How do I read in event as JSON in Automations?

Hi @northswejohan,

In Automations you must select 'Event as JSON' for the attribute value:

In Notifications the message being sent from the Topic was being stored in a temp location on FME Server, so the published parameter value was the file path to that temp location, which is why we used a JSON reader to extract that information. However in Automations when you select 'Event as JSON' for the published parameter value this returns the actual JSON content so there is no need to read in a file.

I can see how my example may have caused confusion as I set this up using example JSON from the DirectoryWatch trigger which returns a file.path element, so to simplify it for all triggers the Event as JSON will look like:

'{"attributename":"attributevalue","attributename":"attributevalue","attributename":"attributevalue"}'

Therefore if your Trigger is an FME Server Topic the value will look something like:

{ "subscriber_content": "Example Topic Message", "ws_topic": "Test" }

Then depending on how you want to use the data you could use the JSONFragmenter, JSONExtractor or JSONFlattener transformer to bring out the relevant information.

Please let me know if you require more guidance.

-Holly

Hi @mabaho,

I think we can simplify your workflow somewhat, with all the Triggers in Automations as well as providing the full event message as JSON, this JSON has already been flattened into its separate elements. Therefore rather than having to write a JSON query yourself, you can just parse the email.from value straight into the Emailer - it looks like you are already doing this with the Email Attachment so the process is the same.

The only trigger this does not apply to is a topic, since this can come from anything so the JSON structure is unknown, which is why the above is still useful in certain scenarios.

1. In your workspace add a Creator > Emailer and created a User Parameter for the ‘To’ parameter:

    

   
2. In Automations, from the drop down list, expose the Email folder and select ‘Sent from Address’

    

   

Second for the error you are receiving this looks like it is saying that no Email Attachment exists - was there one in the email sent? If you can share the full log file I may be able to provide more assistance here.

-Holly

Update: Alternatively if you would like to continue using a JSON Reader, you can set the source file path to $(FME_TOPIC_MESSAGE). This method may be preferred if the trigger contains a large amount of data that you wish to process in your workspace, as opposed to a single key and value pair - as the Reader flattens the JSON you will not need to expose all of the attributes individually.

When an FME Server Topic is triggered, the string of JSON is stored as a file in a temporary location on FME Server. The $(FME_TOPIC_MESSAGE) is an FME Server Parameter that references the file path to this JSON.

The $(FME_TOPIC_MESSAGE) parameter will only be populated with a value when it is triggered in FME Server, so to test this workspace in FME Desktop you will need to set this parameter to a dummy value that includes an example of the JSON. Please find attached an example workspace to demonstrate this.

fmetopicmessage.fmw

This all seems a little convoluted. Correct me if I'm wrong but I assumed fme was slowly phasing out notifications/topics in favor of simplifying things with automations.. but looking at the above we still need topics to achieve certain workflows.. I think many people were using the entire email as input to their JSON reader in the triggered WS(not just the sent to, or subject), so having some clear guidance around how to achieve this without TOPICs might be beneficial as I guess the end goal here is to move everything to automations.

Hi @timothy.woods​ !

Are you trying to set an automation up with the Topic (notified) trigger and pass the JSON to the workspace as an event value? Or are you wanting to continue using the JSON Reader? The error file does not exist stems from trying to read a path to the temporary JSON file created from topic messaged. However, in automations we can directly pass the actual JSON content to the workspace as an event value rather than reading the JSON file from a temporary location eliminating the need for the JSON Reader. Have you tried the recommendations from @hollyatsafe in the above comments?