Shape the future of FME with your ideas
Open ideas have been reviewed by our Customer Success team and are open for commenting and voting.
I would like to see SAML and Office365 authentication added to the HTTPCaller so that it can access information from more different online sources.
My idea is to enable published parameters to be passed to an FME Server app via the URL, in the same way as can be done for executing a workspace via the URL when shared.In my current use case, I have created a PowerBI report which the user will interact with and filter data into a single record - in this case it is a list of calls that the user will make to residents. I want them to record the outcome of each call, so have created an FME Server App which contains published parameters for each field in the database table I'm logging into, which provides them with a form with the relevant parameters and configuration options.What I'd like to do but cannot, is pre-populate some of the parameters in the FME Server App, but leave others for the user to select from/populate.
Hello FME Community 👋We at Safe Software are busy working on some exciting FME Platform enhancements, many focused on product security. We would like your thoughts on one of the ideas that is currently up for consideration.We’ve received previous requests to add OpenID Connect authentication support to FME Flow, and we think that OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication could be supported broadly across both FME Form and FME Flow.So, before we dive right into development efforts on this idea, we’d like to know what you think about it! Would you benefit from the FME Platform supporting OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication? If so, can you provide a brief description of how FME supporting OpenID Connect authentication would enhance your experience with the FME Platform? We are also looking for anyone who might be interested in testing out our implementation of OpenID Connect authentication, once available. If you would like to be included as an early tester, please indicate that interest in your response!Here’s a bit of background on OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication. If you’ve ever tried to create an account with a new app you’ve downloaded, you might be presented with options to use another account (like Google or Facebook) to login to the new app. In this way, you can use an account you already have, instead of creating a new account. This is OIDC authentication at work, and can be considered an extension to the OAuth 2.0 protocol already supported across the FME Platform. More information on OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication can be found by visiting the OpenID Foundation’s How OpenID Connect Works page. We look forward to hearing from you on this exciting idea!
I need a method for ensuring workflows that include a single workspace being run multiple times triggered by the output of an automations writer are run consecutively not in parallel.In a similar way to how the Workspace Runner in FME Form ‘Wait for job to complete’ option works.I don’t want to simply assign these to a queue with a single engine as I want the first job to pick the first available engine.
With libraries like DuckDB in your Python environment, as is the case where you either have ArcGIS Pro or Enterprise on your FME machine, or you’re using ArcGIS Data Interoperability, then it is easy to retrieve potentially millions of features from an S3-API compliant object store or other web source in seconds, but it’s a bottleneck to send them on into the workspace one by one.I would like to see performance like reading CSV files brought to PythonCreator.There is a possibly related existing idea Introduce a Python Dataframe Creator/Transformer but I don’t want to confound using dataframes with this idea, which is fundamentally about performance.Dataframes might be how this idea is implemented, but my guess is that would be a heavy lift for Safe, another way might be a way to output an aggregate feature.
Hello everyone,I want to create hosted feature view layers on arcgis enterprise with REST API, httpcaller in FME. Although a new hosted view item is successfully created, the resulting view layer always remains empty (no layers inside it), and all attempts to attach the source layer fail.Below is a clear explanation of what i am doing, what works, and where the process fails. 1. EnvironmentArcGIS Enterprise 11.5 Hosted feature layer (source) Attempting to create hosted feature layer views programmatically The account performing the request is now: Owner of the hosted feature layer Administrator 2. What worksI successfully create a hosted feature layer view item using:content/users/<owner>/createServicewith parameters including:isView=truesourceItemId=<item_id_of_hosted_feature_layer>The REST response confirms:"success": true,"isView": trueA new view item appears in the Enterprise Content page.However:The created view contains zero layers, every time.Even though the source hosted feature layer contains a valid layer (layer 0 or 1 depending on configuration), the new view remains empty. 3. What failsI have attempted the two documented approaches to populate the view:A. /server/rest/admin/services/.../addToDefinitionThis always returns:{"error":{"code":500,"message":"Database error has occurred."}}or:"Field 'layerDefinitions' cannot be updated."Maybe this endpoint may not be valid for Portal-managed hosted view layers, even though it is technically part of the ArcGIS Server Admin API. B. /portal/sharing/rest/content/users/<owner>/items/<view_itemid>/addToDefinitionFollowing Esri documentation for item-level schema updates, we used a body such as:addToDefinition={ "layerDefinitions": [ { "id": 0, "sourceLayerId": 1, "sourceItemId": "<source_item_id>" } ]}&f=jsonor alternative formats documented in the API.Every version returns success for the item update, but the view layer remains empty.Viewing the service JSON confirms "layers": [].Does anyone have an idea what the problem might be and how to fix it?
