The DRM Batch Client II

I thought today, I would do a little follow-up post, based on a question from one of our commenters. The question was, “How do we automate blends and backups using the batch client?”. As we saw from an earlier post, configuration files allow some flexibility when setting up DRM automations. Let’s walk through a simple scenario where we can use configuration files to do these 2 tasks:

1. Backup a version
2. Blend an existing version into the current version

Version Variables

Before, we go too far, I should probably underscore the importance of setting version variables, to make your automations simpler.

For instance, in the example below, the “xtest” version is set to be the current version.

Archive Versions

In order to perform a backup of a version, you need to first set up a backup location, to archive off the file. This is done by setting up an external connection to a network share.

The connection I used, is just a shared drive. Make sure to provide a UNC path, as seen in the example below.

Now that we have a location for our backup, let’s get to setting up a simple configuration file. In this example, I am setting up separate configuration files for backups versus blends. But, it’s up to you, if you want to group all actions into one or multiple.

The “Backup_Versions.cfg” file below shows 3 actions:

1. Close the current version: I think it’s a good idea to unload the version, so that no one’s doing any work on it.
2. Backup the version: in this example, to a file called “Current_Version.dat.”
3. Reopen the version.

Blend to the Current Version

Assuming (of course!) that you’ve set up your blends in DRM, you can set up a simple configuration file, as seen below. More actions can be added, if needed.

Note that we are using a version variable for the “TargetVersionAbbrev” parameter.

The Script

All we need to do now, is to wrap all this into a little batch script. Note, I am not doing any error checking. In fact, I strongly recommend doing some (note to self, post on error trapping) to perform branching and exit conditions. BTW, this is my folder structure:

All we need now, is a simple batch script.

We run the script, and, predictably, it performs the 2 actions successfully.

If we check the logs, we get notice of successful execution, as well.

And finally, we can see our archived version as well.

As you can see, setting up your automations with the DRM batch client is pretty simple. This method shows how configuration files can be used to group like actions together. I will do another post later, on alternatives to this type of scripting.