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.
If it would ne visible which workspaces are missing and the ones created in a newer workbench that the current one (the ones that may not work) would make it more straightforward to manage the workspaces. Especially when multiple versions of Flow is installed and actively used.
Refering to this thread and this other thread, FME is doing a lot of things on our sql statement without asking us...As a PostgreSQL database engineer, my SQL scripts can be really complex and I want FME to send it to the database wihtout encapsulated it into some darkmagic procedure...It could be great to have an option to tell FME to send the statement to the database as it is. The dev have to check for the commit part and all of course.
Enabling CityGML readers and writers to support the 3.0 version within FME would be a significant improvement. This is particularly crucial because the level of detail for the existing 2.0 version differs from the ones of version 3.0.
I would like to see another output port called Log in the WorkspaceRunner transformer.It would create features for each log message written to the log by the subprocess. Attributes would include Timestamp, CPU, Elapsed, Transformer, Message.This would make it much easier to check for problems in a workbench that has a lot of WorkspaceRunners in it.
It would be neat if FME Workbench had scaffolding functionality.For example, when setting up User Parameters with choices and Conditional visiblity, it can be rather complex to build a corresponding logic in the canvas (i.e setting up various transformers to port different choices in different directions, triggering different actions).What if there were a button inside User Parameters-dialog, saying “Scaffold this for me”, and then FME exit the User Parameters-dialog and attach all transformers that is needed (for the logic setup in the User Parameters-dialog to work) on the mouse cursor so that the user can place the solution on a good spot on the canvas.Potentionally a “Scaffold this for me”-button could be usable in other scenarious too.
Hi there,It would be great if there was a button at the bottom of the text/arithmetic editors that could substitute their placeholders with any cached values or default values for attributes and user parameters. This could be useful for checking values are correctly formatted before having to run the flow and check that it works correctly.For example:Becomes:you could have different colours for parameters and attribute values, or some other way of differentiating them. Or you could provide mouseover hints that direct the user to the source of the value.Thanks,Marc
Assuming it’s possible, FME Form should look in the same folder as the workspace for FME related components - e.g., CustomFormats, CustomTransfomers. In FME Flow if you have a CustomTransformer which lives in the same repository as a workspace it will work. It would nice to be able to keep CustomTransfomers in the same location. As it is right now in FME Form if you want to keep all files related to a porject together you need to copy the version from the location where FME can find it (e.g., FME folder) to your project folder.The process is problematic because you quickly run into issues with copying and keeping track of the version which you’re actually working with in workbench vs what is in your project folder.
When using the datetime user parameter in FME Form/Flow, the viewer where the user chooses the date ranges from Sunday-Sunday. As a swedish user, our calendar system is in line with ISO 8601 standard and starts with Monday-Monday. Being accustomed to this format, it is possible for a user to choose wrong date in a Sunday-Sunday formatted calendar. I would like a functionality for the datetime user parameter to switch between a Sunday-Sunday and Monday-Monday calendar.
When using ExcelStyler early on in your flow (I use it to highlight invalid values in Excel fles right after the data has been read from my database) or any transformer that creates <attributename>.something “sub-attributes” (not sure what the actual name would be), you currently must make sure to manually rename all of those alongside the main attribute whenever you rename them through an AttributeManager or AttributeRenamed, otherwise they will not be observed by downstream writers and transformers. If the Styler is added in the later stages of building the flow, that means going through all downstream AttributeManagers one by one to make sure the newly added sub-attributes follow the main one.It would be conveinient if those could all be renamed together automatically whenever the main attribute is renamed.
Change the windows toolbar hover preview to show the name of the workspace rather than the input and output readers/writer types.The way it currently is means that users need to click into each workspace to see which one is which whenever they focus away from FME and there is more than one workspace open which is tedious and time consuming.If it simply showed the name of the workspace first, it would be much easier to know which workspace a user is clicking on rather than trying to remember ‘None → None’ is the WorkspaceA.fmw or ‘MSSQL_ADP → TEXTLINE‘ is WorkspaceB.fmw. or having to click to expand it and look at the top bar.
Our team uses a GitLab repository to have a single recorded source for some of our FME Workbench workspaces that get deployed to our FME Flow server. Whenever we save the files locally and make a new commit, the diff tools comparing the git revisions can become noisy with extra line changes that weren’t actually changes made to the file by the user in FME Workbench. This is because data series in the XML contents of the .fmw file are input randomly and may input in a different order upon additional saves. Child nodes in arrays under elements like <DATA_TYPES>, <GEOM_TYPES>, <CONNECTIONS>, and <BOOKMARKS> will fully rearrange their order in an inconsistent manner. This can happen if one entry is removed/added in the list and the workspace file is saved. This adds a lot of “diff” lines where changes didn’t occur when comparing two versions of the same .fmw file in any external git comparison tool. An example of a rearranging of the child nodes under <CONNECTIONS> causing extra diff lines Please add functionality to sort these series of nodes/values alphabetically by a name attribute so that they are saved to the .fmw file in a consistent manner that doesn’t change between saves.
When processing by group there is the option to wait for all features to be receive before splitting up the groups and there is an option to process when group changes.Both options are great, however, in the “Process when group changes” method the process doesn’t actually start until the group value changes. This makes working with live data streams difficult sometimes when processing in group - especially trying to capture the last feature, or group of features. In some cases it’s possible to know the size of the group(s) - for example in some cases the size is just 1. If the site of the group was given then once that size was reached then it could head off to be processed before the next group arrives. see this question for use case: This method would also allow for processing of groups of a defined size where the content isn’t so important. At present one must create an artificial group ID to support this workflow.
