A File Exporter creates files with a format that matches that of the input stream.
File Exporter Details
The file exporter tab provides some of the standard list icons and the following settings.
| Field | Description | ||||||||||||
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| Basic Settings | |||||||||||||
| Name | The name of the file exporter. | ||||||||||||
| Enabled | Tick when the configuration is complete and the file exporter is ready for use. | ||||||||||||
| File Name (Expr) | An expression that generates the name of the file being exported. It must evaluate to a plain text string, and can include text expressions. A number of internal variables are available in this expression:
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| Output Directory (Expr) | An optional expression used to generate the name of the directory into which generated files should be written. It must evaluate to a plain text string. As this is an expression field, if you supply a simple directory definition in plain text it must be surrounded by quotes. Also, directory separators must be / and not \, even if the file is being written to a directory on a Windows platform. For example The internal variables you can use in this expression are:
If no expression is provided, or the expression evaluates to blank, the generated file will not be saved to disk and PhixFlow will check that the Send By Email section details are completed. | ||||||||||||
| FTP Site | The FTP site to which the generated file will be moved. If no site is specified then the file is assumed to be generated and left on the local machine. If a site is specified then all directory paths specified on this form should be the full path to the file. The base directory specified in System Configuration is ignored because the base directory is specific to the local machine. | ||||||||||||
| Ignore Base Directory | Normally the base directory, specified in the System Configuration tab → System Directories section, is prepended to the output directory specified on this form. However, if this check box is ticked only the output directory is used as the full path for the export file. | ||||||||||||
| Export File As | Files can be exported in the following formats: Comma Separated Values: Data will be read from a single push pipe and written to CSV files. Excel Spreadsheet: Data will be read from a single push pipe and written to Excel Spreadsheet files. Optionally, the push pipe may specify a drilldown view which may in turn specify an Excel template. Optionally, the file exporter may specify an Excel Template which supersedes any template specified on a drill-down view. If an Excel template is specified, each output file is generated by copying the Excel template file and overwriting the values in the first worksheet. In this case, the type of file generated is the same as that of the template. If no Excel template is specified, each output file is generated by creating a new, empty file and writing values to the first and only worksheet. In this case, the type of file generated is determined by the extension generated by the the File Name Expression field: .xls will generate a file in Microsoft Office 2003 Excel format .xlsx or .xlsm will generate a file in Microsoft Office 2007 Excel format any other extension will generate a file in the format set as the Default Export Excel Version in System Configuration. Excel Spreadsheet (Multiple Inputs): Data will be read from all input pipes and written to Excel spreadsheet files. At least one input pipe must be a push pipe. The Excel Template Expression must evaluate to the name of an Excel template file. The Excel template must be annotated with instructions to the exporter to insert data from any of the input pipes into specific ranges of cells. See File Exporter Excel Multi-input. HTML File: Data will be read from a single push pipe and written to HTML files. Optionally, the push pipe may specify a Drilldown View which may in turn specify an Excel template. Optionally, the file exporter may specify an Excel Template which supersedes any template specified on a drill-down view. If an Excel template is specified, each output file is generated by copying the Excel template file, overwriting the values in the first worksheet, then writing the first worksheet out as HTML. If no Excel template is specified, each output file is generated by creating a new, empty Excel file, writing values to the first and only worksheet, then writing that worksheet out as HTML. | ||||||||||||
| Overwrite existing file | The file exporter overwrites existing files with the same name as the file to be generated. This can be useful where you want PhixFlow to replace a file at regular intervals, for example to update the content of an HTML page on an intranet. | ||||||||||||
| Maximum Records per File | The maximum number of records that will be written to each file. | ||||||||||||
| Header | If ticked, a header line will be written to generated files containing the names of each field written in the following rows. | ||||||||||||
| Character Set | The character encoding to be used. Select a value from the drop-down list.
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| Other Character Set | Available when Character Set = Other. Enter a different character set. For the full list of available character sets, see the Oracle Java documentation about encoding; the canonical names from both columns can be used. | ||||||||||||
| Line Separator Style | The user can specify the line separator on each file exporter where a particular exporter needs to use a style other than the system default. Options available are:
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| Line Separator Chars | Available when Line Separator Style = Other. Enter either one or more characters to use as a new line separator. The characters entered may be the literal characters or a sequence from the table below which may be useful where the required separator character is not valid to be stored in the database.
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| Column Separator | Select a value from the drop-down list. If Other is selected, a new box opens and a new column separator can be entered.
