CMIS Import (Import Provider)

This article is about the current version of Grooper.

Note that some content may still need to be updated.

2025

2023

2021

CMIS Import refers to two Import Providers used to import content over a cloud CMIS Connection: Import Descendants and Import Query Results. CMIS Imports allow users to import from various on-premise and cloud based storage platforms.

Documents are imported from CMIS Connections using either the Import Descendants or Import Query Results providers. These can be used in two ways:

To perform manual "ad-hoc" imports when creating a new Batch on the "Imports" page.
To perform automated, scheduled imports using one or more Import Watcher Grooper services.

Import Descendants will import all documents within a designated folder location of a CMIS Repository. Import Query Results allows you to use a query syntax similar to a SQL query (called a CMISQL query) to set conditions for import based on the item's available metadata, such as a documents name, file type, creation date, archive status, or other variables.

SharePoint: SharePoint is a CMIS Connection Type that connects Grooper to Microsoft SharePoint, providing access to content stored in "document libraries" and "picture libraries" for import and export operations.

About CMIS+

"CMIS" stands for "Content Management Interoperability Services". It is an open standard that allows different content management systems to inter-operate over the Internet. Grooper expanded on this idea in version 2.72 to create our "CMIS+" architecture. CMIS+ unifies all content platforms under a single framework as if they were traditional CMIS endpoints.

Now, Grooper connects to any external storage platform by creating and configuring a CMIS Connection (not just CMIS 1.0 or CMIS 1.1 servers).

Once a CMIS Connection is created, Grooper can "interoperate" with these platforms.
"Interoperability " means Grooper has the same access to control the system as a human being does.
Grooper has a "one-to-one" connection to the platform, allowing full and total control.

Using this architecture, Grooper is able to create a simpler and more efficient import and export workflow, using a variety of storage platforms.

You now use CMIS Import providers and CMIS Export, regardless of the storage platform.

Anatomy of a CMIS Connection

When connecting Grooper to external storage platforms, you'll start by creating a CMIS Connection. There are three important parts to understanding a CMIS Connection

The CMIS Connection itself.
It's Connection Type (and the "CMIS Binding" you select).
It's child CMIS Repositories

FYI

A "repository", in computer science, is a general term for a location where data lives. Different systems refer to "repositories" in different ways.

An email inbox could be a repository. A folder in Windows could be a repository. A folder in a Box account could be a repository. A cabinet in ApplicationXtender could be a repository.
We standardize the various terms used by various storage platforms to simply "repository".
Put simply, it's a place to put stuff.

For newer users, the difference between a CMIS Connection and a CMIS Repository can be confusing (and it doesn't help that some people use the terms interchangeably!). The key distinction is as follows:

The CMIS Connection is the object in Grooper that Grooper uses to establish a connection to some external system.
- The Connection Type determines which specific platform you're connecting to, and any settings required to connect to it.
CMIS Repositories represent a location within the connected platform.
- These are created after creating the CMIS Connection.
- Typically, these represent a folder location in the storage platform.

For example, imagine you want to use Grooper to connect to a Windows file system folder on some networked server.

First, they would create a new CMIS Connection
Then they would choose NTFS for its Connection Type
Then they would import the folder location as a CMIS Repository
- It is then this CMIS Repository Grooper will point to when importing from or exporting to this folder location.
- The CMIS Connection is just the thing that allows Grooper to connect to Windows in this case. It is the CMIS Repository that acts as the Windows file system folder in Grooper.

To reiterate, there are three basic steps involved to connect Grooper to external storage platforms:

Create a CMIS Connection
Configure its Connection Type to select which platform you want to connect to (and enter any settings to connect to that platform).
Import storage locations as one or more CMIS Repositories, which are created as children of the CMIS Connection.

FYI

Importing a CMIS Repository is not the same as importing documents to a new Batch.

"Importing" here is more like bringing the repository into a framework Grooper can use.
Upon importing the repository, Grooper has full file access to that location in the storage platform.

CMIS Bindings (AKA Connection Types)

How you configure a CMIS Connection only differs from CMIS Binding to CMIS Binding, as each binding has a different way of connecting to it.

You don't connect to an Outlook inbox the same way you connect to a Windows file folder, for example.
Thus, the property configuration for the Exchange binding is different from the NTFS binding.

A CMIS Binding provides connectivity to external storage platforms for content import and export. Each individual CMIS Binding contains the settings and logic required to exchange documents between Grooper and each distinct platform.

The Exchange Binding contains all the information Grooper uses to connect to Microsoft Exchange email servers (i.e. Outlook inboxes).
The AppXtender Binding contains all the information Grooper uses to connect to the ApplicationXtender content management system.
The NTFS Binding contains all the information Grooper uses to connect to a Windows file system.
And so on.

When creating a CMIS Connection the first step to configure the Connection Type property.