Hi, team!I am in need of a Palantir Foundry Reader/ Writer.Palantir Foundry is a technology that is rapidly growing in multiple industries. It is an all-in-one solution environment--similar to MicroSoft Fabric. I have a use case to integrate FME with Foundry but unfortunately, we don’t have an Ontology Writer. The ontology is a semantic layer for data hosted in Palantir.
I would like to identify custom annotations attached to objects using WorkspaceReader. This is possible with summary annotation because the transformer name is included in the annotation attribute. Custom annotations take up less space than summary annotations and allow the author to document the workspace. Having the ability to export this information helps with cataloging and reporting.Can we have the transformer name or transformer ID included in the annotation feature type either in the annotation attribute like in summary annotation) or as a separate attribute?See the posthttps://community.safe.com/authoring-6/workspacereader-find-annotation-linked-to-transformers-37719?postid=164422#post164422
With the rising importance of columnar format databases it would be great if FME would support ADBC connections:https://arrow.apache.org/docs/format/ADBC.htmlThis would give FME high performance access to the large (and growing) number of columnar databases commonly used in data analytics.
These days, a lot of people use the WhatsApp mobile phone app. Kindly send the user a WhatsApp message as well. in order for the user to determine the success or failure of his FME workflow. For example, we now have an emailer transformer.
I'm curious if there's a straightforward way to make FME lineage information accessible for data catalog systems. Have you all thought about enabling FME with OpenLineage? I’m not sure how that could work, but I’ve noticed that data catalog products are beginning to adopt this standard. Imagine how great it would be if FME could effortlessly share lineage info with popular data catalog tools like Microsoft Purview, Collibra, and Alation! This could be a game-changer for organizations that truly value solid data governance and tracking. What do you all think? Is this feasible, or are there other existing alternatives?
Possibility of including images inside Annotation . Is better when we want to document our Workspace with images.
Add multi-factor authentication support to the FME Server security settings, enabling multi-factor authentication when logging in to the FME Server web UI.
To strengthen the integration between FME Form and FME Flow, it would be beneficial to improve access to FME Flow's shared resources directly from FME Form.Currently, we know that it is possible to access files stored in Shared Resources via a reader in "Select Files from the Web" mode, but it would be much more convenient if this capability were natively built into FME Form.Proposed EnhancementsDirect Navigation in FME Flow Resources (from FME Form) Enable browsing Shared Resources or Network Resources directly from FME Form, without having to copy-paste paths or manually modify macros. Deployment parameters & Automatic Resolution of Macros and UNC Paths Currently, if an FME Flow Network Resource (ex: $(SDEconnection)) points to a network drive, users must manually specify the UNC path in FME Form because the macro does not resolve automatically. It would also be useful if Deployment Parameters could include connections to FME Flow resources (Shared Resources, Network Resources). Pre-population of FME Flow User Parameters in FME Form When connected to an FME Flow instance, global parameters like FME_FLOW_WEB_URL could be automatically populated in FME Form. Access Alignment with FME Flow User Permissions Access to files and resources from FME Form should respect the permissions defined in FME Flow, ensuring users only access the resources they are authorized to use.
Support for ESRI i3s (.slpk files) was released in FME 2018. This includes 3D features such as buildings, but currently does not support writing point clouds. Adding support for point clouds would allow these to be uploaded and viewed within ArcGIS Online web scenes.I3S writer:https://docs.safe.com/fme/html/FME_Desktop_Documentation/FME_ReadersWriters/i3s/i3s.htm
I noticed this question earlier and there was a discussion relating to writing your html report directly to PDF but it isn't recorded as an idea yet. https://knowledge.safe.com/questions/29382/html-report-to-pdf.html I am using the HTMLReport generator ALOT since it's release and everyone loves the output but still getting requests to turn this output into a PDF. Would be great if we could do this directly through FME as suggested
As a user/author in FME FlowSince every installation of FME Flow has the same interface colors/layout/etc, I'd like to know which environment I'm logged in to (beside maybe a broadcast message on the home page)So I don't accidentally develop in production or do something in the wrong environment. Suggestion: have a editable subtitle underneath the FME Flow logo (top left corner) in the System Configuration (for the name of the environment, or server, or whatever the admin wants), or allow a part of the interface to be changed to signal which environment (make the color of the menu bar on the left adjustable)
Have only seen 2024 demonstrated - haven’t used it. But I am used to the old look and TBH, much prefer it. If not already available, could we have a ‘classic skin’ setting to display readers, writers and transformers using the pre-2024 look? Ditto the translation log.
Allow certain output ports to have their feature caching disabled to improve performance.As an example, I quite often use the FeatureMerger. With Feature Caching turned on it will cache all the output ports, as described here under the 'Unconnected Output Ports' heading - https://knowledge.safe.com/articles/79739/feature-caching-and-performance.html - I often don't care about the UnusedSupplier and UsedSupplier, but they tend to be the largest datasets and add significant time on first run/uncached runs.What would be ideal is an option to turn off the feature caching for certain output ports, perhaps under the right click menu of the output port itself.Admittedly this right click menu only appears once the feature caching is done, but you get the idea.This is similar to this proposal - https://knowledge.safe.com/content/idea/77431/feature-caching-woes-reuse-large-attributesturn-so.html - But a bit more granular, whereas that proposal suggests allowing feature caches to be turned off for entire transformers, this one proposes only turning them off for certain output ports.
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