A few words on how to not waste disk space

Subworkflow – the silent space absorber

During my many years working with WEBCON BPS, I noticed that a common mistake made by people who use WEBCON BPS is not paying attention to how much disk space is being wasted. This most often results from the fact that the same attachments are copied again and again between successive processes. In the end, the same file is stored in the database many times. In very specific cases this may be required, but it is usually not necessary to have the same attachment in multiple copies in the WEBCON environment.

HotFolder – a resource forgotten by the Administrator

During deployment, a system administrator is usually told to create a network resource and grant edit permissions for the WEBCON service account. After this, their work ends – the folder is forgotten until there is not enough space on the fileserver. Then they will need to start looking for a way to free up space. It should be remembered that WEBCON does not delete processed attachments automatically, all attachments that go through the HotFolder are processed and then go to the specified archive folder.

Example of typical space wasting:

Let’s examine the simplest case possible. Suppose that we have a document registration process – it is made up of two workflows: The first is a Document type selection workflow that is automatically started using the HotFolder. Some user then indicates what document they are registering, which launches the second workflow using an appropriate form type (based on the document type selected in the first workflow) and then they (or a different user) fill out all fields on the form that describe the attachment.

So the process looks like this:

1. The user scans the paper document. The scan goes to a network share, where it is processed by WEBCON, and then goes to the archive folder and stays there
2. WEBCON automatically starts the Document type selection workflow and attaching the document scan (for example PDF file)
3. A user chooses the document type, and a new workflow instance is registered in the second workflow. Depending on the document type that was selected, it will be necessary to fill out form fields relevant to that document type (defined by various form types designed for different types of documents). The attachment is copied and attached to the second workflow instance.

As a result, we have two redundant files. The first is the file in the HotFolder archive folder. The second unnecessary attachment is the attachment in the Document type selection workflow

Now let’s try to estimate the loss of space.

Let’s assume that the scans are in PDF and in color, and on average one PDF page is about 0.5 MB. Let’s assume that on average one document with attachments contains 20 pages. As a result, it gives us average volume 10 MB per document. We estimate that the company registers 1000 documents per month (about 50 per day). Ultimately, this gives us 10GB per month. So, it turns out that we waste 20 GB per month (240 GB per year), 10 GB in the Form Type Selection workflow and another 10 GB in the archive folder of HotFolder.

The above example only shows the case of a single process. There can be many more processes in a company that operate in a similar model, e.g. Incoming Correspondence, Invoices, Orders, etc. In addition, it should be remembered that data is most often saved on disk arrays and databases are usually backed up. Which means that the real loss of disk space can be several times greater.

Of course, the above data is only an estimate, depending on the scale of the company, there may be definitely more or correspondingly fewer documents. However, regardless of the scale of the
company, it is worth spending a few extra minutes to configure everything correctly and avoid problems in the future.

operate in a similar model, e.g. Incoming Correspondence, Invoices, Orders, etc. In addition, it should be remembered that data is most often saved on disk arrays and databases are usually backed up. Which means that the real loss of disk space can be several times greater.
Of course, the above data is only an estimate, depending on the scale of the company, there may be definitely more or correspondingly fewer documents. However, regardless of the scale of the
company, it is worth spending a few extra minutes to configure everything correctly and avoid problems in the future.

So what is the ‘correct’ way?

The configuration in WEBCON BPS Designer Studio can be optimized in one of two ways

The firs one is adding an archiving action for workflow instances of the first workflow (in our example it is Document Type Selection workflow). WARNING: The start a sub-workflow action that launches the second workflow must not be configured as “As a sub-workflow of current instance” because then the archiving action will also delete the child workflow instance! More information about archiving workflow instances can be found here.

If you have configured the start a sub-workflow action to start the second workflow “As a sub-workflow of current instance”, there is another way to handle such a situation. Deselect copying the attachment in the Start a sub-workflow action, and instead, add an “Add attachment” action on the registration path – and use this action to move the attachment to the current workflow instance. More information about the “Add attachment” action can be found here.

As for the folder, you can add a script on the file server that will regularly clean up attachments from the archive folder. Example of this solution you may find on your own or check this ready script which will delete files and folders after given X days.

That is enough for today. If you have any questions or suggestions leave a comment below.

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