To get to know your current amount of Dynamic Engine / CPU Usage Credits you need to navigate to the Licensing Menu within the FME Server GUI. To see this, you need the proper permission that should not be granted to a lot of people. A possible way to make this information more accessible could be done via the REST API. Right now, there is no such endpoint. Accessing the credit amount via the REST API will give you the opportunity to automatically get the Credit amount and, for example, enables you to monitor the usage and reduction of you credits. This monitoring could be done via FME Server itself or by implementing the REST API request within a third-party application (like Grafana).
It would be nice if the RasterExpressionEvaluator would include math functions like @max(A[0],A[1],A[2]) similar to the expressionEvaluator
Migration Note: Idea originally posted on 2016-04-20
The following improvements to Role Based Security would be useful:1.Increased Granularity for Job Viewing and Job Management PermissionsI need the ability to allow users to see specific other user’s jobs and logs rather than all jobs and logs. We use different service accounts for different enterprise projects and currently I am having to share all jobs/logs with users so they can monitor their processes. Since not all groups need to see each other’s jobs this is not the best solution. (Thank you Safe for new search options in 2019 as they slightly help with this issue.)Likewise, in the current Role system being able to view all jobs requires job management permissions which let users cancel jobs in the queue or terminate running jobs. This puts me in a difficult position regarding how we implement SOX compliance. It is preferred users be locked out from managing running production processes. If the ability to view all logs but not manage jobs was made available that would be a move in a positive direction. If the option to say kill queued jobs but not running jobs was an option that may also be useful.2. Additional Options on Database ConnectionsHaving a Read option alongside the Full Control option for database connections would be excellent. I am seeing issues when I grant users access to connections without giving them full control over a connection. Since we have many processes using the same named database connection it is not ideal to grant users management access since one incorrect change by any user with access could disrupt jobs for all users using the connection. Something similar to how the Notification items are broken out would be amazing.3. Automatic Content Sharing with Administrator AccountsIt would be helpful if FME Server automatically shared user created content with members of the Super User role. If this could be an option for the FME Admin role that would also be appreciated. I have a plethora of users creating content and when they ask for help it is cumbersome to have to share their content with myself and my fellow Admins before I can help troubleshoot.
When connecting to azure AD through a Web Connection, FME Form uses QT WebEngine to perform the authentication. QT WebEngine does not support conditional access from azure (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/conditional-access/overview).Make an option in the authentication process to choose a different browser for authentication (like edge or chrome where this is supported) or make the QT WebEngine supplied with FME Form support conditional access.
In FME Flow, Flow App users can trigger a workspace with a Run button, but they can also submit hundreds or thousands of jobs, intentionally or by mistake. This can easily overload the system.Job Queues and Routing Rules help organize jobs, but they don’t limit how many jobs a user can submit.Feature request: Add a configurable per-user job limit (e.g., max 5 active/queued jobs) to prevent users from creating an unlimited job queue and to protect system stability.
I would be good to have the ability to add new keyboard shortcuts for various menu and submenu items. At the moment most functions have shortcuts, but others do not including the "Update Reader..." and others which get used often.Having the ability for user to add new shortcuts and perhaps customize existing ones would be good for UI and better tailor the tool to the functions users use the most.
add webservice definitions to FME Flow roles, so we can control who can access them, it seems if you use FME Flow as connection storage for FME Form, connections are controlled by roles, but anyone can see and use any webservice definition. If I am wrong about this, then this idea can be dropped.
