Is there a way to mass delete publications rather than delete them from the Content Manager? I need to get rid of about 75 pubs which are now surplus.
Whilst it may be possible to manipulate the database directly, the only supported ways to delete publications is through the Content Manager or an API (although quickly looking at the documentation I think it's only possible through the older TOM API, not TOM.Net).
As Nuno suggests, for 75 publications, it will likely be far easier to do it through the Content Manager rather than write/test/debug a tool that uses the API to do the same job.
Remember that you can only delete publications as long as:
No content in the Publication is published.
The Publication does not have any Child Publications in a BluePrint.
You are a system administrator.
Simplest way is using the Core Service API I would say, just call client.Delete("tcm:0-xyz-1"); creating your Core Service Client as described on tridion-practice for example.
However you will most likely get an Item is in use. error back which you probably best can resolve manually in the UI. Unpublishing the entire publication as a preparation before calling Delete is also possible using the client.UnPublish() method (see API documentation for details about the parameters required).
A lot will depend on which publications you need to get rid of. It's easy enough to delete publications from a script. (My favourite approach is using Windows Powershell), but you'll need to delete the blueprint children first, before attempting to delete their parents. If a publication has a blueprinting child, you can't delete it.
So first figure out the blueprinting relationships, and then do the deleting. Still, for 75 publications, you would probably be finished doing it by hand before you had your script tested. Of course, if you need to transmit the same changes accurately through your DTAP street, a script is the way to go.
This is bit time taking process I deleted more than 50 last year with thousand of published item in those publication.
FYI there is quicker way to set all item as unpublished using power tool but again that will left many entries in broker db.
So it is advisable to plan this and do proper un-publishing and delete from content manager, tom API or core service.
Related
I use Kimonolabs right now for scraping data from websites that have the same goal. To make it easy, lets say these websites are online shops selling stuff online (actually they are job websites with online application possibilities, but technically it looks a lot like a webshop).
This works great. For each website an scraper-API is created that goes trough the available advanced search page to crawl all product-url's. Let's call this API the 'URL list'. Then a 'product-API' is created for the product-detail-page that scrapes all necessary elements. E.g. the title, product text and specs like the brand, category, etc. The product API is set to crawl daily using all the URL's gathered in the 'URL list'.
Then the gathered information for all product's is fetched using Kimonolabs JSON endpoint using our own service.
However, Kimonolabs will quit its service end of february 2016 :-(. So, I'm looking for an easy alternative. I've been looking at import.io, but I'm wondering:
Does it support automatic updates (letting the API scrape hourly/daily/etc)?
Does it support fetching all product-URL's from a paginated advanced search page?
I'm tinkering around with the service. Basically, it seems to extract data via the same easy proces as Kimonolabs. Only, its unclear to me if paginating the URL's necesarry for the product-API and automatically keeping it up to date are supported.
Any import.io users here that can give advice if import.io is a usefull alternative for this? Maybe even give some pointers in the right direction?
Look into Portia. It's an open source visual scraping tool that works like Kimono.
Portia is also available as a service and it fulfills the requirements you have for import.io:
automatic updates, by scheduling periodic jobs to crawl the pages you want, keeping your data up-to-date.
navigation through pagination links, based on URL patterns that you can define.
Full disclosure: I work at Scrapinghub, the lead maintainer of Portia.
Maybe you want to give Extracty a try. Its a free web scraping tool that allows you to create endpoints that extract any information and return it in JSON. It can easily handle paginated searches.
If you know a bit of JS you can write CasperJS Endpoints and integrate any logic that you need to extract your data. It has a similar goal as Kimonolabs and can solve the same problems (if not more since its programmable).
If Extracty does not solve your needs you can checkout these other market players that aim for similar goals:
Import.io (as you already mentioned)
Mozenda
Cloudscrape
TrooclickAPI
FiveFilters
Disclaimer: I am a co-founder of the company behind Extracty.
I'm not that much fond of Import.io, but seems to me it allows pagination through bulk input urls. Read here.
So far not much progress in getting the whole website thru API:
Chain more than one API/Dataset It is currently not possible to fully automate the extraction of a whole website with Chain API.
For example if I want data that is found within category pages or paginated lists. I first have to create a list of URLs, run Bulk Extract, save the result as an import data set, and then chain it to another Extractor.Once set up once, I would like to be able to do this in one click more automatically.
P.S. If you are somehow familiar with JS you might find this useful.
Regarding automatic updates:
This is a beta feature right now. I'm testing this for myself after migrating from kimonolabs...You can enable this for your own APIs by appending &bulkSchedule=1 to your API URL. Then you will see a "Schedule" tab. In the "Configure" tab select "Bulk Extract" and add your URLs after this the scheduler will run daily or weekly.
