Bit of a long shot to post this here, but if you don’t ask…
For some reason the process of uploading ECM attachments from ERP has slowed down. It use to take a few seconds, but now it is taking 15-20 seconds every time to add an ERP attachment. I have been working with IT to see if something has changed and we cannot pin pinpoint any specific changes.
I have pinned it down through the tracelogs to being the DocStarUploadFile method that is taking the time. I have also identified that the issue is related to processing the workflow. I create a test content type with no workflow and the speed was OK.
As with the infrastructure side of things, there were no workflow changes around the time things got slower, the issues are also not apparent on our test environment.
I am thinking this could be SQL Server performance related maybe? but not sure really.
Has anyone else come across a similar issue?
Happy to listen to any ideas at the moment, users are getting quite grumpy!
Oddly enough I was having this issue, but with file server upload method… and I thought changing to docstar would help speed up the process to some degree
We determined that the issue was with our hardware for the upload time so maybe that is your culprit?
As I understand it, the file copy feature effectively bypasses all of ECM and is handled by the browser/server connection. I’m oversimplifying this, but I’m saying this because the document itself is really never inside ECM. The ‘document’ inside ECM is the Document ID & Field data combination. the workflow simply processes that data and does the appropriate workflow steps.
To me, this suggests that a step/action in the workflow is having issues - like a datalink, or an OCR processing step. I would dig into that and look at those things.
You do know about the tasks that the server sends out to the ECM Client (OCR and stuff) for processing, and require a free ECM Client to process otherwise they are queued up?
I only know of Workflow Recording in recent versions. I’ve not used it, and I dont’ know if it provides times or anything that coudl determine speed of processing, but it’s in the documentation. When you Assign a workflow, there is a checkbox to record workflow.
From the Documentation
Workflow Recorder
With this release, the Workflow Recorder is available to assist in troubleshooting workflow issues and aid with testing newly created workflows. The Workflow Recorder documents the system actions as a workflow progresses. This can help you and support with looking inside the operation of a workflow to determine where a process develops problems. Also, when you create a workflow, you can test your work to verify that the workflow is functioning as expected.
As an administrator, you always have the ability to record a workflow. You can also select a specific user to be able to record a workflow. Having the ability to allow a specific user the ability to record a workflow, means that you can pinpoint issues with a single individual running a process.
To record a workflow after you assign it, you select the Record Workflow check box on the Assign Workflow box . The Record Workflow check box is also available at any point you change or restart a workflow.
As the worklfow progresses, the system keeps track of both system and user actions. You stop the recording at any point in the flow. You also have the options to download and clear the recording.
Select the Download link to get the log, which is in an .xml file. View the .xml file in any appropriate tool. The following is an example of a portion of a recorder .xml file.
@steveh Recording have times in them, but most workflows are not set to record, so when I am troubleshooting I will put in a user prompt to restart the workflow with recording. You also have to remember to download them BEFORE you complete the workflow.
In the Admin tab on the right side there are logs. Import Jobs shows duration of every up load. Performance Stats will show you excess times and failures. I don’t use them much, I just know they exist.
It might be as simple as a reindex is needed. Index is on the bottom of the left Manage list. It is only shown to the admin user not even other full site administrators see it.
