I wanted to centralize assignment of Database Connections in my FME Server automations. I currently have a published user parameter on each of my workspaces, connected to the transformers in each workspace, that I can set in each workspace action individually in an automation to switch between databases to load. Each time I want to switch the location I have to change the user parameter on each workspace action in the automation which feels a bit clunky and prone to error if you have many workspace's in an automation. I was wondering is there a way to centralize assignment of Database Connections in the FME Server Automation? I thought perhaps creating a Global Key for the database connection might work but that doesn't look like it's possible. Is there a better way to do this?
Hi @ling55
It definitely makes sense what you want to do. I think a Global Key is probably the best approach, but the problem I see is that right now you can only set text-based global keys in automations. If you change the kind of parameter to text, or even choice but allowing choice edit, then you can use a Global Key in the workspace parameters:
But still, the problem is that global keys are text-only and there is no way of ensuring that you write the connection string properly.
I think the solution should include adding "user parameter"-like types in Global Keys. I would suggest to add an Idea in the Ideas section https://community.safe.com/s/idea/Idea/00B4Q00000ABiEt
I found this other idea for adding support for password-type global keys, but not a more general one https://community.safe.com/s/bridea/a0r4Q00000HbWn7QAF/password-support-for-fme-server-global-keys-data-types