We have a client who is currently using Lotus Notes/Domino as their content management system and web server. For many reasons, we are recommending they sunset their Notes/Domino implementation and transition onto a more modern platform--such as Drupal.
The client has several web applications which would be a natural fit for Drupal. However, I am unsure of the best way to implement one of the web applications in Drupal. I am running into a knowledge barrier and wondered if any of you could fill in the gaps.
Situation
The client has a Lotus Domino application which serves as a front-end for querying a large DB2 data store and returning a result set (generally in table form) to a user via the web. The web application provides access to approximately 100 pre-defined queries--50 of which are public and 50 of which are secured. Most of the queries accept some set of user selected parameters as input. The output of the queries is typically returned to users in a list (table) format. A limited number of result sets allow drill-down through the HTML table into detail records.
The query parameters often involve database queries themselves. For example, a single query may pull a list of company divisions into a drop-down. Once a division is selected, second drop-down with the departments from that division is populated--but perhaps only departments which meet some special criteria--such as those having taken a loss within a specific time frame. Most queries have 2-4 parameters with the average probably being 3.
The application involves no data entry. None of the back-end data is ever modified by the web application. All access is purely based around querying data and viewing results.
The queries change relatively infrequently, and the current system has been in place for approximately 10 years. There may be 10-20 query additions, modifications, or other changes in a given year. The client simply desires to change the presentation platform but absolutely does not want to re-do the 100 database queries.
Once the project is implemented, the client wants their staff to take over and manage future changes. The client's staff have no background in Drupal or PHP but are somewhat willing to learn as necessary.
How would you transition this into Drupal? My major knowledge void relates to how we would manage the query parameters and access the queries themselves. Here are a few specific questions but feel free to chime in on any issue related to this implementation.
Would we have to build 100 forms by hand--with each form containing the parameters for a given query? If so, how would we do this?
Approximately how long would it take to build/configure each of these forms?
Is there a better way than manually building 100 forms? (I understand using CCK to enter data into custom content types but since we aren't adding any nodes, I am a little stuck as to how this might work.)
Would it be possible for the internal staff to learn to create these query parameter forms--even if they are unfamiliar with Drupal today? Would they be required to do any PHP programming?
How would we take the query parameters from a form and execute a query against DB2? Would this require a custom module? If so, would it require one module total or one module per query? (Note: There is apparently a DB2 driver available for Drupal. See http://groups.drupal.org/node/5511.)
Note: I am not looking for CMS recommendations other than Drupal as Drupal nicely fits all of the client's other requirements, and I hope to help them standardize on a single platform.
Any assistance you can provide would be helpful. Thank you in advance for your help!
Have a look at the Data module - it might be able to get you a long way towards a solution.
The biggest problem you are likely to have is connecting to the DB2 server through Drupal since it's DBA layer doesn't support it without patches (as you've discovered).
A couple things come to mind.
You can use Table Wizard to expose any custom tables to views. Views basically gives you a UI for writing custom sql queries. Once your tables are exposed to views you can use filters to "parameterize" the query. Also, views supports many display options including tables and pagers.
If you do need to write your own forms for advanced queries, take a look at the Drupal Form API which makes creating custom php forms a peice of cake.
Views is fairly easy to learn and, in my experience, most clients pick it up quickly. It really depends on the complexity of the query.
Form API should be easy for a developer to pick up, but does require a basic knowledge of php and writing Drupal code.
Does Lotus provide a web service to query it? If so, you can easily do this using a custom form (in your own module) and use Services module to query the data.
We use MS Dynamics 4.0 at work for our CRM. This handles all contact management, marketing, resource sharing w/ sharepoint integration, workflow management / collaboration and essentially is used by every department in the firm in some way or another.
We have requirements from business for a new application that we have a tight timeline on. We have only just started rolling out CRM, and most of the custom development was done by a consulting firm.
We need a relatively simple application that we need to track some data for sharing for a specific group. Some of this information already lives in our 'company' and 'client' CRM entity.
This new project would require us to add around 26 fields - we don't want to bloat our already large company entity - especially since only around 5% of our companies would use these extra fields.
We are basically debating a design right now - hybrid solution (create our own ASP.NET app that looks like CRM and communicates to it via web services and store all the 'supplemental' fields on our own database, possibly living on the same DB server as our CRM DB so we can easily write queries). The other alternative is to do it 100% in CRM.
I'm just looking for advice for people who have done something similar to this. Would you recommend doing a hybrid solution such as this or should we do 100% CRM? Our deadline is tight and the developers working on the project have limited CRM knowledge; this is why it's a bit of a debate. For those working with MS Dynamics - how would you typically handle a project like this, where we need to add many fields (and even sub fields with parent->child relationships of their own) that would only apply to a very small percentage of our main 'company' entity.. something to note: we are already having performance issues when people load up this company entity as is (it could take 5 seconds for the page to render) and the same goes for advanced finds.
