2023:Box (CMIS Binding)

From Grooper Wiki
WIP

This article is a work-in-progress or created as a placeholder for testing purposes. This article is subject to change and/or expansion. It may be incomplete, inaccurate, or stop abruptly.

This tag will be removed upon draft completion.


Basic one linter about what a Box connection is.

About

You may download and import the files below into your own Grooper environment (version 2023). The first contains a Project with several Content Models used as examples throughout this article. The second contains some example Batches of sample documents.

Integration with Box in Grooper leverages the CMIS+ architecture to allow you to take full advantage of this powerful Content Management System.

If you are integrating Box with Grooper for the first time, your Box administrator will need to add Grooper as a "Custom App" before connecting.

Using the Admin Console, go to "Apps" then "Custom Apps" to add Grooper.


As part of the setup, you will be prompted to enter a Client ID. These Client IDs are version specific.

Grooper 2.90: cvl1qcgv14wu2dsyji3evncrq0de5h3l
Grooper 2021: z9iyazstefwydilz4x3abdi3w79wogow
Grooper 2022: z9iyazstefwydilz4x3abdi3w79wogow
Grooper 2023: z9iyazstefwydilz4x3abdi3w79wogow

How To

How to Create a Box CMIS Connection

Account ID

In order to connect to Box in Grooper you’ll need and enterprise account, and what Box refers to as an Account ID.

  1. When logged into Box, click the icon for your account to expose a drop-down menu.
  2. Click on Account Settings.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of this page and take note of the Account ID.

Create Box CMIS Connection in Grooper

  1. Create a new Project in the Projects Folder.
  2. Select "Add", then "CMIS Connection."
  1. Name your repopsitory.
  2. Select "Execute".
  1. Once your CMIS Connection has been created, set your Connection Settings to Box.
  2. You will then need to enter your Box Account ID.
    • If you are unsure of where to find it, please see the Prereqs tab before this one.
  3. Once your ID has been entered, you will then choose your Metadata format.
    • Bear in mind, that if you want to export your connection, your metadata format will need to be normal.
FYI

There are three Metadata formats:

  • Normal: Metadata is enabled with standard search
  • Strict: Metadata is enabled with metadata-only search.
  • Disabled: Metadata is disabled. No secondary types will be exposed.

Having saved your settings, you can now import the repository. To do so:

  1. Click the "List Repositories" button.
  2. The repository(ies) awaiting import will appear. At this time, the dot under imported will be red, and it will say "False" under Imported.
  3. Once "List Repositories" has been selected, you will then be able to click "Import Repository."
  1. Select the repository you wish to import.<\li>
  2. Click Execute.

Configuring a Basic Box Export

Understanding the Source

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of explaining how to leverage this functionality is the fact that it requires access to a Box environment. One was created for the sake of this article, but unfortunately cannot be shared externally. The scope of this article also does not allow explaining setting up Box, as that's an exhaustive topic on its own.

Given that, it will be assumed you have access to a Box environment that Grooper can connect to via a CMIS Connection.

The image on the right is showing the Metadata Template being used for this folder in this Box environment. As you can see it's very simple, just three fields of information.

Understanding the Content Model

The purpose of this Content Model is to simply extract three fields of information from the document in its accompanying Batch.

Extracted Data

Before the Document Export activity can send data, it must have data. It's easy to get in the habit of testing extraction on a Data Field or a Data Model and feel good about the results, but it must be understood that the information displayed when doing so is in memory, or temporary. When the Extract activity is successfully run against a properly classified document (you can at the very least manually assign a Document Type) it creates Index Data and marries it to the document via a JSON file called Grooper.DocumentData.json.

You can verify the extracted data's existence as follows:

  1. First, navigate to the Document (or Folder) object in the node tree; not the Batch, not the Batch Folder, not the Page, but specifically the Document object. This is where the information lives.
  2. From there, click on the Viewer tab.
  3. Once there, click the Review button. This will upon up the Reviewer tab.



  1. Click the Data Viewer icon
  2. This will bring up the extracted data of the document.

Back to top to continue to next tab

Add an Export Behavior

This configuration is specific to this article. While aspects of it can apply to any configuration, it's worth noting that your environment may require slightly different settings (especially considering proprietary pieces of information like the Account ID). Note that the URLs in the image cannot be connected to externally, so attempting to copy this configuration verbatim will give you errors. This is meant as a guide, and will require an actual Box environment on your end to be established, and real information from it supplied.

  1. Select your Content Model.
  2. Make sure you are on the "Content Model" tab
  3. Select the ellipses to the right of "Behaviors".
  1. Select the Add button.
  2. In the drop-down menu, select Export Behavior.
  1. Click the ellipses to the right of "Export Definitions".
  1. Click the Add button.
  2. Select "CMIS Export".
  1. Click the little hamburger-looking symbol to the right of "CMIS Repository".
  2. In the drop-down menu, navigate down to the file(s) you want to export in your repository.
  1. If you want to change where the exported item(s) will be saved, select "Target Folder".
  1. From here, you can select your desired Target File.
  2. Once chosen, click OK.
  1. With your Target Folder selected, you will then need to choose the Object Type. Select "File".
  2. When finished, click OK.
FYI

Always check the Export Format to ensure that your are setting up the format as an attached file (this can be found under Object Data). For more information on Export Formats, see here: Export (Activity) - 2021

  1. Click the save icon.

Back to top to continue to next tab

Performing Mapped Export for Box CMIS Connection

The approach taken below is via the object command interface. These same settings can be applied to a Step in a Batch Process to achieve the same results, albeit in a slightly different area of the Grooper UI.

  1. Remaining on the Content Model tab of the Content Model, click the ellipses for Behaviors once more.
  1. Select "Export Definition".
  1. Under Object Data, select "Secondary Types."
    • While optional, choosing a Secondary Type tells Grooper which particular Metadata template you want it to point to.
      • A Metadata Template is how Box stores its information. It describes a set of key-value pairs that can be assigned to a file or folder.
  1. Select your desired Secondary Type.
    • Since this example document is taken from the Grooper Wiki Metadata Template, we've chosen the Grooper Wiki Secondary Type. Yours will differ.
  2. Once selected, click OK.
  1. From here, select Write Mappings.
    • This is where you'll tell Grooper the exact information you want from your Metadata Template. Hence why selecting a Secondary Type was necessary.
  1. You'll want to specify the output value for the CMIS Name property.
  2. Select Expression.
  1. Enter your expression in the dialogue box.
    • In this step, ,we're basically mapping our export to the name of the file we have in Box.
FYI

Since the ID is specified as a Decimal format in Grooper, we've added the .ToString extension so it can be exported as text.

  1. When finished, click OK.
FYI

Descriptions and Tags can help you further refine your export mapping, but they aren't necessary; thus we've left them alone.

Now, we move onto simple matching. For this, we're specifying which particular pieces of Metadata we're mapping to. Thus, it's important to match each piece exactly.

  1. For our case, we need to match three things: ID, First Name, and Last Name. Thus, select Grooper Wiki ID.
  2. Choose ID from the drop-down menu.
  1. Select Grooper Wiki First Name.
  2. And match it with First_Name
  1. Lastly, select Grooper Wiki Last Name.
  2. Match it with the Last_Name item.
  3. With everything matched, click OK.

Configuring a Mapped Box Export

Version Differences

Prior to Grooper 2.9 the ability to connect to Box via CMIS Connection did not exist.