When you select a Connection Type you're selecting which platform you want to connect to (using a CMIS Binding).
- First, you select which platform you want to connect to (which CMIS Binding you want to use)
- Then, you enter connection settings unique to the platform (any values the CMIS Binding needs to connect to the platform, like login information for many platforms)

Current CMIS Connection Types

Grooper can connect to the following storage platforms using below using CMIS Bindings:

Most Commonly Used

The Microsoft Windows NTFS file system.
The following Microsoft content platforms
- The Microsoft Exchange mail server platform.
- The Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage platform.
- Microsoft SharePoint sites.

Somewhat Commonly Used

The ApplicationXtender document management platform.
The Box cloud storage platform.

Less Commonly Used

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) servers.
IMAP mail servers

Least Used

Content management systems using CMIS 1.0 or CMIS 1.1 servers.
The FileBound document management platform.
The IBM FileNet platform.

About CMIS Import

The CMIS Import provider is split into two different Import Providers

Import Descendants
Import Query Results

These providers are designed to import files from a folder structure of an on-premise or cloud-based document storage platform. This is the primary method of Batch creation when importing digital documents into Grooper to process them with a Batch Process.

In order to do this, a few requirements must be met first.

A CMIS Connection object must made and configured. This will connect Grooper to the document storage platform.
- This may be a connection to a Windows folder, an email inbox, a true CMIS content management system, or other document storage platforms. What the CMIS Connection connects to is determined by the CMIS Binding selected when configuring the Connection Type property of the CMIS Connection object.
A CMIS Repository must be imported. This will create an object Grooper can use to import documents from the folders in the document storage platform.
- This acts as a "go-between" or a "hub" for Grooper to pull in documents from the content's source. Or, you may think of this as Grooper's representation of a folder location in the document storage platform.

For more information on adding a CMIS Connection and importing a CMIS Repository, visit the CMIS Connection article.

As for the difference between the Import Descendants and Import Query Results providers, you can think of Import Query Results as a more specialized version of Import Descendants.

Import Descendants is intended to import the full contents of a folder location. It imports the "descendant" files of a parent folder.
Import Query Results allows you to selectively import files using a SQL-like query (called a CMISQL query). Only files returned by the query will be imported. For example, using an Exchange or IMAP CMIS Connection, you could query an inbox for emails from a specific sender and only import those emails.
- Note: There are some import filtering capabilities available to Import Descendants as well using a SQL-like query. However, the CMISQL querying capabilities of Import Query Results are much more robust.
- That said, only certain CMIS Bindings can take advantage of this increased CMISQL query functionality. The following CMIS Bindings are not currently suitable for the Import Query Results provider.
  - FTP
  - SFTP
  - NTFS (If the folder path is not indexed by the Windows Search service and/or Windows Search is not running on the storage server)

Import Descendants

Configuration Panel

Click here for an interactive walkthrough

General Settings

Click here for an interactive walkthrough

Back top the Import Descendants configuration screen, the CMIS Repository object is used to point Grooper to this folder location for import.

The Repository property is configured to assign the CMIS Repository where the documents are located.
- Here the CMIS Repository named "Import and Export" connecting to the "Import and Export" folder of the local drive.

The Base Folder property is configured to traverse the folder structure of the CMIS Repository.
- Here, we don't want to import all documents from every folder in the "Import and Export" folder. We just want to import from the "Grooper Import Folder".

The Import Filter property allows you to perform some basic import filtering to selectively choose which documents you want to import.
- SELECT * FROM File is the default filter. It will import all files from the selected folder location.
- This is a SQL-like query to specify conditions for document import.
- BE AWARE: Import Descendants has limited filtering compared to e Import Query Results.
  - Import Query Results was created to expand on this functionality. It provides more filtering options for the CMIS Connection Types supported by Import Query Results.
  - Import Descendants DOES NOT support the "IN_FOLDER" or "IN_TREE" predicates. Import Descendants will always import all documents in all subfolders from the base folder.
The Content Type property allows you to optionally assign the incoming documents with a Document Type.
- You can use this property to assign a default classification for all incoming documents.

Processing Options Settings

The most important part of the Processing Options property section is the Import Mode property.

The Import Mode property allows control over the connections Grooper makes and/or retains to the imported documents.

For importing, documents contain two important sets of information:

Content - Images and native text data
Properties - Metadata associated with the file. Digital information, such as the document's filename, file type, creation date, and more.

Depending on the Import Mode selected all, some, or none of this information will be copied to your Grooper Repository's file store (in the case of the document's content) and database (in the case of the document's properties). See below for more in depth explanation of each of the Import Mode options.

Copy

Both properties and content will be loaded. This is a total duplication of the document from its source to your Grooper Repository's local file store. This is the slowest import mode, because the full content of each document is copied during a single-threaded import process. As such, this mode is not well-suited for high-volume imports, but provides some useful advantages in low-volume import scenarios.

For example, Copy mode allows items to be deleted immediately on import. Also, Full mode avoids the need for any follow-up content loading operations in the Batch Process.

This mode was called Full in older versions of Grooper.

Sparse

Properties will be loaded, but content will not. This mode is much faster than a Full import, because no content files are copied into your local Grooper file store. Instead, a link is saved on each Grooper document, and content is retrieved on demand directly from the CMIS Repository. This type of document is often referred to as a "sparse" document. Sparse documents can be used just like any other document, with the caveat that display and processing speeds may be reduced. Grooper has to traverse the document link in order to display or process the document's image.