Last thing to note - this portion of the application is only for storing the data. In the end, the user will be opening a VBA Excel workbook, pushing a 'pull down data' button, that will pull this data from wherever we wind up storing it. We just aren't sure where we should store/manage this data/UI.
Thanks very much for any advice.
EDIT: How can I create 2 list boxes next to each other with 2 buttons in the middle where one listbox is a lost of 'my foos' and the other is 'all foos' and you add/take away from 'my foos' list box??? the classic 'i have these foos as part of me' UI control with 2 list boxes and 2 arrow buttons... Should/can I use jquery for this? and does anyone happen to know of any jquery control that already does all of this out of the box? This is such a common control I'm sure it must be out there somewhere. I've browsed some toolkits and controls and some threads on here and seen some really awesome, even more complicated controls but not this particular one..
EDIT2: After doing more research, it seems like keeping the UI all in CRM would be more complicated then just making an ASP.NET app for that portion and putting it in an iframe or modal popup in CRM.
We can still setup all the data fields and relationships in CRM - and have the ASP.NET do the CRUD using Webservice calls.
It seems we would wind up having to do the same amount of work to get the functionality needed in CRM - except it would be more hackish and done in javascript. At what benefit? Keeping the UI in one place??? Not that much of a trade off IMO...
so far we are leaning towards keeping all data in CRM but putting the UI in ASP.NET
Any advice is greatly appreicated. Is what I'm saying sane? Thanks
I agree, you're better off going with 100% CRM.
If (and I stress if) you find the performance impact is significant, consider using a related entity to hold the additional fields.
CRM doesn't provide a 1-to-1 relationship type so you'll have to manage that yourself. Make your company entity the N side of the relationship so the related entity appears as a lookup.
Alternately, if the related entity lookup is too abstract for your users, add a tab with an iFrame to the company entity form. Use javascript to show/hide the tab and also to set the src of the iFrame to the url of the related entity.
I'd use CRM to store the data. You can stick the new fields in a separate pane in the UI so that it won't clutter. You can even add some Javascript to the UI to hide pane/fields from users who are not part of the group that requires them. I know this sounds a little hacke-ty, but it's a lot less work than coming up with an entirely different app and users will get a consistent experience. Having the data in one place is also a boon for reporting and such.
I can't say for sure, but I don't think adding a few columns to an entity (which already has a bazzilion columns) will deteriorate performance much further. I'd go over the installation and check for the usual performance pitfalls.
Creating ASP.NET applications to create a complex UI in an iframe is a simple solution that I use frequently for MS Dynamics CRM 4.0 applications.
Keeping all of the data in CRM makes a lot of sense, but make the UI however you want it.
The iframe calls your ASP.NET application with a Querystring containing the entity's GUID so that you can use web services to pull any related information.
You can both modify the fields showing on the form with JavaScript, directly update the database or both for consistency. Frequently it is easier just to hide the fields being updated in the ASP.NET application so there is no confusion.
An example from a long time ago was a loan morgage calculator that I built for an iframe of an opportunity that a sales representative would have up. It would find all of the customer's related loan balances and calculate different options that the sale representative could then turn into a quote. Click a few check boxes, and press a button and they were done without having to rekey a lot of information. Data was written to a number of CRM entities, emails were generated and the autodialer list would be modified not to call that customer again.
Learning to use MS CRM as a big development toolbox is the first step to being able to do some serious business process automation.
If you have any questions let me know.
I know that this doesn't fit your situation as you are deep in MS CRM, but there is a good article by Neal Ford that was recently posted to IBM Developer Works (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-eaed10/) that discusses COTS vs home grown software. Here's a snippet.
One of the common questions that arise in big companies is the decision whether to build or buy: for the current requirements, should we buy COTS (Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software) or build it ourselves? The motivation for this decision is understandable — if the company can find some already written software that does exactly what's needed, it saves time and money. Unfortunately, lots of software vendors understand this desire and write packaged software that can be customized if it doesn't do exactly what the client needs. They are motivated to build the most generic software they can because it will potentially fit into more ecosystems. But the more general it is, the more customization is required. That's when an army of consultants shows up, sometimes taking years to get all the custom coding done.
I am working on a design spec for a new application that will be heavily workflow driven.
Before I re-invent the wheel, is there a decent lightweight workflow engine that plugs into ASP.NET already around?
Basically, I'm looking for something that handles moving through a defined set of workflow pages while handling state management automatically.
If this isn't around already, I'll definitely try to abstract the engine from my app and put it on codeplex, as it would be really handy.
Any suggestions?
