Accessing files in Citrix Sharefile

[msmith6986]

Hello,

(I have asked this previously but no answer...hoping in the last few months maybe someone figured this out so I am asking again)

Does anyone have a solution for manipulating files in Sharefile when running a workflow through the scheduler?

I see there is a connector tool for Box, but nothing for Sharefile.

Sharefile has windows app that installs a drive letter (S:) on my windows machine and allows access to Sharefile through windows explorer.

When using a simple Directory tool to read the contents of a folder, I am able to read files in this folder when I manually run the workflow (by hitting the "Run" button).

However, when I try to run this workflow via scheduler, it does not have access to the "S:" folder.

I have had this issue in the past with network locations, and the workaround was to always use UNC paths.  However, there is no UNC path for this Sharefile drive letter.  It is a virtual drive letter and I don't know how / if there is a UNC path that can be used to reference it.

The scheduler service is configured to use my same user and permissions as my normal windows user, so I am not sure why I can't access the drive letter via scheduler but it works when I manually run the workflow.

If anyone has any ideas that would be really great.

Thank you in advance.

[CharlieS]

Hi @msmith6986 

I think we should sort out some information on this "S:\" drive. If this is hosted on network resource like you said, then there should be a UNC reference available. You can view these by opening Command Line (Start > Run > cmd) and entering

net use

This will list the network-hosted drives (and their UNC paths) that have been mapped to a letter on your computer registry. If you are not able to run this on your machine, you might need to ask an IT resource for this information. There are also some other options listed on this Stack Overflow thread:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21482825/find-unc-path-of-a-network-drive

[msmith6986]

I did not say it is hosted on a network resource.  Citrix Files is very much like Box or Google Drive.  It is a cloud hosted file share service.  They have an app which installs a drive letter ("S:\" in this case) but it is not a regular network drive.  I believe Box and Google have similar apps you can install which create virtual drives for your cloud file server.  That is what this is.  When I run a workflow manually (hitting CTRL+R) it works fine.  When it runs from the scheduler, it cannot access the "S:\" drive, even though it is set to run with my credentials.  There is no UNC path that I can figure out.  Net Use shows me nothing for this "drive" (it actually doesn't even show up at all)

[danilang]

Hi @msmith6986 

It looks like the Sharefile client component is installed on login so that explains why the scheduler can't access the S: drive.  The scheduler runs as a service, so it doesn't actually execute the log in scripts.

After some digging, I've found that Sharefile exposes a REST API that you can use to access the files, or as they call them "items". The main page contains an overview of the process you need to complete to access the files, starting with getting an API key.  The methods for accessing items are here. Quite a few of these methods returns 302 redirects, so after your first download you'll need to look at the download headers, extract any links that are returned and feed these into another download tool.  

You can check this article for the basics on connecting to a REST API with Alteryx  and this one for an introduction to authentication.  

Dan

[msmith6986]

Hello @danilang !

Wow thank you so much for that info.  I will see what I can do with that. 

I have done a little bit of work using the REST API for a different data service, so that may help me get up to speed quickly with this.  

Again, thank you for the response and I will keep you posted as to what I am able to figure out.

Mark