Create External Content from Local Filesystem

This article describes how to create an External Content sourced from Local Filesystem files.

PREREQUISITE:

Establish Connectivity to Local Filesystem

1. Create New External Content

Access New > External Content

  1. Name: Give the External Content a descriptive name.
  2. External Content Profile: Choose "Local File" from drop-down menu.
  3. Category: Choose a Category where the External Content will be placed.
  4. URL Source: Set to Generate Automatically.
  5. Plugin Connection Profile: Select a plugin Data Source.

Note: In order to fetch files from a Windows folder, you will need to mount that folder to both web and dataprocessor containers. Contact your system administrator for details.

  1. Report: choose a file that will serve as a source for External Content.
  2. URL template: Select a template for the URL of the External Content.
  3. Show in: Specify whether to show the External Content in Viewer on in External Webpage.
  4. [Next: Define Details]

2. Viewing the External Content

Open Advanced tab

  1. Include files as email attachments: Specify if you want to include Local Filesystem files as attachments to emails.
    • The default value for this setting can be controlled by the ATTACH_EXTERNAL_CONTENT_FILES_DEFAULT System Variable.
  2. Show in: The default value for this field is External Webpage for viewing content in a browser.
    • Viewer: Select whether to display the file as External Webpage (on desktop or mobile) or Uploaded image within the iframe of Metric Insights UI.
  3. [View]

2.1. Previewing Files

External Content can show a real preview of files with the .xlsx, .xls, .doc, .docx, .pdf, .ppt and .pptx extensions in the Viewer.

To preview the real file, Show in and Display in Viewer on the Configuration tab must be set as shown below:

  • Show in: Set to "Viewer".
  • Display in Viewer: Set to "External web page".

Afterwards, click [View].

NOTE: For Excel files, the Preview won't be created if the file exceeds the assigned maximum file size of 1MB.

NOTE: The following features are not supported for Excel file display:

  1. Format cell alignment;
  2. Sheets formatting;
  3. Some numeric and date display masks as well as currency;
  4. Conditional formatting;
  5. Formatting as Table;
  6. Pictures;
  7. Shapes/SmartArt/Screenshots;
  8. Pivot Tables;
  9. Charts;
  10. Hyperlinks.