9.3 LabArchives Folder Monitor for Mac
Posted by on 05 May 2016 01:17 PM
|
|
Quick links Log In Log in Folder Monitor Settings, Synchronize and Disconnect menu Using Folder Monitor on a Shared Lab Computer Common Problems when Uploading Files
To begin, you can find the program by clicking the triple bar icon at the top of any LabArchives page, go to "Downloads", and click "Folder Monitor", as shown below:
Notice that there are two different downloads available: one for Windows, and one for Mac. Be sure that you are downloading the correct version for your computer.
If you are experiencing a problem during download, you might need to change your Mac 's security settings to allow download of a program. When you get the following error message you need to change your security settings.
Note: You must be running OS X 10.10 or later to use Folder Monitor on your Mac. 1.
1. Open your Folder Monitor file that is downloaded on your Mac and it will prompt you to this screen (see picture 1 above). 2. Select a destination for Folder Monitor to install on your Mac and click on “Continue”. 3. The “Installation Type” screen will confirm your installation and when you click on “Install” prompt you to enter your administrator account information of your Mac. Once that info is entered, click on “Install Software”. 4. The download process in the “Installation” screen will begin and may take several minutes. When the installation is complete click on the “Close” button. 5. Now you can Launch Folder Monitor.
Signing in If you log into LabArchives directly (using an email and password), then read and follow the instructions "Log In If you log into LabArchives via your institution's Single Sign-On system, follow the instructions for "Log in with the Single Sign-On system".
Log In Once you open the program for the first time, you will be prompted to log into LabArchives as shown below:
Log in with the same email and password combination you use to log in directly to LabArchives. Note: For Australia and New Zealand You will need to change the "Webservice URL" to https://auapi.labarchives.com After you log in, you will see the main Folder Monitor screen as shown below and you will be prompted to Add an Upload Rule:
Log in If your institution is using Single Sign-On access to LabArchives, follow these steps to obtain the plug-in credentials: 1. Log into your LabArchives account via a browser through your institution's Single Sign-On system. 2. Select "LA App Authentication" under the "User Management" menu.
An upload rule allows you to identify the local folder that will be monitored, along with the criteria for types of files to be uploaded, and a location within your LabArchives account where files will be sent. 1. The first time you use Folder Monitor, the "Upload Rule Editor" will be open by default. Thereafter, you will need to click the Add Rule button on the top left of the page. The Upload Rule Editor window appears as follows: 3. Select the local folder you wish to monitor by clicking the folder button to the right of the Local Source Folder box. A window will pop up where you may select your local folder. 4. The File Filters selection allows you to set the criteria for the type of files to upload. By default, the filter will be set to All Files (*). To see more options, click on the filter icon to
5. Specify your preference for handling Sub-folders of the local source folder. If your local source folder has sub-folders that contain files that match the file filter criteria for this rule, you have the following options for those sub-folders:
6. Specify your LabArchives Destination for the uploaded files. You can do this by clicking the select folder icon
Note that you must have Edit privileges on folders in notebooks that you do not own to be able to select one of these folders as a destination.
7. Specify whether you would like to Create Daily Pages. If you choose "Yes" (which is the default setting), a new page will be created for each new day files are uploaded. Daily Pages are a great choice if you are constantly uploading new files and would like to organize them by date. Each Daily Page has the name formula:
8. Specify the Max Entries per Page. The default number is 20. When the maximum number of files is met for a page, a new page is created for additional files. 9. Click OK to save your Upload Rule. The new rule will be displayed in the main Folder Monitor window where you will see the Name (the Description), Local Folder info, the Filter, the Subfolder option, LA Destination, and Max Entries.
When you create a new rule and files found that match the filter criteria, the New Files Found window will appear displaying all files found within the source folder that qualify for upload based on the rule's details within a table. Notice that directly above the table are two choices: "Upload all files except selected below" and "Ignore all files except selected below". Use these buttons as well as the checkboxes below to exclude any particular file(s) from upload as desired. Click OK, and the uploading process will begin. If this is the first time you are running a rule that has found a large number of files, the upload process can take some time. Note that each time you log back into LabArchives and new files have been found in your local source folder and/or its sub-folders, you will see the New Files Found window with the same options to upload files. However, if you are running Folder Monitor and new files are found, those will be uploaded automatically. The source folder is constantly being monitored, but you will only be asked to approve the files to be uploaded when the rule is first created or if you are re-connecting to Folder Monitor.
You can further refine your Upload Rule by adding File Filters that are not part of the default
In the top box, enter the name for your filter. In the box below, type all of the file name patterns that fall under the filter that you want to create, separated by commas. You can use the wildcard designator "*" to represent multiple characters, or the "?" to represent a single character. If you wanted to create a filter that only accepted .xpt and .sk2 files, type "*.sk2, *.xpt" in this box. If you wanted to create a filter that would upload files of any type that had the word "JDoe" in the file name, type in "*JDoe*" and it would find files such as Expt_2015_JDoe.xlsx or DataJDoe.jpg. Click OK to save the filter and the new filter will be added to the File Filter Selection list, where you can check or uncheck the filter to turn it on/off just like any other filter.
As you add multiple Upload Rules, it is important to know that the order of rules matters: Newly found files can only be uploaded to one LabArchives destination. If a new file meets the upload criteria for more than one rule in your Folder Monitor, it will be uploaded based on the first rule it matches only. It will not be uploaded to multiple notebooks. Therefore, you may want to change the position of or manage your rules accordingly. You can do this by clicking on a rule and then accessing the array of buttons in the upper left of the Folder Monitor main window, shown below:
Folder Monitor Settings, Synchronize and Disconnect menu: In the upper right of the screen is the Settings and Synchronize Menu, which is shown below:
NOTE: If using Folder Monitor on a shared computer, the first setting applies to the machine; however the following two settings are specific to individual users. In the Synchronize menu, you can Syncronize your Folder Monitor rules without having to log out and in again. On the bottom left of this window are three different indicators, pictured below:
Using Folder Monitor on a Shared Lab Computer: In some labs, equipment-generated files may be sent to a single, shared computer. Multiple users can set up their own Folder Monitor rules without any conflict between the different users' rules sets. Each user will need to login to Folder Monitor with their LabArchives account information. It is important to note that only the currently logged-in user’s folders will be monitored. Therefore, users will need to take turns logging in (and out) when someone needs to have files uploaded to their notebook.
Common Problems when Uploading Files It has come to our attention that some instrument can generate filenames that contain forbidden characters. The following characters can cause a problem if they are a part of the file name. < (less than) The size of the folder and individual files can prevent the files from being uploaded When the source folder is approaching 1 GB in size it can sometimes prevent the upload from starting and make Folder Monitor shut down. When this happens, we recommend that the user split the folder into subfolders or create separate rules for each subfolder. It's not the number of files in a folder but the size of the combined folder that is causing the problem. Also, keep in mind that Folder Monitor will not upload files larger than 250MB.
| |
|