Note: .NET 2.0, so no WWF, though I think WWF is overkill for my needs.
EDIT: Seems like there is a legitimate need for this, and there isn't a product out there...So I might build this.
Here is what I'm picturing:
Custom Page class called WebFlowPage
All WebFlowPage's are registered in a Workflow mapper.
Each WebFlowPage has some form of state object.
A HttpHandler handles picking the appropriate WebFlowPage based upon the workflow, and populating it from the state object.
Is the workflow dynamic, or static?
If the workflows are simple, you could roll your own workflow engine.
In certain situations, it can be fairly simple, and just a couple of data tables to handle the rules, processing and state.
Alot of workflow engines are built for large scale processing (credit card applications, for example). For small scale, you should at least consider your own, which would eliminate the overhead and dependency of/on an engine.
Not sure exactly what you wish to do here, but Ra-Ajax can easily keep state at least if you want your solution ajaxified...
For reference purposes you might want to check out the Ajax Calendar sample or even the (banalistically implemented) Ajax Wizard sample. It surely beats the hell out of doing it with JavaScript...
And every time you "do something" you're in "server-land" which means you can store temporaries all the time as you wish...
The project is LGPL
(PS!
Yes I do work with it)
Building a custom workflow engine is not trivial, although it may seem simple at first. We've tried that. It depends a lot on the complexity of the logic you need it to cover.
Given the current state of the Windows Workflow Foundation and the lack of another framework that abstracts the workflow concepts, I would choose WF if you need complex logic, asynchronous handling or branches in your workflows.
Tracking your state through the workflow can be accomplished by carrying some kind of xml payload or storing the state in a database,
If your workflow is actually a sequential set of forms that need to be filled in by the user, tracking the steps and guiding the user to the next step can be accomplished with some simple custom solution.
You could take a look at the InRule engine too.
Also, there is nxBRE.
These too are mostly used for business rules.
InRule is proprietary, whereas nxBRE supports RuleML (the defacto standard).
You might need to make your own implementation for the pages, and use the rule engine as the "structure".
At this moment, I know that Sharepoint 2007 supports page workflows (using WF), but this would imply using .NET Framework 3 and deployng sharepoint.
My suggestion would be to use whatever you find more light and easier to use.
I think the term "workflow" is very open to interpretation. I have been working lately with a type of workflow that is very different from what you seem to be describing. Mine is a state machine based workflow where the state of a particular record determines what actions a user can take to move the record to the next step in the business process. So "workflow" in this instance means how the record flows from one state to another until it is finally completed.
Your usage of workflow seems to have more to do with moving a user from one page to another in a linear multi-step process, which is a completely different use case (correct me if I'm wrong). So before coming up with a general purpose "workflow" engine that anyone could use, I would recommend defining a little bit better exactly what types of situations this system would handle.
I've been using this for a few months http://objectflow.codeplex.com. Not asp specific but it may fit your needs
While browsing the web for some workflow & BPM resources, I found the following project: NetBPM. Unfortunately, the project seems to be stopped.
I don't think there is a workflow engine that will automatically handle state for you, but if you are moving through a set of pages like a process such as checkout on an ecommerce site, perhaps the ASP.NET wizard control could help you?
There are few workflow options. "Aspose" and "Skelta" are the offers I´m evaluating.
Fábio
you can use WorkFlow Engine, just read the document and run the Demo.
all of the features you need for a dynamic workflow engine they added in there.
Due to a lack of response to my original question, probably due to poor wording on my part. Since then, I have thought about my original question and decided to reword it, hopefully for the better! :)
We create custom business software for our customers, and quite often they want attachments to be added to certain business entities. For example, they want to attach a Word document to a customer, or an image to a job. I'm curious as to how other are handling the following:
How the user attaches documents? Single attachment? Batch attachment?
How you display the attached
documents? Simple list? Detailed list?
And the killer question, how the
user then edits attached documents? Is this even possible in a web environment? Granted the user can just view the attachment.
Is there a good control library to help manage this process?
Our current development environment is ASP.NET and C#, but I don't think this is a pretty agnostic question when it comes to development tools, save for the fact I need to work in a web environment.
It seems we always run into problems with the customer and working with attachments in a web environment so I am looking for some successes that other programmers have had with their user base on how best to interact with attachments.
Start with one file upload control ("Browse button"), and use JavaScript to dynamically add more upload controls if they want to attach multiple files in a single batch.
Display them in a simple list format (Filename, type, size, date), but provide full details somewhere else if they want them.
If they want to edit the files, they have to download them, then re-upload them. Hence, you need a way that they can say "this attachment overrides that old attachment".
I'm not familiar with C# and ASP.NET, so I can't recommend any libraries that will help.
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/uploader/