What is the algorithm for bulk upload?

[dlittman999]

I have looked and found pieces of info but no clear stepwise description of how to upload many documents to the repository.

I gather it is best to use an ftp client. My questions, therefore are, specifically:
1. what client have people found useful?
2. what has to be running in the alfresco instance to accept the connection? (if I go to "http://localhost:8080/alfresco/webdav/" in IE or FFX I get name/pw prompt, enter them, and get a directory listing but no way to upload.)
3. what is the specific url for the ftp client?
4. will I see a general doc "repository" or do I place content in spaces it is intended for?
5. do I have to restart the server to cause the new content to be indexed?

I posted another question earlier about upgrading from 1.4 to 2.0 with the same general thrust as this one, namely that a list tasks/solutions "For Dummies" would reduce what I see as a major frustration of using this great product.

[rdanner]

I have looked and found pieces of info but no clear stepwise description of how to upload many documents to the repository.

I gather it is best to use an ftp client. My questions, therefore are, specifically:
1. what client have people found useful?
2. what has to be running in the alfresco instance to accept the connection? (if I go to "http://localhost:8080/alfresco/webdav/" in IE or FFX I get name/pw prompt, enter them, and get a directory listing but no way to upload.)
3. what is the specific url for the ftp client?
4. will I see a general doc "repository" or do I place content in spaces it is intended for?
5. do I have to restart the server to cause the new content to be indexed?

I posted another question earlier about upgrading from 1.4 to 2.0 with the same general thrust as this one, namely that a list tasks/solutions "For Dummies" would reduce what I see as a major frustration of using this great product.

FTP can be a convenient way to "give" the repository a lot of content.  WebDAV and CIFS are other mechanisms.  There may be some practical limits to the amount of items you drop in at once but I am not sure what the current limits are. 

Another mechanism you can use is to programmatically insert the items yourself.  I think it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish.  If you want to bulk load, another question I would ask is what metadata do you also have, can it easily be extracted from the document (by easy I mean automatically), what aspects and other rules need to be applied as the content is loaded in to the repository?

I think the number of ways you can access the repository is impressive (and it’s growing).  What soft of means would you think would best suite your needs?

[rdanner]

I have looked and found pieces of info but no clear stepwise description of how to upload many documents to the repository.

I gather it is best to use an ftp client. My questions, therefore are, specifically:
1. what client have people found useful?
2. what has to be running in the alfresco instance to accept the connection? (if I go to "http://localhost:8080/alfresco/webdav/" in IE or FFX I get name/pw prompt, enter them, and get a directory listing but no way to upload.)
3. what is the specific url for the ftp client?
4. will I see a general doc "repository" or do I place content in spaces it is intended for?
5. do I have to restart the server to cause the new content to be indexed?

I posted another question earlier about upgrading from 1.4 to 2.0 with the same general thrust as this one, namely that a list tasks/solutions "For Dummies" would reduce what I see as a major frustration of using this great product.

For Webdav you will need a decent client (the basic browser is not decent).  There a number of Free open source Webdav clients you can download.

There are also free FTP clients. Core is the one that comes to mind.

If you use IE you should be able to get it to let you drag and drop files by using ftp://admin:admin@localhost

You will see the folders just as if you were browsing with the webclient.  You can drop content anywhere you like.  Rules will execute just as if you were working in the webclient itself.

You should not have to restart the server for the new content to be indexed– that is not something I have verified but I am almost certain it is not required.

What are the challenges you are facing in your upgrade? Are you just in need of an approach or have you encountered difficulty?

[dlittman999]

Russ,
Thanks for the pointers on bulk content upload. They were very helpful.

As to upgrading, all I want to do is upgrade a vanilla 1.4 to a vanilla 2.0. I tried it by installing 2.0 in a different directory, copied the entire 1.4 alf_data folder over the 2.0 alf_data folder and started it up. It appears to have preserved the spaces, users, and content, which was my goal. My basic question is whether this is all that needs to be done — i.e.
1) are all user/space/permissions/content data stored in alf_data and
2) if I copy alf_data to a new installation have I preserved my repository.
I worry that there is additional info somewhere else and that later I'll have some gotchas.
Thanks again,
David