFT executes the tasks defined in an action sequentially until it encounters a Jump task. The Jump task is triggered if any one file in the list satisfies the Jump condition.

You can configure the following properties for the Jump task:

The Jump task changes the sequence in which the tasks are executed. The task specified in the “Jump” task is executed instead of the next task in the sequence. The “Jump” task however does not modify the list of files that are passed on from the task prior to the Jump task to the task that is triggered by the Jump task.

Exclude Task Configuration

You can exclude files from a task or a set of tasks by defining an Exclude task prior to these tasks. The Exclude task uses a File filter to exclude files from all the tasks in the action that follow the Exclude task. The files that match the exclude criteria are not be passed on to the next task.

You can configure the following properties for the Exclude task:

Error Task Configuration

You can configure an error task webMethods.io MFT execute if any of the configured tasks for a post-processing, scheduled, or monitor folder action fail. You can define any of the tasks that webMethods.io MFT offers as the error task. For example, if a file copy task fails, you can use the send email task to notify an administrator of the failure.

The error task is subjected to the following conditions:

• You can create only one error task per action.
• You must configure a task to execute the error task by selecting the Execute error task option for the task.
• You must configure the error task just as you would configure any other task for a post-processing or scheduled action.

webMethods.io Integration FlowService Task Configuration

You can configure the following properties for the webMethods.io Integration FlowService task:

Prerequisite: You need webMethods.io Integration 10.15 to execute this task on webMethods.io MFT.

Field	Description
Task name	Type a unique name for the task.
File filter	When you define a File filter for a task, the task acts only on files that are filtered out. For example, type *.zip to trigger the action only when ZIP files are uploaded or downloaded. To trigger an action based on a name string in the ZIP files, use the name string in the File filter box, preceded and followed by wildcard characters. For example, type *invoice*.zip to trigger the action based on the file URLs, when ZIP files containing the character string invoice in their file names are uploaded or downloaded. Note: You can use wildcard characters to filter the file names. If you want to use regular expression, specify a valid regular expression in File filter and select Use regular expression option. Example: (.(?!purchaseorder))*: Excludes files with the file URL containing purchaseorder. */out/.*: Include files with the file URL containing the folder out. ^abc(.*)123$: Includes anything that starts with abc and ends with 123. Matches abc123, abcxyz123, but not abcxyz123def. NEW-((*.doc)⏐| (*_backup_*)): Includes anything starting with NEW- that either ends in .doc, or is followed by the string _backup_.
Flow Service	Click Browse to select the Flowservice you want to execute from the list. Note: Services configured for HTTP/HTTPs EndPoint can be invoked from actions and only these services are displayed.
Flow service input	Only ‘String’ values can be applied to the service.
Extract flow service output	Click to add the variables with Variable name that you want to assign to the output parameters of the service and the Variable path of the output parameter. Example: You invoke a webMethods.io FlowService by having two output fields, output1 and output2. Configure the following in Extract flow service output section. Variable Name Variable Output myVar1 /output1 myVar2 /output2 With this configuration, myVar1 and myVar2 are available as server variables. The values returned by the service execution can be used in the format {myVar1} and {myVar2}.
Execute task even if there are no files	Select this option, if you want the operation to be executed if no files are found.
Execute task only once	Select this option, if you want the operation to be executed once.

Activating or Deactivating Actions

By default, a newly created post-processing or scheduled action is inactive. This enables you to work on configuring an action without any concern that the partially configured action is running. After you fully configure the action, you can activate it to associate it with a service.

You can also activate or deactivate more than one action at a time.

To activate or deactivate actions

1. On the navigation pane, select Actions.

2. On the Post-Processing actions or Scheduled actions page, select one or more actions, and do one of the following:

Tip: Each page of the actions list displays a maximum of 50 actions. Only select the actions visible on a single page.

• Click to activate the selected actions.

Note: Ensure that you define the execution Criteria for all the scheduled actions you want to activate. webMethods.io MFT ignores any scheduled action that has no execution Criteria defined.

• Click to deactivate the selected actions.

The selected actions are activated or deactivated based on your selection.

Tip: If you have more actions to select in the additional pages of the actions list, click Next or the required page number, and repeat step 2.

Modifying a Post-Processing or Scheduled Action

You can edit the configuration settings of an existing post-processing, scheduled, or monitor folder action.

To modify an action

1. On the navigation pane, select Actions.

2. On the Post-Processing actions or Scheduled actions page, click on an action that you want to edit.

3. Modify the required configuration settings for the action.

4. Click Save.
   The action is updated with the modified settings.

Searching for a Post-Processing or Scheduled Action

You can search the post-processing or scheduled actions list to locate an action based on the action name and status.

To search for an action

1. On the navigation pane, select Actions.

2. On the Post-Processing actions or Scheduled actions page, specify all or one of the following search criteria:

3. Click Reset to reset values and Apply for the changes to take effect.
The actions list is populated with the actions matching your search criteria.

Server Variables

With server variables, you can pass values to post-processing and scheduled actions dynamically at run time. For example, when you configure a copy action for a post-processing event, specify the destination URL as {parent_path} and the “rename file to” parameter as {name}_processed. When the event is triggered, webMethods.io MFT copies the file to the parent directory and appends “_processed” to the end of the file name.

webMethods.io MFT supports the following:

• General variables that handle special characters and error messages
• Variables that pertain to file references
• Variables that pertain to date and time formats and
• User variables that pertain to the content of emails that are sent to users.

Note: The variables are case-sensitive.

General Variables

File Reference Variables

Note: In event actions such as Send Email which process multiple files, use the variables as per the following example:

<LINE>{stem}{ext}
</LINE>

This syntax ensures that all the files in the list are processed by these actions instead of just the first file.

Date/Time Variables

You can precede any of the date/time variables with the following symbols:

• Preceding a variable with a dot (.) results in replacing the variable with the current value. For example, {.dd} results in the current day, and {.hh} results in the current hour.
• Preceding a variable with an underscore (_) results in replacing the variable with the file’s ending transfer time. For example, if a file was downloaded on Monday, and if the event triggered a “file rename” action with a value of Report_{EEE} provided for the new file name, webMethods.io MFT renames the downloaded file to Report_Mon.

User Variables

Post-process actions triggered as a result of file operations can make use of these variables.