Import Behavior (Behavior)

⚠	This article was migrated from an older version and has not been updated for the current version of Grooper. This tag will be removed upon article review and update.

This article is about the current version of Grooper. Note that some content may still need to be updated.
2025	2024

An Import Behavior defines how data is mapped from files in an external content management system to Batch Folders created on import when using CMIS Import.

Import Behaviors control the flow of imported files' metadata into Grooper by establishing a CMIS Import definition between a CMIS Repository object and a Grooper Content Type.

• Multiple CMIS Import definitions can be added to a single Import Behavior.

Read Mappings define what metadata are read from the import source and mapped to which Data Fields in Grooper. Write Mappings define what (if any) metadata are written back to the import source after the import completes.

How To

Following is a walkthrough demonstrating the setup of an Import Behavior using a simplified use-case utilizing SharePoint as the import source. Your scenario will obviously be different, but the concepts behind the demonstration will still be applicable.

The "Foundations" section of this how to will go over the documents used in the demonstration, how SharePoint is set up for the demonstration and how our Grooper Content Model and CMIS Connection are set up for the demonstration.

Foundations

Understanding the infrastructure of what's being used for the following walkthrough will help the example make sense.

SharePoint

This test SharePoint environment has three documents it in.

• The First Name and Last Name fields are left intentionally blank.
• The Employee ID fields are filled with the intention of reading those values into Grooper upon import.
• Two of the documents have the DocType fields filled, while the third does not. This will be used to demonstrate how documents can be classified with results from the CMIS repository, while also showing the default behavior otherwise.
• The Imported fields are set to No. The query used to import the documents will look for the No result to know what to import. Upon importing into Grooper this value will be read and simultaneously changed to InProcess to prevent further pickup. Finally, on export the fields will be written to with Yes to signify they've been processed.

CMIS Repository

1. Here the imported CMIS Repository is selected in Grooper Design Studio.
2. On the Type Definitions tab...
3. ...you can see that because this particular subsite of the SharePoint environment is referenced by a Behavior that the icon has a green dot and...
4. ...with it selected you can see the structure of the SharePoint subsite like the column names and their properties.

Data Model & Extraction

1. Here is the sample Data Model selected with three Data Fields and the accompanying Data Table.
2. It is configured properly as you can see the successfully extracted information displayed in the Data Model Test Results area.
3. You can also see the document structure of the extracted information displayed in the Document Viewer.

Most notably, the "Employee ID" field isn't being extracted. This field will be populated by our Import Behavior.

Import Behavior Setup

In this section we will cover how to configure an Import Behavior with both Read Mappings and Write Mappings.

Adding the Import Behavior

1. Here we have selected a Content Type, specifically a Content Model named "Behaviors - Content Model".
2. Select the Behaviors property and click the ellipsis button.
3. This will bring up the List of Behaviors editor. Click the "Add" drop-down and select Import Behavior.

Adding Import Definitions

4. Select the Import Definitions property and click the ellipsis button.
5. This will bring up the List of Import Definition editor. Click the Add drop-down and select CMIS Import.

6. With the CMIS Import definition added, select the CMIS Repository property and choose a CMIS Repository object.

• CMIS Repositories represent storage locations in an external system. The are created when creating a CMIS Connection (which establishes the connection between Grooper and the external system). For more information on CMIS Connections and CMIS Repositories, visit the CMIS Connection article.

7. After selecting a CMIS Repository you can configure the CMIS Content Type property. The "CMIS Content Type" represents files and folders in a content management systems as well as their metadata properties. In our case, we're choosing the SharePoint document library seen earlier in the article.

Configuring Read Mappings

A critical aspect to understand here is document classification upon import. Import Mappings will always classify a document on import. You are effectively telling Grooper: "Every time you import using this CMIS Repository, assign it the Import Behavior's Content Type by default".

This is what allows Grooper to map metadata from an external platform to a Grooper Data Field. Without a Content Type assigned to a document, it doesn't have an associated Data Model, without a Data Model there's no Data Field to map to.

In short, the incoming documents will be classified as "Behaviors - Content Model" by default in our case because that's where the Import Behavior is configured. This allows us to map values from SharePoint to Data Fields in the "Behaviors - Content Model" Data Model in Grooper.

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BE AWARE: Configuring an Import Behavior assumes content from that CMIS Repository will be assigned the Content Type (or one of its child types) for every import operation You cannot, for example, configure an Import Behavior for two Content Models that both use the same CMIS Repository. Batch Folders can only be assigned one Content Type. Configuring an Import Behavior will always assign Batch Folders created on import at least the Import Behavior's Content Type by default.

8. Select Read Mappings property and click the ellipsis button.
9. In the CMIS Import Map window you can set which fields you want to map. Here we set the Employee ID field to match the Employee_ID column from SharePoint.

The Document Type Name property allows us to read a value from the CMIS Repository and classify documents as a result (as long as the values match names of Document Types in Grooper).

If you recall, there are two documents in the SharePoint with the DocType column populated: one test, the other test2. There are two Document Types in the sample Content Model called test and test2. As a result, this Read Mapping will allow those two documents to come in classified as those Document Types. The third document, having no DocType value from SharePoint, will be classified by default as "Behaviors - Content Model".

10. Here we are setting the Document Type Name field to match the DocType column from SharePoint.

Configuring Write Mappings

In this scenario, our CMIS Import provider will only import files from the SharePoint whose "Imported" property column in SharePoint is "No". This lets us know the documents have not been processed by Grooper yet. Immediately upon import we will use the Write Mappings property to change the values of the "Imported" column from "No" to "InProgess".

11. Select the Write Mappings property and click the ellipsis button to bring up the CMIS Update Map window. Here we are setting the Imported SharePoint field to the expression "InProgress" which will insert it as a string in SharePoint upon import.