This article explains how to configure Curator Connect so that users are able to ingest into a newly created Curator system. By default, Curator Connect does not work without configuration as folder paths and locations need to be set which are unique to each environment.
Note that this is a configuration guide, not an install guide of the Curator Connect application.
If you need an install guide for the Curator Connect app please refer to this article.
Configuring Curator Connect is carried out in two sections: section one will be configuring Curator System Administrator, to point to configuration and create additional views if required.
Section two will be MediaStore configuration, re-pointing Curator to specific storage paths, folderpatterns, and Curatorfolderpaths so that when files are ingested, Curator will know where to place files and create assets.
Curator System Administrator
Understanding workgroups
Curator System Administrator needs to be configured first of all.
From Curator System Administrator, select the Configuration tab.
From this tab, choose Curator Connect from the drop-down menu.
Three options will be displayed on the left-hand side – Default/All Users/ Sysadmin (see the image below).
Curator Connect configuration can be separated per workgroup if required.
This means that if you would like a specific configuration/ingest for a specific set of users, this is entirely possible.
IPV suggests selecting an existing workgroup, and using the Clone button, which will create an additional option, which can then be modified to be made unique to the workgroup.
Note that the workgroup must be created prior to cloning.
Any users that do not meet the workgroups listed will fall into the ‘Default’ configuration.
If a user is a part of two (or more) workgroups, the workgroup which is listed first alphabetically will be picked up for ingest configuration for that user.
Once your workgroups have been configured, or left to their defaults, you can begin to configure them.
Curator Connect Configuration
From the Configuration screen in Curator System Administrator, select the workgroup you would like to configure.
Once selected, the tab on the right-hand side will display the respective configuration for that workgroup. Generally, the configuration can remain as default apart from a few select sections.
Scrolling down the panel, you will need to look at the Destinations section.
Destinations
Display name: The display name which will be shown if there is more than one view
Transfer Type: The type of transfer, ie where are we transferring the ingested files to?
file2file=UNC/network storage, file2ftp=FTP server, file2s3=Amazon S3 Bucket
Metadata View: When doing a Curator Connect ingest, typically metadata entry is required. Choosing a MetadataView here will display the MetadataNames within the view, so that a user can enter data against them.
Destination Folder: For file2file, this folder will be used to copy the files to, before copying/moving them.
MediaStore: The MediaStore is used for other ingest configuration values, which will be explained in the next section. (In most cases this will be CURATORCONNECT-INGEST)
MediaStore Configuration
Next, MediaStores must be configured for Curator Connect so that keys and values can be modified for the ingest workflows.
Typically, a routing MediaStore would be used as a starting point - by default out of the box this would be CURATORCONNECT-INGEST and would look like the below image:
Having a routing MediaStore means that when an ingest comes in, it will route via a different MediaStore depending on mediatype. As you can see in the above image, different MediaStores are listed for different mediatypes. As an example, for an Audio ingest the key AudioIngestMediaStore Value: CURATORCONNECT-HI-RES-AUDIO can be seen.
Typically, changes don’t need to be made for this MediaStore, but adjustments may need to be made to the destination MediaStores that are within this routing MediaStore.
Note that when making changes to the destination MediaStores, these changes will need to be reflected in other MediaStores too. For example, if any updates are made to the Audio MediaStore the respective video MediaStore will need to be updated to match these changes as well.
Taking a look at the video store:
The key components in this MediaStore are as follows:
CuratorFolderPath: Folder in which the assets should land inside Curator
Example: Library\Soccer\Premiere League\Arsenal
CuratorFolderPattern: You may want to base where your assets land inside Curator on the metadata entered on ingest. You can do this by combining CuratorFolderPath and CuratorFolderPattern.
NOTE: We suggest using only Enum metadatanames for this, so that the fields are fixed.
Example:
CuratorFolderPath: Library
CuratorFolderPattern:{Sport}\{League}\{Team}
Reach out to IPV Customer Support if you require assistance with other variations of FolderPatterns such as server time, dates, etc.
The folder path will be the fixed part of the path, with the pattern including the metadatafields to base the rest of the path around.
If you would like the metadatanames to be within the middle of a path, you may need a transform file. To get one of these, please reach out to IPV Support.
Example path that will likely need a transform file:
Library\{Year}\{Sport}\Mens Division\{Team}
DeviceGroup: You can use DeviceGroups within Device Director to segregate specific servers carrying out different tasks throughout Curator, and assign a specific group to carry out the ingest tasks here. The group must contain at least a single PEA, Xcode, AME and Xfer device for the ingest tasks to complete.
Path: Path where the files will be stored. This will be either on network storage, aws s3, or FTP.
Typically this will be a UNC path or S3 Path.
FolderPattern: This works in the same way as CuratorFolderPattern. If you wish to store your files based on metadata, you can build a path appending the metadatanames within this field; this works in conjunction with Path.
As described above, you might need a transform file if you require complex logic.
PathMetadatakey: The Metadataname where the hi-res path will be stored (This typically stays as HiResPath, though you may consider S3HiResPath if it will be stored in S3).
TransferToMediaStore: If you want the ingested assets to hit any other MediaStores for any additional steps, you can add a destination for the assets here. You can include multiple MediaStores by separating them with a comma.
XSLTransform: Name of transform file.
XSLTransformPath: Path to the transform file location.
Once your MediaStores have been configured, ensure that you have saved them, then return to the Curator Connect Configuration on Curator System Administrator.
At this stage the destination should be configured like the image below.
Note that one destination has been configured here. Within Curator Connect, you can have multiple destinations, select ‘Add’ to create another destination, and begin configuring.
If you have multiple destinations, when ingesting via Curator Connect, a drop-down menu will appear where you can select which destination you would like to use.
Once the destination is configured, If you are using file2file, you can now begin testing by ingesting files.
If you are using file2ftp scrolling further down the configuration you will see a section for the FTP credentials, these must be configured as they are required for access to upload to the FTP.
Ensure that this section is configured correctly. Once it is, FTP ingest should now work.
Finally, if you are doing AWS S3 ingest, there is another section for the S3 settings which need to be configured for access to the S3 Bucket.
Ensure these settings are configured and you should be ready to ingest.
Bonus section
In-Place Ingest
You may have some locations/files where you would like to ingest files, but as part of the ingest process, you would like those files to remain in their current location on network storage.
This is called in-place ingest, and is possible by configuring the in-place paths.
You can configure paths here, and when ingesting the files into Curator Connect, it will understand that anything within the UNC Paths, will remain in place.
You can configure multiple paths/directories if required.
Mac/Regex Paths for ingest
The above configurations work for Windows users, to enable Mac users for ingesting using Curator Connect, we must configure the ‘Mac Path Regex’ section in the configuration.
This section is to convert Windows destination paths (which will typically be your network storage) into something your Mac machines can understand (/Volumes/)
To build the regex to swap the paths, we suggest using the https://regex101.com/ website to test and create the regex to place in the configuration.
In some cases, in a basic environment, the configuration out of the box may work for you, it’s worth testing before changing anything.
As you can see you can have multiple entries of these paths, so ensure that all bases are covered.
Alternatively, if you don’t understand how to formulate regex, please reach out to IPV Support.
That concludes this setup guide, however, it is worth taking a look at the other settings within the Curator Connect configuration to further tune your environment to your requirements and as always, please reach out to IPV support for any further queries or issues.