Opinions on Report Handling and Sharing

[Craig_Simpson]

I am looking for some assistance / opinions on the theory of report sharing across a business.

I am creating a report in Ignition after a product is tested. I need to publish/move this report to a location that internal Quality operators can take the file, evaluate it and then pass to ERP.

The report is not scheduled as tests are on demand in line with production schedules, so the report is saved with a button click.
The pdf report is saved to a folder on the GW server as standard functionality.

I have been given dev space and a container in Azure for BLOB storage and can pass pdf files there using Postman. Ultimately I would like to move the pdf to SAP ERP but that would be a huge enhancement here. Azure will be my current mitigation for now.

So, I have been testing with http PUT to BLOB storage in an Azure dev location, but the initial file read points to the client C drive, not the GW. This is where I am thinking should I now copy the GW file to the client C drive, then try to PUT to Azure? Or am I way off on this process?
It would do no harm to have copies of the reports on the GW, or the clients, within file storage capabilities.

What would people think is the best process here?
Am I way off? Can we create BLOB storage in Ignition GW and allow user access to files?

Any opinions or help would be appreciated.

[Tim_Carlton]

If the report file that you want to put is on the gateway then run the script on the gateway, maybe with a message handler.
For an overview, take a look at
https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/Scripting+in+Ignition

Gateway event scripts are described (with links to instructional videos) at
https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/Gateway+Event+Scripts

[pturmel]

You might also consider blob storage in a database, from which you can retrieve by URL with the WebDev module, or for many cases, with my free Blob Server module.

Automation Professionals' Blob Server Module

Automation Professionals is pleased to announce an alpha release of its new Blob Server Module. Available only for Ignition v8.1, here. The Blob Server Module provides a simple way to deliver images, PDF files, or other binary content from a database to your Perspective clients or other web applications. Without needing the WebDev module. All you need is a Named Query that has appropriate security settings and returns a single row with two columns: Content, and ContentType. Modest documentati…

[Craig_Simpson]

The problem I have is that the Quality team, and others, will need to view the entire folder contents. The test reports have unique file names appended with the date and time to seconds, so the URL built by the webdev path structure will be unknown to them due to that pdf naming.
Is it possible to build something in html and python in webdev text that lets them view the GW folder contents. Or can something be done in Perspective?
I will also take a look at your BLOB storage suggestion. Thank you.

[pturmel]

@Craig_Simpson

Is it possible to build something in html and python in webdev text that lets them view the GW folder contents

You only need webdev to deliver the file as a URL. You can use general scripting feeding a Perspective table content to mimic a folder browse, with links to the download URLs. You can even skip WebDev entirely if you script the download with system.perspective.download(). The URLs via WebDev is critical when the file needs to be retrieved outside a Perspective UI.

[Craig_Simpson]

Thank you Sir.
I have created a perspective page that loads the file list into a table and double clicking the row points you to the WebDev URL for that file.
I have also requested a new VM and SQL db to be set up to investigate the BLOB storage as a better solution moving forwards.
Thank you again.