Sharepoint document linking to defined records

We’re exploring use of Sharepoint (File Transfer) document linking to link documents to ECOopr records. Initially its a fee thousand but long term it could be 40 times that.

I’ve looked at DMT as a means to mass populate them but it appears to only support of references to files already in the sharepoint site create by Epicor.

How do I initially GET those files into sharepoint with manually linking them one at a time?

Is is possibly as simple as logging into the sharepoint site as the defined sharepoint user Epicor uses, and then mass adding them to the appropriate subfolder (in our case ECOopr) - and THEN using DMT to establish the record links?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Rob Brown
Versa Products

Hey Rob,

We’re in a similar boat. We have a bunch of File Share links that need to be moved into SharePoint as well. I have a user story to do this with a .Net program but it’s been pushed down in priority but will be rising soon. @MikeGross is doing the same with DocStar but I think he found a utility or service that might do it - at least for DocStar.

Mark W.

@Mark_Wonsil and I have talked about various means to work with Epicor file links but I’m not sure we ever covered the direction you are headed. Can I ask a question first?

Why Sharepoint? I know everyone has reasons for doing everything, but the core reason is what? I ask because a file share would do just as well for storing documents, and the DMT would be simple at that point (once you’ve created the data file of course). If you mean to use auditing or revisioning functions, then SP it is. But I’m just curious if SP is the right way, or just the currently desired way to go.

I did a little research - Files are linked from SP to E10 via the Ice.XfileRef table and it’s the URL to the Document (inside SP) in the XFileName field, so…

IF you were to bring all the docs into a SP folder for ECOOpr, and
IF you could get a full metadata file pulled from SP (see SPListX from Vyapin.com - short term license is available for these sorts of things) that included the DMT key fields and the URL to the file), then
You could do the DMT and link the mass of docs inside SP into Epicor file attachments on the correct transactions.

Creating the DMT file would take some effort to parse the file names (maybe using Excel) or manually enter the ECO/Operation data needed.

I do not see a DMT for ECOOpr but I do see one for “Operation Attachment” and the only required fields are Company, Opcode and FileName, but I think DocTypeID should be required as well. Given this, I’m not sure what you want to do will work, so I’d try a file or two in SP and a two line DMT file and see what happens as a proof of concept. It may not put the attachments where you want them to go. I’m pretty sure this will only put the attachments on the Operation Master. If you want them on your ECO records, that may take some additional work.

Hope that helps and best of luck to you!
Mike

I’ll give you our reasons:

  • MS365 Compliance Manager; allows tagging of documents which allows for controlled and logged access, prevents printing/screenshot on phones but allows viewing by tag - as you already mentioned.
  • Retention Policy (DocStar does this too)
  • Ease of Sharing internally, externally, or with links that expire but still following the Compliance Policies
  • Somewhat less affected by a ransomware attack (does versioning like DocStar)
  • Somewhat easier backup procedure than a file share
  • Harder for people to “move a folder” accidentally
  • Fairly quick searching
  • Easier collaboration for editing (not really applicable to the attachments I would guess)
  • Metadata (like DocStar) and notes

M365 (O365) ain’t your Daddy’s SP.

Truth. My Daddy’s SP was a PITA.

I do recognize all those reasons for using it, but not everyone needs all of that. When exploring requirements, it easier to ask the open-ended ? rather than a leading ?. And if they find that they don’t need it, then SP might be a PITA for them where a file share would be simple.

@Robertb_versa - full disclosure - We’ve got all three - File share, SP Services, and Doclink - and we’re trying to move/export/import them ALL into Docstar. We simply have slightly different needs than @Mark_Wonsil but today’s SP and DocStar are pretty close (if you add some of the other M/O365 bits like Flow to the mix). We’ve got a huge scanning/workflow requirement so a product like DocStar wins out for us.

And that is what makes an open forum like this so useful - viewpoints and well formed use-cases to help guide and solve problems!

Yes. And that’s where we’re going to use DocStar for sure.

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We’re trying to get people away from files named: “SalesTotalsQ2_Final_Final_MW_Really_Final.xls” .

:slight_smile:

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Thanks for the insights Mike and Mark. We went to E10 with DocLink but likely a move to DocStar is on the horizon & we use that broadly with a lot of interactive automation via APM.

We’re trying to get control of CNC program code, associated in process inspection documents, etc., and since we are now O365, we’re looking at Sharepoint is a better repository for that rather than more local storage (although I suppose it could be clod stored on OnDrive, etc.,)

We’ve also looked at PDM such as we use in Engineering with SolidWorks as add-ons exist for our CAM product Esprit.

Yes: the ice.xFileRef table looks like it’s available in DMT for importing records. I have to believe there are tools (such as used when migrating from 9 to 10) that handle this but I’ll need to check with support on that.

Worst case, I do as suggested and scrape the meta data out so I can use DMT to establish.

Thanks again!

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If you’re doing CNC code, you may want to consider using GitHub or GitLab. While SharePoint is great at document management (including versioning), you may find some of the diff capabilities and workflow more conducive to coding. In both SP and GitHub/Lab, you still get an http reference to a file and that can be used inside of Epicor attachments. Just a thought.

Mark W.

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