UMRA – Web Based File Distribution System

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If you want to learn the basics on how to connect to UMRA with its COM object, please see my original post on “Basics of UMRA COM”.

UMRA – Web Based File Distribution System

Hey everyone this blog is going to be a little different then my current blog posts. Most of my blog posts talk about projects that I’ve created, and completed. However, this blog is going to be about a current UMRA web based file distribution system for a local school district. I am about half way through the project, and found a few ways to create and manage such a system with using UMRA as your connector between the file system, and the users who you want to distribute these files out to. Now, distributing files to a current teacher’s roster is always a time consuming process, however I’ve come up with an easy way for the end user to do this. I will follow a lot of the same steps I’ve taken previous where I will create a list of users, select one, some or all, and then select the files I want to distribute out to them.

UMRA – Web Based File Distribution System How To

So as I’ve stated I’m only about half way through this process, and see my finishing it up here soon, so as I finish this project I will post the final steps and screen shots of how it all came together. Below are a few steps I’ve taken so far to get all the pieces in place.

Step 1 -
If you haven’t already, read on how you can create a data gird using UMRA and allowing the user to select one, some or many users from it. This data grid is critial to your overall flow of how the rest of the logic goes. A very good tip to keep track of what users are selected in your grid is to put either javascript or css action on your highlighted records, then store these records in a hidden field on your portal page.
Blog Post here > http://umratips.blogspot.com/2009/06/umra-bulk-web-based-user-management.html

Step 2 -
Next step will be to get a complete list of Rosters a Teacher is associated to. I was able to create a view in my SQL database of the clients Student Information System (SIS) to get these records with a UMRA datatable. , Now your scenario might be different. However, the rules should still apply, you will need to make a list on where you want to distribute your files to, this can be a distribution group, a set of servers etc.

Step 3 -
Depending on you’re what you are coding your UMRA web portal in php asp asp.net etc. you can do this step multiple ways. Create a custom upload form, either uploading 1 file at a time, or a multi form upload, when the user clicks the “Distribute” button, your button for distribution, you will need to check to make sure that. I was able to create an upload button that will upload the files 1 by 1. This function will upload the file with UMRA to a temp directory, and when the user is ready to distribute these files, I will have another UMRA automation project that will take all these files in the temp directory, and distribute them to the selected Teacher Rosters.

This is what I have so far for this current client project. However, once its completed I will post some nice screen shots, of the final product. If you have any questions, or are stuck on a certain step in creating your own UMRA web based file distribution system just email me or comment.