Archiving Digital articles to Elvis 6 from Enterprise 10.8 or higher

In a typical production process, publications reach their end of life once they have been published. They are subsequently archived to make room in the system for other publications while still having access to the files for reference or re-use.

When Elvis is integrated with Enterprise, publications can be archived from Enterprise Server to Elvis Server.

This article describes how this is done for Digital articles, created in WoodWing Content Station.

For information about archiving other types of files, see Archiving files to Elvis 6 from Enterprise.

How it works

The process of archiving Digital articles works as follows:

1. A Digital article is stored in a Dossier in Enterprise.
2. A scheduled action (in the form of Enterprise Server jobs) is run in Enterprise to archive all Digital articles that are older than a configured number of days.
3. During this process, the following takes place:

• The Dossier is added as a folder to an archive environment in Elvis. The folder contains the Digital articles and any images that are part of the articles, plus all images, audio files, and video files that are present in the Dossier. Files of any other types that are present in the Dossier are ignored (not archived).

Note: In a typical workflow it should not be possible to change the content of archived files. Users are therefore typically not given edit rights to files located in the archive environment (known as the 'Archive Zone'.

• The Dossier and all the files that are archived are removed from Enterprise.

Note: A Dossier may be left in place if it still contains files that have not been archived.

• Any images that were stored in Elvis in the production environment are moved to the archive environment.

Note: An image is only moved when it is not still used by another article. When the image is still in use, it is copied instead.

Requirements

This feature requires the following:

• Enterprise Server 10.8 or higher
• Elvis Server 6.40 or higher

Notes:  It is assumed here that an integration between Enterprise Server and Elvis Server is in place and fully working. This archiving method cannot be used in combination with the archiving method for Enterprise Server 10.7 or lower.

Configuration

Configuration steps need to be performed in Enterprise Server and Elvis Server:

1. Setting up an archiving location
2. Configuring archiving settings in Enterprise Server
3. Configuring restore settings in Enterprise Server
4. Configuring versioning settings in Enterprise Server
5. Setting up Enterprise Server Jobs
6. (Optional) Adding the 'Archive Status' property to the clients
7. Making it possible to preview archived Digital articles in Elvis

1. Setting up an archiving location

The location in Elvis in which to archive the Digital articles can be set up in the following ways:

• Manually
• Automatically

Note: This location can already exist when the system is configured for archiving layouts. When this is the case, this step can be skipped.

Manual setup

In this setup, a folder is manually created and linked to in the Enterprise Server settings.

Step 1. Using the Elvis Pro client, create a folder in Elvis and assign Permissions to it.

Note: It is recommended to not allow users to edit archived files.

Step 2. In Enterprise Server, access the Brand Maintenance page for the Brand in which Digital articles are to be archived and in the Archive Zone field in the Elvis section add the path to the folder in Elvis. When done, click Update.

Automatic setup

In this process, a folder structure and file name is constructed in the Brand settings on Enterprise Server. When archiving is performed for the first time for that Brand, the folder is automatically created in that location (when it does not exist yet). User permissions are set once the folder exists.

Step 1. In Enterprise Server, access the Brand Maintenance page for the Brand in which Digital articles are to be archived and in the Archive Zone field in the Elvis section construct the path to the folder in Elvis by using the following variables. When done, click Update.

In Enterprise Server, each Brand in which Digital articles need to be archived needs to be configured.

Notes: The same wildcard may be used more than once. A few date and time wildcards are used as an example; all other notations are supported as well. Empty values which may lead to double slashes are automatically resolved by leaving out the sub folder and the superfluous slash. Example: foo/${issue}/bar results in foo/bar and not foo//bar.

