Support for job folders in SWITCH

Next to processing single files (such as a PostScript or PDF file), all SWITCH products are also capable of working with job folders containing multiple files. This facility was introduced mainly to allow you to work with jobs where there is one main file and a number of associated secondary files that need to stay together.

A perfect example of this is a job that consists of an Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress layout and a number of images used in the layout. Typically all related files are stored in one folder and need to be kept together.

Filtering on file type

On each connection you can select a "File type" filter; in that case the connection only allows files of that specific file type to flow past it. This type of filtering also works for job folders; for such a job folder it is the primary file that is checked against the filter.

Using Adobe InDesign as an example, a connection that is set to allow only Adobe InDesign files will allow single Adobe InDesign files to pass but will also allow job folders where the primary file is an Adobe InDesign file to pass.

The SWITCH products also have an artificial "Job folder" file type defined so that you can include or exclude all job folders on a connection, regardless of the content of the folder.

Where do job folders come from?

Each time you drop a single file in a SWITCH folder, it is processed as a file; if you drop a complete folder it is likely to be processed as a job folder. For tools as the submit hierarchy and the FTP receive tool it really depends on the settings of the tool with regards to sub folder processing.

Creating a job folder from single files

In some situations your flow might accept single files but you want to gather them into a job folder; this is something which can be done using the job assembler in two different ways. The job assembler has different ways in which it can create a job:

• It can wait until a specific number of files has arrived.
• It can wait until a specific number of seconds has elapsed after the last file has arrived in the folder.
• It can look at file naming conventions to determine whether all files have arrived.

Breaking up a job folder

In some situations people might deliver files in a folder just because it was convenient to do so; not because the files belong together. Flows in which this could happen therefore can use the job dismantler; as its name implies this tool takes in job folders and breaks them apart into single files. Information about the job folder the file was a part of can be stored in the file's job ticket for later use