Hi Everyone,
I’m just generally curious how other organizations are approaching scenarios like this. If you have an EPM job waiting on data (in my case, new excel files) from end users, what’s your process for end users to “hand off” to Eggplant?
As an example, I have a group of end users who want to be able to “hand off” a file to Eggplant, and have Eggplant perform some steps for them. Fortunately they don’t need it in real time, so I can set this up as a nightly job.
The solution I’ve come up with (perhaps not the best) is for users to place the files in a shared drive. Then EPM checks the directory for new content, and performs steps if so. That said I suspect there are more direct / efficient solutions.
Here’s a more granular breakdown of my example scenario / solution:
- End user drops a new excel file to a shared drive.
- At midnight (or whenever), EPM navigates to the directory.
- If EPM finds new excel file (or files), it moves them to a directory on the agent C: drive. (Not as an EPF Resource, but a distinct directory, which I’ll elaborate on in a sec).
- EPM the time this job is done, the original directory is empty.
- EPM opens any excel files in the local directory.
- EPM performs the actual workflow steps. As it does so, it writes some status-related updates to the excel file (pass, fail, etc).
- EPM sends an email with the file attached to the end user.
- EPM purges that C: drive directory.
One challenge with this approach is that some of our end users might not have access to a given shared drive. I could use our Box.com account, but one challenge there is that our end users would need to know how to upload a file, etc.
Anyway just curious what you’re doing or if you have any suggestions. I will likely start work on this in the next few days so if you read this down the road and want my script as foundation, I’m happy to share.
Cheers,
Dan