Importing Files From FTP With Changing Dates In The Filename

Created by Jason Carr, Modified on Thu, 14 Mar at 6:35 PM by Jason Carr

In this guide, we're going to show you how to download files from an FTP server that need to be imported into PlayoutONE on the same cart numbers each week.
The files we will be downloading also have dates in the filenames that change each week.

Background

For this example, we are going to download 8 files from a syndicators FTP site. Each week the files become available on a Thursday afternoon. The dates in the filenames are always the date of the coming Saturday.

PlayoutONE

First of all, we need to create our empty carts in PlayoutONE. For this, we are going to add these files by creating a new UID in the Media Finder.

We are going to set the UIDs to 101-108
We are going to set the Type to PreRecorded Programs (We created this new Type within the Type Manager first)
We are going to set the Title to PreRecorded Show Segment 1-8

Auto Importer

Next, we need to set up a new Import Profile in Auto Importer. The table below shows the settings we have altered. The rest of the default settings have been left as they are when you create a new Import Profile in Auto Importer.

Setting	Tab	Value
Import Name	Import Details	Pre-Recorded Shows Import
Import Method	Import Details	Specific UID
Import Folder	Import Details	C:\PlayoutONE\Import\Pre-Recorded Shows
Preserve Title	Options	Checked
Preserve Type	Options	Checked
Normalise	Options	Checked
Detect If Audio Fades	Options	Checked
Set Extro	Options	Checked
Set Artist To	Overrides	%DATE_US% (%TIME_12%)
Extro	Override	-25

FileCopy

Finally, we need to set up a FileCopy Job to download the FTP Files every week to our Auto Import profile. We'd also like to rename the files to our cart numbers set out in the beginning of this document. The table below shows the settings we have altered. The rest of the default settings have been left as they are when you create a new Import Profile in Auto Importer.

Setting	Tab	Value
Description	Details	Pre-Recorded Show Download
Source	Source	FTP
Server	Source	FTP Server (FTP.server.com)
Port	Source	21
Passive	Source	Checked
Username	Source	user@ftpserver.com
Password	Source	FTP Server Password
Folder	Source	/FTPShows/TheHits/{yyyyMMdd} (we are using Date Add here to swap in the date of the folder)
Multiple Files	Source	Checked
DateAdd	Source	2 days (We are setting this value to 2 days because we want to add two days to the date on the folder {yyyyMMdd}. As we download these files on Thursday we need to add 2 days to get Saturday's date.)
Select Files	Source	See Below
Auto Importer (Details)	Destination	Checked
Destination (Details)	Destination	Pre-Recorded Shows Import
Start Time	Schedule	04:00
Days	Schedule	Thu Checked

Selecting The Files

These are the main settings however we skipped actually picking which files we want to download.

Go back to the Source Tab, and click the Select Files button

This is where we now select each file we want to download. To add a new file to download slide the Filename toggle button and use the Magnifying Glass to pick your file. Double-click to select it.

Once selected, if your filename contains dates within it, then you'll need to use Date Add to replace the dates on the fly. For our example, the filename we selected was The Hits 2020-01-02 Part 1.mp3. We've changed this to The Hits {yyyy-MM-dd} Part 1.mp3.

We've set the file to rename to 101.mp3

We've set Date Add to be 2 days (just like we did earlier with the folder)

We then click add, to add this file into the list of files to download and repeat 7 more times.

Click Save once finished adding your files to download, and then Save again to save the File Copy Job.

Testing

Finally, we can verify we've set up everything correctly by selecting the new FileCopy Job we've created and clicking Run.

We should see that FileCopy download 8 files, rename them and pass them to Auto Importer. Note - we can only manually run this job on a Thursday due to the DateRenaming. If we run this job on a Wednesday, then the Date Rename would insert Friday's date rather than Saturday's.
Auto Importer should begin importing the file.
PlayoutONE should then show all files on the UIDs 101 - 108 with the Date/Time it imported in the Artist field.