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| Separator Character | Available when Column Separator = Other. Allows a custom column separator to be entered. A sequence of multiple characters is allowed. | ||||||||||||
| Excel Template | Available when Export File As is one of following:
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| Evaluate Formulae Before Saving File | When checked, the file exporter will evaluate any formula in the spreadsheet before saving the file, so that when the file is next opened in Excel, the calculations have already been done. | ||||||||||||
| Quote Style | Select a value from the drop-down list. If Other if selected, a new box opens and a new quote character can be entered. | ||||||||||||
| Quote Character | Available when Quote Style = Other. Enter a custom quote style character. | ||||||||||||
| Input Multiplier | |||||||||||||
| Input Multiplier | The input multiplier expression should evaluate to a list of one or more values. For each value in the list, the internal variable _inputMultiplier will be set to that value and the file export process will be repeated i.e. the pull pipes will be read and the data from those pipes processed to generate file output data, and a new export file will be written. | ||||||||||||
| Inputs | |||||||||||||
| A list of pipes into the File Exporter. | |||||||||||||
| Send By Email | |||||||||||||
In this section you can set up an automated email to be sent when a file is exported, optionally with the exported file attached. If an input multiplier expression is provided for this exporter then several files may be produced and each file may be assigned to several recipients. The subject and body expressions may also evaluate to different values each time (for example if _inputMultiplier is included in the expression). In this case PhixFlow will try to generate as few emails as possible by applying the following rules. For each recipient identify the files to be sent to that recipient. If the subject and body message calculated for each file is the same then generate a single email and attach all files to that email. If the subject and body messages for each file are different then create one email for each subject and body message pair and attach to each email all the files for which the subject and body expression evaluated to the same subject and body message. Emails are generated in an outbound queue and actually sent by a separate email demon process. If it is not possible to send emails immediately, e.g. because the email server is down, the email demon process will try to re-send periodically until either it succeeds or until a timeout period has passed. Extra buttons:
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| Email From | The generated email will appear to be from this email address. An expression that must evaluate to a plain text string. | ||||||||||||
| Subject Expression | Enter a PhixFlow expression to create the email subject. Must evaluate to a plain text string. | ||||||||||||
| Attach File | Whether or not the exported file should be attached to the email sent. | ||||||||||||
| Future Attachments Expression | This expression is evaluated to give a list of external files that should be be attached to the email. These files are created outside PhixFlow, and may or may not exist when the file exporter runs. If the files don't exist, the generated email will be held in the output queue until either they are created by some external process, or a timeout period has passed. | ||||||||||||
Zip File | Available when Attach File is selected or Future Attachments Expression is set. This specifies whether or not the attached file(s) will be zipped. | ||||||||||||
| Message Expression | Enter a PhixFlow expression to create the message body of the email. Must evaluate to a plain text string. | ||||||||||||
| Encryption | |||||||||||||
Available when Send By Email section → Zip File is selected. Set whether exported zip attachments are encrypted, along with the encryption parameters and the password which must then be used to open the files. | |||||||||||||
| Encryption Type | The following encryption types are supported:
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| Password | Email recipients must enter this password in order to open any exported zipped files. When setting the password, you should make a note of the password used and communicate it separately to the recipients of the emails to be sent out. It is not possible to display the current password. | ||||||||||||
| Confirm Password | This must match the main Password. | ||||||||||||
| User Recipients | |||||||||||||
A list of email recipients. The rules to determine whether each recipient will be sent the email are configured in the User Notification Rule. For each rule, in the list, the following fields are shown: | |||||||||||||
| User | The name of the recipient. This must be a user that has been set up in PhixFlow. | ||||||||||||
| Email As | Specifies how the email is to be sent to the recipient TO/CC/BCC | ||||||||||||
| Expression | Enter a User Notification Rule that governs whether the email will be sent to this user. This must evaluate to 1 ("true" - send the email) or 0 ("false" - do not send the email). However, if you leave this field blank, it will default to "true" - send the email. | ||||||||||||
| Recipient Expressions | |||||||||||||
| TO Expression | Enter a PhixFlow expression to calculate the recipients for the email. The recipients returned by this expression will be added to the list of recipients returned by the individual User Notification Rule on the Email Recipients section.
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| CC Expression | As in the TO Expression, the list of users returned by this expression will be included on the CC line on the email. | ||||||||||||
| BCC Expression | As in the TO Expression, the list of users returned by this expression will be included in the BCC line on the email. | ||||||||||||
| Analysis Models | |||||||||||||
| A list of Analysis Models using this file exporter. | |||||||||||||
| Description | |||||||||||||
| Description | Description of the file exporter. | ||||||||||||