In an Automation email action, we would like to use deployment parameters to set the following parameters:SMTP Server SMTP Server Port SMTP Account SMTP Password Connection security (less important)Motivation: we have clients with an important number of automations that use the “Email (send)” external action. When the smtp server settings change, e.g. between DEV and PROD environments, it’s a significant amount of manual and error-prone work to change these settings consistently in all the automations. It would be a big help if these settings could be set using deployment parameters:
Current situation: FME Flow’s Git integration relies on broad‑scope personal access tokens, which many security policies prohibit.Why fine‑grained: Fine‑grained PATs were created to align access with what really matters—specific repositories, operations, and lifetimes—enforcing least‑privilege and reducing risk. This will make it easier to implement version control because current organizations like ours don’t allow broad scope.Request: Add native support for GitHub fine‑grained PATs in FME Flow version control so teams can adopt it while meeting modern security policies.
If a FeatureWriter is set to write dynamically, then the port which accepts the schema features should be a dedicated schema port, and not the main port that handles the features to be written.This is the design the FeatureReader transformer uses, and more recently the SQLCreator, to have a dedicated schema port. Dynamic writing can be done either by having a schema feature enter the writer before the features to be written, or by having each feature carry schema list attributes that describe how it should write. Potentially adding a schema port would make that second dynamic write pattern unviable, but we have tools now like the SchemaScanner to produce a schema feature for any workflows which would need to change from this.Also there are occasionally bugs where the writer tries to write out the schema feature, or schema attributes. Recently in 2023, a GDB writer will warn you that the schema attributes need to be renamed to follow GDB field name restrictions.It would be much more consistent design, and easier to teach how dynamic writing works if the FeatureWriter had a schema port to receive the schema. It only needs to appear when the write mode is set to dynamic.
Add an input port for Schemas to enter the FeatureWriter when writing dynamicallyThe FeatureWriter could then ensure it’s received all the schema features before it starts processing the data features. Currently, ensuring the schema feature hits the featurewriter before the data features can be problematic, especially when you’re developing with feature caching turned on.
I have seen use cases where an organisation has its authoritative web and database connections stored in Flow and wants to make those accessible to Form users. However, they don’t want Form users to subsequently be able to overwrite or upload their own connections to Flow in an effort to keep it organised and structured.They achieve this by restricting access to the database and web connections to read/view only. Therefore allowing them to be used in Form and Flow, but not changed.However as Form is now set to use Flow as it’s connection storage, a user can’t create their own as their associated Flow permissions block writing to the connection storage.It would be helpful if you could have both a local and Flow connection storage configured, with the ability to copy between them.This is similar to some ideas in:
An integration with monday.com api would be nice!
The obj reader looks to support obj "Groups" and "Objects" - it seems that these bring in an OBJ as an aggregate of mesh features.At the moment it seems like the only way to create something similar is to give the objects a unique appearance name so that the output OBJ separates the meshes. This seems a bit hacky to me.It also means that it's not really possible to perform a "round trip" with OBJ files which support this group/object feature. It would be nice to have this supported - either via format attributes or by geometry properties. Being able to do this would enable output objs to have more value in tools like blender where groups or objects can selected. A use case is in City Models - if Roofs and Walls for example could belong to separate groups then in blender it might be possible to apply materials to all Roofs or Walls. As it is at the moment the resulting obj will typically just be a single mesh.
Write in OBJ format, support adding id, add unique identifiers and groupings for each model
Multi-leaders are a core AutoCAD annotation object. FME can explode MLeaders on read but cannot write back to DWG as Mleader. This blocks end-to-end DWG automation workflows that modify and write back DWG files.Adding MLeader write support would allow users to recreate and update leader geometry, text content, and annotations programmatically.Another object key object which needs writing support is the AcDbTable or AutoCAD Table.Supporting these two key objects would significantly improve holistic DWG editing and automation capabilities in FME.
Add option to hide "Browse Resources" button on FME Server App. It confuses some users and there aren't usually any files users need to access in the resources. We prefer to design the input parameters on our apps as simple as possible to avoid overwhelming users with too many input fields and options. Minimizing the upload functionality to only one one button will certainly make the input apps more compact and easy for users to use.
Add GitLab integration with Version Control
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