Tutorial - ftrack Integration

Rev 1.003, 2020.04.09

How to read this tutorial

Summary

This tutorial is targeted companies that:


Wishing to:


This tutorial is a complete walkthrough covering:


Note: In this tutorial we are only covering sending a set of files already registered within the ftrack database (location system). Beyond that, accsyn can act as a full replacement of your current FTP server or other similar file transfer infrastructure, please visit accsyn.com for full feature specifications.

Schematics

Installing and configuring accsyn


The following guide is a short summary of the installation process described in detail here: accsyn Admin Manual

Note: it's perfectly fine to skip Windows drive letters, and go 100% on UNC paths. Drive letters simplifies remote workflows, enabling sites and employees to have a local drive letter keeping project file paths consistent across locations.


Installing accsyn on a remote site/location

Next, we are going to setup a remote office. In this tutorial we are going to name it "LA" and we assume you have prepared a local Linux server with proxy storage mounted at same path as main server (/storage):


You now have a fully working setup were you can push files, using an encrypted accelerated rsync protocol,  between your sites and users.

Configuring the ftrack action


Configure ftrack


As first step, we need the locations in ftrack to align with sites in accsyn:


Getting boilerplate action script


We provide a boilerplate Python 3 action script at our GitHub: https://github.com/accsyn/ftrack-send

Note: The script is for Python 3,  simply change the line "except Exception as e:" to "except Exception, e:" to make it Python 2 compliant.


Setup action



Testing action


We are going to test the action by sending the components of a version in ftrack to the other location.

In this tutorial, we assume the company have a pipeline that stores file paths at version components upon publish. The script will look for these paths at "ftrack.unmanaged" and custom locations:

 

Example of Ftrack version with stored paths.



Setup an employee

An employee working away from office is another example of when you want to send project assets forth and back through ftrack. In accsyn, a user having the "employee" rule means they have full access to all root shares / storage.



You can now start push and pull files as long as the employee has the desktop app running. Next we need to setup ftrack:


At last, we test the setup by sending a task plus an additional file to the employee:


All components beneath task plus the extra folder should now appear remotely @ employee workstations. If any errors, run accsyn desktop app or view transfers within Accsyn webapp to troubleshoot.


Hint: To automise task send, you can extend the ftrack event listener to react upon task assignments and send tasks as they occur.


Publishing back

Assuming you have plug-in that employee uses to create a ftrack version, with component paths pointing the local assets that needs to be sent back to server, your ftrack user's can easily run the accsyn Send action again to send the version back to main premises/site. 


Hint: Of course you can also use the accsyn Python API within your plug-ins to automise file transfers on publish.




Setup a vendor


By "vendor" we mean a restricted freelancer or subcontractor that only should work on a subset of project data, with limited access to project data. The typical flow is to have an "outsource" user or similar in ftrack and assign tasks based on production schedule.



Invite vendor




Setting up share in accsyn


To make it easy for vendor to do complementary asset downloads and upload the result back, we setup a share in accsyn for the purpose.

Note: This step is optional. Without the share vendors can't do complementary download and when they upload, it will go to into their Accsyn home share.


Configure vendor


We want the vendor to work as smoothly as possible, without needing to keep track of saving files and your folder structure:

From now on, when a package is sent to vendor, with source paths beneath storage, they will start download directly mirroring the folder structure at on-prem storage.


Configure ftrack and send a shot



Publish back

When vendor is done with their work, the basic way to send back the result is to drag-n-drop the folder onto accsyn and upload to the company. If they have followed your naming convention, and have ACL write access to the involved folder on-prem, upload should start immediately and files should end up with mirrored paths.




Conclusion


With the accsyn ftrack send action, file management suddenly becomes demystified enabling anyone with ftrack access to push file assets globally between sites and users. Fully encrypted and using an accelerated protocol, minimising waste of valuable production time.


For more information/tutorials, please head over to support.accsyn.com.