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Working with files

Qlik Application Automation for OEM provides multiple ways of handling files and file content.

Cloud storage connectors

Qlik Application Automation for OEM provides a wide range of connectors to cloud storage:

  • FTP and SFTP
  • Dropbox
  • Google Drive
  • Google Cloud Storage
  • AWS S3
  • Microsoft One Drive
  • Microsoft Sharepoint
  • IMAP email attachments
  • etc.

Each connector has blocks to manipulate files. Most connectors have a passthrough file block which can download a file from a public URL and upload it to the cloud storage. Example:

A Passthrough Files block in use.

A Passthrough Files block connected to Google Drive and Dropbox.

Generic File blocks

Qlik Application Automation for OEM has generic file handling blocks that can be used to copy files between different cloud storage services. These blocks work with iterators and can be used on very large files (e.g. gigabytes in size).

Click on Files at the top, in the left pane inside the automation editor:

Accessing files.

The automation editor. Files, inside the left pane, is selected.

Example from Dropbox to S3:

Copying a file from Dropbox to Amazon S3.

an automation consisting of an Open file on Dropbox block and a Copy file to Amazon S3 block.

Specific file formats

Qlik Application Automation for OEM can handle plain text files and can automatically convert formats such as CSV. Further more, Qlik Application Automation for OEM can handle binary files such as PDF or images.

See also:

Converting file formats

Use the Convertapi.com connector to convert e.g. a plain text file or a given text to PDF, or to convert a PDF file to plain text. Convertapi.com has a free license for basic usage. Example to convert a plain text file to a PDF:

Converting plain text to PDF.

an automation consisting of a Start block, a Convert Text File To PDF block, and a Create File From Base64Encoded Content block.

You can use the Convertapi.com block Convert text file to PDF when the source is an online file (input of the block is the public URL to the file). You can use the block Convert text to PDF when the text is not inside a file, but instead it is the output of another block in an automation (input of the block is plain text).

The file contents of the PDF is inside the response of this block, in base64-encoded format. We use the Dropbox block Create File From Base 64Encoded Content to upload this file content and create a new PDF file.

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