Wildcard	Description
${brand}	Adds the name of the Brand to the folder name.
${category}	Adds the name of the Category to the folder name.
${issue}	Adds the name of the Issue to the folder name. Notes: This wildcard is ignored when the Digital article is not targeted for an Issue. When a Digital article is targeted to more than one Issue, the name of the first Issue is taken.
${archived:Y-m}	Adds the year and month to the folder name of the moment when the archiving takes place. Example: (When date is 1 January 2020): ${archived:Y-m} becomes 2020-1.
${date:Y-m}	Adds the year and month to the folder name of the moment when the archiving takes place. Example: (When date is 1 January 2020): ${date:Y-m} becomes 2020-1.
${created:Y-m}	Adds the year and month of the moment when the Dossier was created to the folder name. Example: (When date is 1 January 2020): ${created:Y-m} becomes 2020-1.
${modified:Y-m}	Adds the year and month to the folder name of the moment when the Dossier was modified. Example: (When date is 1 January 2020): ${modified:Y-m} becomes 2020-1.
${C_<name>:Y-m}	Adds the year and month to the folder name of a custom workflow property (specified by C_<name>) of which the type is set to 'Date' or 'Datetime'. Example: (When custom property is C_MY_PROPERTY and date is 1 January 2020): ${C_MY_PROPERTY:Y-m} becomes 2020-1.
${C_<name>}	Adds the value of a custom workflow object property (specified by C_<name>) to the folder name. Replace C_<name> with your custom property name.

Example: The following definition: /Archive Zone/${brand}/${category}/${created:Y}/${created:m} results in the following path (when the Brand is 'WW News', the Category is 'Sport', and the current date is 1 January 2020): /Archive Zone/WW News/Sport/2020/01

Step 2. Once a first archiving action is performed for the Brand and the defined folder exists in Elvis, assign Permissions to the folder.

2. Configuring archiving settings in Enterprise Server

In this step, the way of archiving and the moment when to archive is defined.

In Enterprise Server, access the Brand Maintenance page for the Brand in which Digital articles are to be archived and in the Elvis section set the following fields. When done, click Update.

• Archive Schema: Select Continuous. This specifies a workflow in which publications are continuously published (such as Digital articles that are published frequently to a publication channel).

Notes:  Leave the field empty to disable archiving. Options in the list other than 'Continuous' are used for other archiving processes and do not apply to archiving Digital articles.

• Archive after (days). Define when a Digital article should be archived. The value to enter is the number of days after a reference date. When Continuous is chosen as the archive schema, the reference date is the most recent date when an object in the Dossier was modified.

Example: The value is set to '5'. A Dossier contains a Digital article that was last modified on December 1 as well as a file that was last modified on December 3. The Digital article will therefore be archived 5 days after December 3.

3. Configuring restore settings in Enterprise Server

Info: This feature requires Enterprise Server 10.9.0 or any higher version of Enterprise Server.

In this step, the Workflow Status that is assigned to a restored Digital article or one of its images is defined.

In Enterprise Server, access the Brand Maintenance page for the Brand in which Digital article archiving is configured. In the Elvis section set the following fields. When done, click Update.

• Default Status Restored Digital Article
• Default Status Restored Image

Notes: The default setting is 'First status' meaning that the first Workflow Status that is configured for that file type in the Brand is assigned. The Personal status is not supported. When a configured Workflow Status is deleted in Enterprise Server, the field which has this status set is re-set to 'First status'. After upgrading, both fields are re-set to 'First status' and need to be updated if a setting other than the default setting was used.

4. Configuring versioning settings in Enterprise

When making use of this archiving method, the Create Permanent Version option should be disabled for images, videos, and audio files.

This can be done in the Workflow Status settings for these objects.

5. Setting up Enterprise Server Jobs

In this step, scheduled tasks are set up which perform the archiving process.

Note: These tasks can already exist when the system is configured for archiving layouts. When this is the case, this step can be skipped.

The archiving process is performed by the following Enterprise Server Jobs:

• SelectForArchive
• SendToArchive

These need to be configured and a recurring job needs to be set up.

Step 1. On the Enterprise Server Job Config page click on the Server Job names SelectForArchive and SendToArchive to access their settings page and in the User name field set a user who has system admin privileges. Click Update when done.

Step 2. Set up a recurring job for the SelectForArchive job.

Example: A crontab configuration for running the job every hour: 0 * * * * curl "http://myserver.com/Enterprise/jobindex.php?createrecurringjob=SelectForArchive&serverplugin=Elvis"

6. (Optional) Adding the 'Archive Status' property to the clients

In certain scenarios, a Brand administrator may want to manually modify the 'Archive Status' property of a file.

Examples: It may be changed from its empty value to 'Excluded' to prevent that file from being archived. It may be changed from 'Failed' to its empty value for a file that was inadvertently locked for editing while the archiving process took place which prevented it from being archived.

