Creating custom workflows / microservices

[Mark Jordan]

Hi,

I'm trying to find current information on adding custom workflows/microservices to Archivematica. https://www.archivematica.org/wiki/Creating_Custom_Workflows_0.9_alpha is the latest I can find. I know of https://www.archivematica.org/wiki/MCP, and while it explains how microservices work, it doesn't have the same how-to focus as the previous document.

One use case that illustrates our interest in adding a custom workflow is grabbing a copy of the PDF/A generated from an ingested PDF. Basically, we want to save a copy of the PDF/A created as part of the existing normalization workflow to a location outside of Archivematica's watch directories (like /var/thesispdfas) and give the copied file a specific path and name based on a value in the transfer's Dublin Core description. I would see this task as fitting between the "Normalize" and "Process submission documentation" microservices in the list at https://www.archivematica.org/wiki/Archivematica_1.0_Micro-services.

I know we can get the PDF/A out of the AIP or create a DIP using the tools provided, but that seems like overkill if all we want to do is just get a copy of a single file. The Python script we'd write to copy the file out would be very simple but we're more interested in how we register the script as a microservice and having it fire when we want it to.

Thanks,

Mark



Mark Jordan
Head of Library Systems
W.A.C. Bennett Library, Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada
Voice: 778.782.5753 / Fax: 778.782.3023 / Skype: mark.jordan50
mjo...@sfu.ca

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[Justin Simpson]

Hi Mark,

A few comments:

You could go into the Preservation Planning tab on your local Archivematica instance and create a local customized Normalization command.  For example, you could change the 'Transcoding to pdfa with Ghostscript' command so it is a python script, that does the same gs command plus your custom copy to local directory command.  This would be simpler than creating a new micro-service.

Artefactual is doing development work, scheduled for the 1.4 release, to add a 'store dip' option.  This might work for your use case.  Documentation of this is here: https://www.archivematica.org/wiki/DIP_storage_to_designated_location

The instructions from 0.9 that you linked to are going to be close to accurate for Archivematica 1.0 or 1.1, but they would need to be tried in a test environment to confirm that they are still accurate. 

Justin Simpson
Director of Archivematica Technical Services
www.artefactual.com
604-527-2056

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[Mark Jordan]

Thanks Justin, I hadn't thought of that approach. I'll give it a try.

Mark

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