ReqEdit InterOp Server over SFTP

ReqEdit Online Documentation

ReqEdit InterOp Server over SFTP

3 min read
last updated: 03/13/2023

To have conversions done quickly, InterOp server can be accessed through SFTP and the conversions can be managed manually.

Workflow description

  1. Connect to the InterOp server with SFTP and the provided credentials
  2. Open Conversions folder
InterOp folder structure
  1. Create a folder with _ as the first character in the name and specify any of the conversion target tags
    • [to reqif] – convert to standard ReqIF file
    • [to reqxml] – convert to easier ReqTeam ReqXML format
    • [to rif] – convert to vendor specific RIF file
    • [to dng] – convert to (multi spectype) Doors Next Generation ReqIF up to Doors Next 7.0.2 with limitations
    • [to vendor-reqif] – convert to (multi spectype) vendor specific ReqIF file
Folder with starting _ (underline) will not be processed
  1. Upload source files in the folder any of the following types: .doc .reqif .reqifz .xml .reqxml .reqxmlz .rif .txt .zip .json
  2. Upload mapping.txt to this folder, if it is necessary for mapping the file
  3. To configure Word document conversion, create empty text files with the corresponding option names. These options will be applied to all documents in the folder
    • Exclude-images.txt
    • Exclude-tables.txt
    • Exclude-attachments.txt
    • No-hierarchy.txt – the resulting file will not have any hierarchical structure
    • No-chapternumberings.txt – the resulting file will be without manual chaptering of the word file
    • Attributetable-row.txt – used only when mapping file is available
    • Attributetable-column.txt – used only when mapping file is available
Upload files to conversion folder
  1. Prepare for conversion by removing _ sign from the folder name. After this do not upload or change anything in this folder
Rename the folder, remove the starting _ (underline) character
  1. During the conversion process the Interop
    • creates a results folder with the converted files
    • creates log folder
    • creates status marker files to signal about the conversion status
      • !status-in-progress.txt
      • !status-success.txt
      • !status-failed.txt
Successfull conversion marked with !status-success.txt file
  1. Results are in the /results folder in case of successful conversion
Resulting reqif file displayed in /results folder
  1. In case of failure check the /logs folder for the cause
    • Once a status marker exists in a conversion folder it will not be processed again

SFTP Use Cases

Connecting to SFTP

Users can connect to SFTP through FileZilla or WinSCP or any other SFTP client. Username and password are provided by Reqteam.

Skip rules for conversion folders

Conversions are not processed in the following cases:

  • the conversion folder is empty
  • folder name starts with _ (underscore/underline)
  • the name of the folder does not contain any valid conversion tags:
    • [to reqif]
    • [to reqxml]
    • [to rif]
    • [to dng]
    • [to vendor-reqif]
  • there are no valid source files in the folder, only the following are processed
    • .doc .reqif .reqifz .xml .reqxml .reqxmlz .rif .zip
  • the conversion is in progress

Preparing conversions

Before starting conversion, do the following steps:

  1. Create temporary folder starting with _ (underline)
  1. Add conversion tags to folder names
  1. Upload files
  1. Prepare word converting options
  1. Remove _ from folder name

Restart conversion

To restart a finalised (successful or failed) conversion: delete status markers from the conversion folder. Delete: !status-in-progress.txt,  !status-success.txt,  !status-failed.txt files.

Pause/unpause conversion

Rename folder to start with _ (underline) so that conversion engine will skip this folder