Global Support for Linked Documents

AVEVA Global has been extended to include support for linked documents by propagating any document marked as ‘propagating’ between two locations. By default the propagation of Linked documents is disabled. To enable the propagation of Linked Documents switch on the ‘Propagate Link Documents’ setting under the ‘Project’ menu in Admin:

Note:
Link Documents are only available in DESI databases

Link Document Propagation can be enabled on the command line by setting the GLINKP attribute on the GLOCWL (/*GL) element. The default is false indicating that Link propagation is disabled for the project.

To determine which documents require propagation the update process must scan applicable databases. As this has a performance impact on the overall time for updates, the administrator can select which databases to scan. By default all DESI databases will be scanned for Link documents. It is possible to disable Link Documents propagation for a single database via the CREATE/MODIFY Database form by deselecting the Link Documents tick box:

Note:
The linked Document tick box is only available for DESI databases;
this option is not available for other types of databases.

The DBLOC element for the Database contains the attribute NOLNKP to determine whether the database should be scanned for link documents. This defaults to False indicating that links will be propagated if enabled. To determine if a Database can support Link Documents the attribute ISLNKD can be queried. The attribute DBLNKP can be queried to determine if the update process will scan this database for link documents.

The Global update process will scan all relevant databases to determine what linked documents to propagate to the remote location. Link Documents are applied to the database through the creation if a LNDESC element. The scan will select all link documents that have the LNKPRP attribute set to SEND. The document is referenced via the URL link which must have the format ‘file:///<pathname>’; The file specified by <pathname> must exist at both the source and destination locations. Usually this is best achieved using an Environment variable to hide installation differences. Link Documents fully support the use of spaces in path/filenames.

The Update process only propagates documents that are not present at the remote location. It does not support documents that have changed and as a result these will not be propagated over the top of the previous version. However, it is possible to force the propagation of link documents by using the following command in Admin:-

SYNCHR <dbname> LINKDOC FORCE

Note:
There is no UI to support this command

On allocation of a new database, the propagation of all link relevant documents will be forced to the remote location. Recover will force the propagation of all relevant linked documents in the direction of the recover. Therefore if recovering a database back to the primary location then the linked documents will also be recovered back to the primary location.

Note:
The originating location of a document referenced by an extract hierarchy may be unclear. For this reason RECOVER and the FORCE option of SYNCHRONISE should be used with caution for extracts.

Progress and State (Success/Failure) of linked document propagation is recorded in the transaction database