Shape the future of FME with your ideas
Open ideas have been reviewed by our Product Management and are open for commenting and voting.
It would be great if the Minecraft writer had a supported attribute that would control the block orientation, such as what direction a block should face.
The Next Action boxes appears on the FME Flow Hosted Canvas too often. This makes for a messy and confusing canvas. Example: Delete all the Next Actions on the canvasStart automationStop AutomationNext Action boxes re-appearmy idea is to remove this behavior or give the user the ability to toggle it off.
The “View Log” option in the Automations has recenly started pointing towards the entire automations logs folder rather than the logging of that specific Automation? This is less than helpful when debugging so I would like to suggest it be brought back.I’m noticing this in FME Flow 2023.2.1 (and my colleague doesn’t have it in an older build)
SharePoint allows anonymous access so FME's SharePoint reader should too. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/administration/manage-anonymous-access-for-a-web-application
It would be quite handy to be able to set conditional visibility to parameter groups next to ordinary parameters.This way you can create much more complex user interfaces to FME Flow Apps.
Currently the SQLite, Spatialite and Geopackage Writers (all SQLite based) enforce constraints on table and column names that do not align with the format specifications.For example, all formats allow Upper Case characters, spaces etc. within Table Names and Column Names, with only limitations that have to begin with an alphabetic character and certain SQLite Reserved words cannot be used without enclosing the field name in “”.In order to maintain Schema alignment between Eg. a Data Source, like a Geodatabase, SQL Server etc. that may contain Upper Case characters, spaces etc. then the corresponding SQlite based formats above should, by default, keep the Schema Attribute Names as-is, since similarly there is no requirement in their format specifications to enforce these rules, and most applications consuming the data will interoperate with these naming conventions fine.Enforcement of lower case/removal of spaces should instead be optional as a user set Parameter.
It would be great to have the ability for multiple users to work on a workspace at the same time. In the same guise as sharepoint editing.
I could be wrong, but there does not seem to be a built-in way to read views through a PostGIS reader
Large data files can often exist on an FME Server instance but these don't always need to be retained during a backup/restore, or included in a Project. It would be great to have the option to exclude specific files to reduce the size of a backup/restore or Project.Currently backup/restore is an all or nothing affair, so it may be opening up a can of worms to include this functionality but Projects do allow for specific content to be defined for Resources, but only to the folder level.My current use-case is that I have a Project defined with multiple items, including a Resources folder. I need the content of the Resources folder but there's a 6GB file in there that I don't need and it's causing my download to fail because I don't have that much empty space on my hard drive....
Currently the Geotiff writer doesn't support the Bigtiff flag when writing files with Jpeg compression. Jpeg is one of the better forms of compression available to create smaller files in FME, and being unable to make files larger than 4gb is a notable limitation. Tiling output files is an option, but it can also be difficult to determine eventual output file sizes inside of a running translation with disparate inputs.Being able to write bigtiff jpeg tifs would be great.
I would like to be able to update my database connections automatically. I have named connections to databases such as SQL Server and Oracle. However, my security policy requires that these database passwords be changed every 60 days through Red IM. It would be great if there was a way in FME to automate this so these stored connections can be updated when the passwords are.
When writing an Esri Geodatabase you should not use certain reserved words like "Select", "Delete" or "Update". For the complete lists per gdb version see FAQ: What are the reserved words for Esri's file geodatabase?Everything works fine on the workbench side of things. Even ArcMap displays the geometry correctly. Only when you open the attribute table (or do any other query related action) you will get an error like:"Could not load data from the data source. If you can correct the problem, press the refresh button to reload data. Possible problems can include bad network connection, invalid field, etc.An invalid SQL statement was used.An invalid SQL statement was used [Created]An invalid SQL statement was used. [SELECT OBJECTID,Update FROM Created WHERE OBJECTID in (1)]"It would be nice if workbench logged a warning when someone tries to write a reserved word as a column. Not sure how hard to implement (and maintain :-s).
In the CSV reader parameters dialog, when Attribute Definition has been set to "Manual", I would very much like to be able to change the field names. Currently (FME 2018.1), I can only change the attribute types.Especially when Field Names Line has been set to "None", and all the attribute names are automatically set to "col<n>", this would come in handy. Now I need to use an AttributeRenamer/Manager to change the field names afterwards. Why can't we do it in the Parameters Dialog? It'll save some clicks and it keeps the workspace tidier.
It would be useful to be able to compare roles (their policies) in FME Server web interface. Sometimes you are looking for differences in roles, and have to open roles to compare in separate windows, not very convenient.
It would be nice if an FME Server Topic could be configured to be triggered right after FME Server is started. Another nice feature would be an option for FME Server Schedules to fire right after FME Server is started.
It would be nice if Safe Software add another System Event to the FME server:In detail, I would like to have a system event that sends a notification as soon as the queue is getting quite full / long. In addition, it would be helpful to have an event that sends notifications if, for example, a workspace is running for longer than a defined time.The admin could act quickly if the engines are temporarily blocked for too long.Alternatively, this could also be implemented via Automation. To do this, however, you would need a trigger for the queue.
In some situations you want to set global keys in automation that contain sensitive information, such as passwords. Having the ability to set data types on global keys or mark them as sensitive, would greatly help in configuring passwords or sensitive information within the automation.
Currently with the v3 API it is possible only to retrieve the named connection info via the FME Server API.It would be greatly useful to be able to update/change the named connections via the API
Todo: For the Postgres / PostGIS writers add the option to make an added index unique or primaryWhy: Having the ability to have FME create indexes on created tables is great. However many GIS applications need a primary key, or unique index to insure that only one item is updated, or selected with that key. Adding the option to make the index unique saves a manual step in creating an pk or unique index for a table afterward.
When you go to "Run Worksapce" or integrate a "Run Workspace Action" in an Automation there are the "Advanced" Parameters. When creating and editing a FME Server Workspace App there are no "Advanced" Parameters. Specifically I am missing the optional Job Queue Assignment. Adding those paraemters to the Workspace Apps would give the user more opportinities about how to execute the workspace.
In the new FME:23 Flow you have Deployment Parameter Store where you can have the same parameters but different values in different environments. Is the goal here to also use this as a store for "tokens to services" ? For instance if you have a secret token that you want to use but not expose - you can add it here? Or are there better ways to expose tokens between different workspaces and different FME Servers?If the Deployment Parameter Store should also handle tokens - you should add a type token / password so you dont show that value in clear text.
PATCH is a more fine-grained HTTP verb for (partially) updating data via REST. It would be nice to have this option when using the FME Server REST API as it would enable safer and more robust interactions with FME Server data. It may also allow certain organizations to adhere to standards and best practices for developing web applications.
Downlaoding named DB connections on FME Desktop according to sharing privilages set in FME Server Database Connections tab.
The old date time formatter allowed setting the attribute to a default value if it could not be converted. This was useful as it allowed you to set to a null value or dummy date. The datetimeformatter just passes all features with invalid dates out the rejected port, if formatting a number of attributes with dates there is no information as to which attribute has the invalid date.
In-depth courses for all FME skill levels.
Explore our extensive collection of how-to guides and tutorials.
Log an issue with us. Our support team is ready to help.
