June 2024

June 2024 brought developer-focused releases: a revamped Boomi connector and a redesigned developer documentation site.

New Boomi Connector

We've released a new version of the Files.com Boomi Connector. Beyond automating File and Folder actions, it now manages Users, Groups, and Share Links. If you've wanted to automate Files.com user onboarding or off-boarding from your Boomi processes, this release makes that possible.

Switching from an SFTP connection to the new Files.com Boomi Connector also delivers significantly better performance, with improvements to connectivity, parallelization, throughput, and auto-retry.

If you're currently relying on FTP or SFTP connections with Boomi, check out what's available with the new Files.com Connector.

Learn more about the Files.com Connector for Boomi.

Developer Site Redesign

The official developers page has been updated to a more modern interface that is easier to use. The new design makes it easy to select your preferred programming language for code examples. We've grouped the API endpoints into logical categories and strengthened the search feature to minimize scrolling. And, because we know engineers, we've added a dark mode to the page.

Check out our new developer docs.

Minor Updates

We also shipped many other platform improvements this month.

Time-Related Patterns for Source File Names

Copy, Move, and Delete file Automations can use time-related patterns to limit which files will be acted upon by the Automation. You might use this to only copy files with the current date in the filename to another location, for instance. This is particularly handy if the source location is on a remote server that you can only download from, so you can't keep the source folder tidy.

No settings were changed for existing automations. To try it out, include our standard time-related patterns in the source pattern.

Learn more about Automations.

Apply File Restrictions and Automatic Renaming to Current Folder Only

Files.com provides many folder settings to streamline your processes and protect data integrity. You can configure a folder to automatically expire and delete files, limit filename length, limit the allowed filename extensions, limit allowed filenames with a regular expression, and rename uploaded files. We've added an option to all of these behaviors so you can choose to apply them only to the current folder, and not any child folders. This gives you full control over how to organize your file structure, even when you need different automated behaviors in the same folder tree. Administrators can enable this new option on any of these folder settings.

Learn more about using folder settings.

Generate SSL Certificates for New AS2 Identities

We've updated our web interface to make it easier to manage certificates for your AS2 identities. When defining the SSL Certificate for your new AS2 Identity, you can choose to generate the certificate directly in the browser, using a simple form to create your certificate and private key. As before, you'll provide the public certificate to your trading partner.

Learn more about configuring AS2.

Improvements to Agent Connectivity

We've updated our On-Premise Agent executable to support using the local machine's DNS servers to check for updates to the Agent. Update to the most recent version of the Agent, and confirm that your firewall allows outbound port 443 to access DNS servers so the Agent's connection isn't disrupted.

Learn more about integrating with on-premise servers using the Agent.

Apply Watermark Previews to Only Current Folder

We've added a new option to our Watermarks feature. You can choose to apply a watermark only to previews within the current folder, and not to any of its subfolders. This can prevent needing to re-organize your folder structure just to manage how previews are displayed. You can enable this feature on any folder's watermark settings.

Learn more about using watermarks to preview images.

Support for WAV Previews

Files.com lets you preview many types of files within the web interface so your users can check the contents of a file without downloading it first. We've added support for .WAV format files, which makes workflows that rely on audio recordings (such as call center recordings) more efficient. This feature is already available for all sites.

Learn more about the types of files that can be previewed.

Multiple Keys Supported for Encryption and Decryption

The GPG Encryption or GPG Decryption settings for a folder now support using multiple keys for multi-party encryption. If your organization rotates credentials on a regular basis, associating multiple keys with the folder setting reduces the hassles of rotating credentials with your counterparties.

When your decryption setting has multiple keys assigned, decryption will be attempted with each key and will only fail if none of the keys can be used for decryption. When multiple keys are assigned for an encryption setting, encrypted files can be decrypted by someone with any one of the corresponding private keys. Administrators can update existing folder settings to add additional keys right now.

Learn more about using GPG/PGP.

Receipt Emails for Inbox Uploaders

Administrators can configure Inboxes to send a receipt email when files are uploaded. Receipt emails give your Inbox visitors a written record of what they uploaded. The setting can be configured per Inbox. To take advantage of this feature, update the settings for each applicable Inbox.

Learn more about sending receipt emails.

Access Control Email Throttling

When access control is enabled for a Share Link, visitors must follow a link from an emailed invitation to access the Share. If the link is used by multiple people, the original link is invalidated and a new one is mailed to the recipient. Our system now limits how often new links are generated, preventing extra emails when a link is widely distributed or accessed repeatedly through an automated process. This improvement is enabled automatically.

Learn more about Share Link Security.

Improved API Logs

We've added more columns to the logging for API calls, which helps you trace the cause of errors in your custom integration code. If you access API request logs through one of our SDKs or CLI, update to the latest version so the columns are automatically included in the response. When viewing logs through the web interface, you can select which columns are displayed on the page.

Learn more about API request logs.

Better Error Messaging for Sync

We've updated the External Logging with more information when Sync processes fail, such as if there are more than 100,000 items in the remote folder. This makes it easier for you to discover why a file doesn't copy as expected. You can see the updated logging in the External Logs.

Learn more about troubleshooting syncs.

Limit Webhook, Slack Notification, SNS Integration to Current Folder Only

We've added a new option to webhooks, Slack notifications, and Amazon SNS notifications so you can choose to only report activity within the current folder, not any sub-folders. This gives you more flexibility in how you organize folders that have these notification services enabled. Administrators can enable this option on any new or existing webhook, SNS notification, or Slack notification.

Learn more about sending notifications to external services with webhooks, Slack, or Amazon SNS.

CLI Sync Options for Delete Source

You can use the command-line interface app (CLI) to synchronize files between a local folder and a remote folder. The --delete-source-files flag will automatically remove files from the source after they are transferred to the destination. If this would result in an empty folder that you want to dispose of, you can also use the --delete-source-empty-folders flag.

For example, you might include these flags when using the CLI to pull data from a folder that is created every day by an external process. Since the folder is created each day, using --delete-source-empty-folders cleans up the source filesystem, which prevents performance issues.

Learn more about using CLI to synchronize files.

File Upload Status Display

We've updated the file uploads panel of the web interface to make it easier to see the status of each uploaded item, along with any applicable error messages. This simplifies troubleshooting uploads, especially when your users send you screenshots for debugging. No action is required to enable this display.

Browse Remote Servers

We've added a Browse feature to the web interface listing of Remote Servers. You can now explore and manage the contents of a remote server without first creating a Remote Server Mount, which makes setting up or troubleshooting a Sync easier. The button appears automatically in the list of Remote Servers.

Learn more about integrating with Remote Servers.

Clearer Sync Behavior Parameter Documentation

The API documentation for a Remote Server Sync Behavior has been updated to clearly describe the use of the remote_sync_interval parameter, which manages syncs that need to start a set number of minutes apart.

Learn more in our developer documentation.

Update Folder Behavior Parameters

The optional path and behavior parameters have been removed from the method to update a folder behavior. These parameters didn't apply when updating an existing behavior and were previously ignored. Update to the latest version of the SDK or CLI to see the changes.

Learn more in our developer documentation.

Python SDK Improvements

We've made more updates to the Python SDK for systems that have multiple IP addresses assigned. Update to the latest version of the SDK to take advantage of the latest improvements.

See the Python SDK on Github.