However, after a Sparse import, document content can be loaded multi-threaded using the Execute activity in a Batch Process. This can overall lead to importing a document's content faster than a Full import. While the
- Choose CMIS Document Link as the Object Type and Load Content as the Command

Link Only

No content or properties will be loaded, making this the fastest import mode. It imports nothing more than a link to each document, and offloads all property and content loading to parallel operations in the Batch Process.

However, this does not produce a usable document in Grooper. After a LinkOnly import, document content must be loaded using the Execute activity in a Batch Process.
- Choose CMIS Document Link as the Object Type and Load Content as the Command

You can think of the Link Only option as an even sparser sparse import.

See the table bellow for a summary of the Import Mode options.

Import Mode	Speed	Comments
Full	Slow	Full import of content and their properties. Required if deleting content from the source on import.
Sparse	Fast	Imports a link to the document's source and its properties but not their content. This produces a usable document in Grooper without copying the full content into Grooper, saving time upon import. This mode is the same as enabling the old Sparse Import property in previous versions.
Link Only	Fastest	Only imports a link to the document's source. Does not produce a usable document. The document's properties must be loaded in a step in a Batch Process.

Disposition Settings

The Disposition property settings allow you to do something with the source documents after importing them into Grooper, namely delete them, move them, or do nothing and just leave them alone where they came from. This is often leveraged with the Import Watcher Grooper service to prevent repeatedly importing the same document.

In our example here, the Move to Folder property is configured to move the PDF documents to a folder named "Imported Documents".

The folder location you're moving documents to must be accessible via the connected CMIS Repository.

If using the Full Import Mode, you can enable the Delete Item property to delete each document after it is imported into the Grooper Batch.

This property is ONLY available when choosing the Full Import Mode. A sparsely imported document needs to call to the import storage location in order to load the document's image for display or processing. If you deleted the document upon import, you wouldn't be able to view it or do anything with it.

The Update Properties property allows you to alter the document's property values upon import. Property values are updated using a list of "key-value pairs" where the "key" is the name of the property and the "value" is what change you want to make to that property. You can type one entry per line in the format key=value.

Examples:
Archive=true Sets the archive attribute on a file
Status=PENDING Sets the "Status" field on ApplicationXtender documents.
Imported=true Sets the "Imported" field on SharePoint documents.
IsRead=true Sets the "IsRead" flag on an Exchange message.

Batch Creation Settings

It's likely you're importing documents because you want to run them through a Batch Process. The Batch Creation property settings allow you to define which Batch Process you wish to use to process the imported documents.

This is done using the Starting Step property, selecting a Batch Process Step in a Batch Process from the published Batch Processes in the Grooper Repository. Upon import, a new Batch is created with each document as a Batch Folder, and the selected Batch Process assigned to the Batch.

There are also further properties to control Batch creation. You can limit the number of documents imported per Batch using the Maximum Items per Batch property. By default, new Batches are named with a date/time stamp. However, the Batch Name Prefix allows you to tack on a prefix to the Batch's name for easier identification. The Start Paused property will automatically trigger the Batch Process if set to False.

Import Query Results

The Same, But Different

The Import Query Results provider's configuration panel is almost identical to the Import Descendants provider's configuration panel. Both providers share the same Processing Options, Disposition, and Batch Creation property settings. See the Import Descendants section for brief descriptions of these property sections.

The big difference between the two providers is the highlighted CMIS Query property. This allows users to enter a SQL-like query (called a CMISQL query) to selectively import documents from their source, based on certain metadata properties. Only files returned by the query will be imported.

For example, you may want to only import documents of a certain file type(s). You could include the file extension(s) as the query condition (or one of many conditions).
For another example, you can use CMISQL queries to easily filter email messages when importing from an inbox. If you only wanted to import messages from a certain sender, from an certain folder, with a certain subject line and only ones that have not been read, you could filter out any emails that didn't meet those query conditions by comparing metadata properties (like "Sender" and "Subject") to your criteria.

⚠

Only certain external storage platforms are currently queryable with the CMIS Query property. The following CMIS Binding sources cannot be queried currently. As such, they are not suitable for Import Query Results. You should instead use Import Descendants for the following CMIS Bindings.

• FTP

• SFTP

• NTFS (If the folder path is not indexed by the Windows Search service and/or Windows Search is not running on the storage server)

Just like with Import Descendants, there are some minimum requirements before configuring Import Query Results. A CMIS Connection object must be created and a CMIS Repository must be imported.

Click here for an interactive walkthrough

CMIS Query Configuration

Upon pressing the ellipsis button at the end of the CMIS Query property, the CMIS Query Editor window will appear.

This interface allows you to configure the CMISQL query based on available metadata from the CMIS Binding. For example, the Exchange binding has a selection of queryable metadata for email messages, such as the email's subject, sender and date the message was received.

Click here for an interactive walkthrough

For an in depth explanation of the CMIS Query Editor and how to use it to craft a CMISQL query, please visit the CMIS Query article.