Directory Monitoring across a network

wilsonj · Post by **wilsonj** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:51 pm

Someone in our company has asked if we could setup something up in Switch to monitor a directory and send an email notification when a file arrives.

Simple flow, we do this sort of thing all the time on our servers - but they want to monitor a directory on another mapped network drive, and that's where the issues begin.

While the simple flow operates flawlessly when monitoring a shared directory on a machine - physical or virtual - when monitoring a mapped network drive, the flow doesn't respond to files arriving in the directory and no notification is ever generated. I should point out that there are no issues navigating to the directory, and the 'Jobs' window in the Design view of Switch displays the files present in the directory.

Are there additional steps need to be taken to make this sort of thing work? Is it possible to watch across the network in this manner? Is there a better way to accomplish this function?

We're using Switch 11 installed in Windows Server 2003 SP2

dkelly · Post by **dkelly** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 4:20 pm

I have found that adding an "automanaged" folder between network drive and next process, email in your case, improves performance and stability. I had a simple workflow that simply copied files from one network server to another and it constantly locked up. Adding the intermediate folder improved stability.

wilsonj · Post by **wilsonj** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 6:52 pm

I did try adding an automanaged directory, but the result was the same when monitoring a mapped network drive - the files are visible in the files pane of Switch's designer view, but no acknowledgement of the file's presence by Switch. Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Jim

Clive Andrews · Post by **Clive Andrews** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 8:30 am

Hmmm, how about if you add some sort of process - say a rename (and straight to trash) and put the email in that flow...?

wilsonj · Post by **wilsonj** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 7:05 pm

A good suggestion, but it rendered the same result - nothing.

I even tried changing the 'Leave originals in place' to NO and using a blank text file for the test file, and no notification was generated.

I'm thinking I will suggest another method be used for the directory monitoring request.

dkelly · Post by **dkelly** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 8:44 pm

Do you have "keep originals" enabled? If so, Switch may think it's already processed the files. Try deleting and recreating the input folder.