My biggest project of the last 2 years has been a process that automatically logs and imports files that are uploaded to our server from stores. This process handles both transaction and customer files from 4 different POS systems, each with their own file format. The files also come compressed/archived in .ZIP, .Tar, or .tar.Z formats. (I skipped a lot of details, it gets even more 'interesting'.)

For my solution, I used 3 DTS packages. The first one has an ActiveX script that uses the file system object to loop through the files in the directory, logs any new ones, and performs any extraction that is necessary. This happens every 5 minutes.

The second package, which is executed every 30 minutes, goes through the log (a table) searching for files that haven't imported, and calls the third package for each file that needs to be imported, passing the filename via a global variable.

That's the basics of the process. I personally like the DTS method better because of flexibility, error handling capability, and logging. Whenever an error occurs, I get an email telling me where it occurred, and if it happens in an ActiveX script, the email includes the line of code where the error occurred. I also prefer to keep my DTS packages in SQL Server, its simpler to access them, and they're always backed up.

One final advantage to the way I do it, everything I use is documented. May not be well-documented, but at least there's something there. You want to be careful about using undocumented stuff, especially since it may not always be there.

Anyway, there's my 2-cents worth. If anyone is interested in more information, I'll be happy to provide. My process works; that's gotta be worth something.

James C Loesch