M-Files Connector (RPC/HTTP)

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Last Post 20 March 2020
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Andre Dias posted this 06 March 2020 - Last edited 13 March 2020

Good evening,

i'm currently trying to connect Scanshare (Capture&Store) to M-Files using the M-Files Connector.

We're running the M-Files installation on premise, since our business isn't allowed to store confidential documents on servers outside of our office. Up till now, we've been connecting to m-files via rpc-call (TCP/IP).

While trying to set up the connector, i've noticed, that the connector demands an http adress of the server. I've tried every possibility i could think of, but it isn't working. Is it even possible to run an on premise m-files installation and still connecting to that with scanshare? If so please let me know how.

Best regards

Andre

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Andre Dias posted this 10 March 2020

Hello again,

anyone got a clue if there is a way to do this? Sadly i can't find any helpful documentation on this matter.

We've already paid for the connector and the Scanshare Enterprise Upgrade.

Best regards

Andre

luigi.zurolo posted this 10 March 2020

Dear Andre,

our connector supports both the cloud and on-premise versions. The URL you need to configure in the settings is the M-Files API endpoint and when on premise is the local address to your M-Files server.

However you need first to setup and enable the Web Access from your M-Files server settings, after that you will get the URL where the API endpoint is enabled which you can insert in the connector.

Let us know if you are able to proceed.

Andre Dias posted this 13 March 2020

Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of the on-premise installation? The files in M-Files are confidential and absolutly cannot be accessible from outside our network.

luigi.zurolo posted this 13 March 2020 - Last edited 13 March 2020

Hi Andre,

not at all, because that is a local web access and as far as you don't give access to the M-Files server that endpoint will be visible only inside your network... which can be also further restricted using specific network configurations / policies.

Note that the "Web Access" is a M-Files module (not ours) which is used to communicate with external applications and which we use for this, so it exists intentionally to serve those integration purposes.

Andre Dias posted this 19 March 2020 - Last edited 19 March 2020

Hello Luigi,

thank you for your reply. I've done the setup as you've advised. Now i still don't know which path or url i need to enter in the C&S Connector.

When I'm using the path which is C:\Program Files\M-Files\20.2.8777.3\Server\MFWA i get the error:

Could not find a part of the path 'C:\Program Files\M-Files\20.2.8777.3\Server\MFWA\REST\server\authenticationtokens'

When i tried binding it to a local ip, i get a connection error. 'unable to connect to remote server'

Edit: I figured it out. My firewall was blocking the connection. Thank you for the support.

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Andre Dias posted this 19 March 2020 - Last edited 20 March 2020

I got everything setup the way i intended.

But now i have a new set of problems. I have a lot of metadata options in M-Files set to be selectable from a multiple choice dropdown (MultipleSelectLookup). How do i tell scanshare to fill these fields with the appropriate info (which is always the same in a given workflow).

For example i have a multiple choice field in m-files called "name" - if i enter the name i want to use as metadata into the properties field of scanshare, it will result in an error, because the value doesnt exist (which it does). Would be great if someone could help me out with this.

Edit: I figured it out. For anyone facing the same problem. You need to enter the numerical ID from the m-files admin panel.

Is there a way to force a word into the list through the connector? i'd like to use a string i've read from a barcode in a MultipleSelectLookup.

luigi.zurolo posted this 20 March 2020

Hi Andre,

thank you for the update, let me answer the questions:

The path: it is the URL to the M-Files Web Access, not the path to its installation, in fact the setting is called "address" and sampled with a localhost URL
Properties: yes properties are using internal ID's as that's what M-Files wants for that, normally when you query them from the connector itself it will take care about returning the right ID back to the server

If you want to create a kind of mapping text / ID from the value of the barcodes you might want to create a mapping list, e.g. a CSV with text / ID so that the process can query and retrieve the right ID for the detected text.

There is an example of script in the Samples & Materials category doing exactly this process (search into a CSV for a recognized barcode value).