Automator Visual Process - workspace file saved in DPS containing original input filename

Henry_21370
Henry_21370 Altair Community Member
edited February 2018 in Community Q&A

I am having a dilemma when I set up a visual process in the Datawatch Automator 14.3, whereby, a workspace file that I saved in the Data Prep Studio, carries over the input file name that I used for data prepping and can no longer set the workspace settings in the Visual Process to accept another file with a different input filename.

 

Example of the steps taken:

 

1) I go to Data Prep Studio and open an Excel input file with relevant data. The file name on the original input file is:  'ABC-02-10-2018.xlsx'

2) I go to the menu to select Save As Workspace and save the file appropriately as filename 'XYZ.dpwx'

3) I go to Datawatch Automator (server edition) and select the Visual Process section to lay out the steps for data parsing.

    a) I start with the input file icon and select the path where the input file resides, however, the filename is different than the one I used in Data Prep Studio, although it has the same data and layout information as the original file, just renamed the file for testing.

    b) I add the workspace icon in the canvas to choose the workspace file I saved in Data Prep Studio, such as:  'XYZ.dpwx'

    c) I then add the DataPrep Export icon to configure the export data.

4) When I run the Automator manually, I get errors that DataPrep could not run and so I check the log, which says that the input file is not found. I am guessing that it is looking for the original filename as used in Data Prep Studio.

 

Questions that I need answered:

1) There is an issue for me in that, the input file will change each day in Automator (server)  - the filenames will be different each time as they contain dates in the filename. How do I configure the Workspace settings in Visual Process to accept different input files each time? Currently, the workspace file saves the input filename I worked on in Data Prep Studio.

2) I also noticed that when I run the input file successfully in Data Prep Studio, it relies on the Change List configuration, but I do not see where I set up the Change List file in the Visual Process canvas in order to parse the data properly. Am I missing a step here? Please advise.

 

I worked on this for a full week with many variations and cannot come to a successful conclusion.

 

Thank you,

 

Henry

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Answers

  • Altair Forum User
    Altair Forum User
    Altair Employee
    edited February 2018

    Sorry, I meant Automator version 14.1 instead.

  • Altair Forum User
    Altair Forum User
    Altair Employee
    edited February 2018

    Assign an Excel file to a File Input object.  connect the File input to a Workspace.  Click on the workspace object, in the workspace property expand the load plans, in the File Name pick list you should see the original path and excel file name as well as the name of the File Name object.  Select the File Name object's name.

    You should also see the change list history in the workspace properties page.

    In the following screenshot the File input name is TextFiles, but the workspace in dataprep was configured to process 2006.txt file.

    image

     

    image

     

    Mo

  • Altair Forum User
    Altair Forum User
    Altair Employee
    edited March 2018

    If Mo's Suggestion does not resolve the issue, it could be a permission problem; especially if the new report is in a different location to your original report.

     

    Are you able to place the file in the same location as the original for testing?  If that works, then please check that the domain account being used to run the Agent service on the Datawatch Automator server has access to your new file location.

     

    Additionally, if the file is in use (in Excel from your desktop, for example), the process will fail.