To make this possible, the 'Archive Status' property needs to be made visible in the client applications. For information about how this is done, see Adding a property to a dialog box in Enterprise 10.5 or higher.

7. Making it possible to preview archived Digital articles in Elvis

Digital articles make use of various resources such as Component Sets, styles, custom swatches, and so on. These resources are stored in a central location in the cloud in a system named Enterprise Cloud Services. To make it possible to preview a Digital article in Elvis (using the Pro client), Elvis Server and Enterprise Server need to be connected to Enterprise Cloud Services so that these resources can be shared.

This is done through a so-called tenant registration. For Elvis Server this registration takes place in the Management Console.

Perform this process by following the steps in Connecting Enterprise Servers and Elvis Server to Enterprise Cloud Services.

Archiving workflow

The archiving process takes place in two parts:

1. A check is done to see if any Digital articles are available for archiving
2. When Digital articles are available for archiving, the archiving process is performed

1. Determining candidate files

At a scheduled time, an Enterprise Server Job name 'SelectForArchive' is automatically run to determine if any Digital articles exist that are ready for archiving.

A Digital article is included when all of the following conditions are met:

• The Digital article is placed in a Dossier.
• The Digital article is part of a Brand for which the Archive Schema is set to 'Continuous'.
• The 'Archive Status' property of the Dossier is empty.
• The most recent modified date of a file in the Dossier is older than the value set in the 'Archive after (days)' option for the Brand.

Digital articles are not archived when:

• The Dossier is set to the 'Personal' status.
• At least one of the Digital articles in the Dossier has the 'Archive Status' property set to 'Excluded'.
• Any of the files in the Dossier are locked for editing.

When candidate Digital articles are found, the following actions take place:

• The 'Archive Status' property of the Dossier is set to 'Candidate'.
• The 'Archive Status Modified' property of the Dossier is set to the current date and time.
• Enterprise Server Jobs are created for archiving the Digital articles (one Job for each candidate Dossier)
• The Enterprise Server Job that was used for determining the candidate Digital articles is automatically removed from the job queue.

2. Performing the archiving process

When candidate Digital articles are found, an Enterprise Server Job named 'SendToArchive' is run to perform the archiving process.

The following actions take place:

• The Dossier is added as a folder to an archive environment in Elvis. The folder contains the Digital articles and any images that are part of the articles, plus all images, audio files, and video files that are present in the Dossier. Files of any other types that are present in the Dossier are ignored (not archived).
• The Dossier and all the files that are archived are removed from Enterprise (this is to prevent that they can be restored from the Trash Can).

Note: A Dossier may be left in place if it still contains files that have not been archived.

• Any shadow objects that were stored in the Production Zone of Elvis are moved to the Archive Zone in Elvis; when these files are still used elsewhere, they are copied instead of moved. These images are relinked in the Digital article.

The Dossier is not removed when it still contains files that were not archived. For reference, the reason why a Dossier was not removed after the archiving process is added to the Dossier as a Dossier note. For such Dossiers, the Archive Status property is set to 'Failed' and a Dossier Note is added to explain to users why the Dossier was not archived.

Preventing Digital articles from being archived

Preventing Digital articles from being archived can be done by doing one of the following:

• For all Digital articles assigned to a Brand:
• On the Brand Maintenance page, make sure that the Archive Schema option is not set to Continuous.

• For a specific Digital article:
• Set the 'Archive Status' property of the Digital article to 'Excluded'. (Doing this for one Digital article in the Dossier prevents the whole Dossier from being archived, even when additional Digital articles exist in the Dossier for which this property is not set.)

Restoring archived articles

When the published article needs to be updated, the original archived article can be restored in Enterprise, edited in Content Station, and published again.

For information about this process, see Restoring a Digital article archived in Elvis 6 to Enterprise 10.

Testing the implementation

A simple demo tool is available for testing the archiving feature and thereby better understanding the system behavior. It is explained in the following file as part of the Enterprise Server package:

Enterprise/server/plugins/Elvis/demo/sendtoarchive/README.md

Note: Do not use the tool in a production environment.

Use the criteria described in the archiving workflow section earlier in this article for setting up your testing scenarios.