BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise 2017 Configuration Guide

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Importing documents from a database

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Tip    

 

Warning    

To import documents and their metadata with the Database Import Wizard:

  1. Create a source database that contains metadata about the documents that you want to import, as described in Creating an import source database.
  2. In Configurator, on the Vault menu, select Import from a Database. The Database Import Wizard appears.
  3. Click Next. The Configuration File page appears.
  4. To use an existing Database Import Wizard configuration file, select it from the list or click Browse, select the file, and click Open.
  5. If the configuration file is complete and correct, click Start Import to begin the import immediately. Click Resume to continue a previous import. To configure a new import, click Next. The Database page appears.
  6. Click options or type values using the descriptions in the following table.
Database options
Option Description

Select the database to import from

Click Browse, select a database file type from the list, select the database that contains the document metadata that you want to import, and click Open.

Note    If the source database is a Microsoft Excel worksheet, you must specify the cells that contain the data to import as a named range in the worksheet. You will select this range in the Select Table dialog in the next step. If you don’t create a range, the Database Import Wizard cannot determine the data to import. For more information on naming a range in Excel, refer to the Excel documentation. For information about importing other types of tables from Excel, see the description of the ShowAllTablesImportDB registry value in the BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise Administrator's Guide.

Show ODBC driver setup dialog

Allows you to configure an ODBC connection to the database, if one is not available already.

  1. Depending on the data source you selected, the Select Table dialog might appear. If so, select the table (or Excel range) that contains the data that you want to import and click OK. The File Path Field page appears.
  2. Select a field in the source database from Path field that contains the path to the files that you want to import. Click Next. The Document types page appears.
  3. Assign document types, as described in Assigning document types to imported files and click Next. The External References page appears.

  4. If you want the Database Import Wizard to attempt to resolve external references after the import has completed, select Resolve external references. Resolving references creates a Meridian reference between the documents. Click Next. The Initialize Properties page appears.

    Note    If CAD external references will be resolved during import, the native application may need to be installed on the computer where the Database Import Wizard is run. This is true for all CAD applications except AutoCAD.

  5. Select options to initialize properties as described in Initializing document properties and click Next. The Title Block Fields page appears.
  6. Select Import title block data if the information in CAD drawing title blocks is more complete or accurate than the data in the source database. The title block data will overwrite data imported from the source database. The document types assigned to documents with title blocks must be configured to exchange title block data, as described in Configuring standard title block synchronization. Click Next. The Rendition file path field page appears.
  7. Select Add the rendition file to the document if the source database contains a field that contains the paths to separate rendition files that you want to import to the vault. Select that field from the list. The rendition files will be imported to the vault and associated with the documents that are created.
  8. Click Next. The Exclusions page appears.
  9. Select options to exclude certain documents from being imported, as described in Excluding documents from import and click Next. The Revisions page appears.
  10. Select options to import document revisions, as described in Importing revisions and click Next. The Tree Structure dialog box appears.
  11. Select an option to specify whether or not the drive letter of the path of the source documents should be used to create the top-level folder of the documents’ paths in the vault, and click Next. The Final Settings page appears.
  12. Click options or type values using the descriptions in the following table.
Document import options
Option Description

Create a log file during import

Creates a log file in the location specified in Log file name. Type a fully qualified file name of your choice. We recommend that you save the file in the vault folder. The log file will contain the information about the success or failure of the import of every document in the source database. You can use this log file to identify and troubleshoot documents that did not import correctly. The file is also useful as a record of the origin of documents in the vault for auditing purposes. 

Add timestamp to the log records

 Appends the time (accurate to 3-digit milliseconds) to the date of every record.

Save import configuration file as

Saves the Database Import Wizard options you have selected for this import. Type a fully qualified file name of your choice. We recommend that you save the file in the vault’s Backup folder so that it can be backed up. This file can be loaded in step 4 to repeat or resume a previous import.

Tip    Use a saved configuration file as a template for similar imports. After loading the file in step 4, you can modify previously selected options as necessary and save the results as a different configuration file.

Unattended operation

Imports documents without stopping for import errors. This option is useful if you want to import many files and will not monitor the import to respond to import errors. Any errors that are encountered will be noted in the log file specified above.
  1. Click Next. The final page appears.

  2. Click Finish. The import begins and a progress dialog box appears showing statistics, as described in Monitoring the import progress.

    If you need to cancel the import for any reason, it can be completed later by loading the same configuration file in step 4 and resuming the import in step 5.

  3. When the import is finished, use a Meridian client application to verify the results by checking the following for a representative sample of documents in the vault:

  4. If you chose to create a log file in step 16, review the log file for errors.

Related concepts

About importing documents to a vault

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