Form Basics - Exercise 2

Exercise Details	Basic Workspace Creation
Locality	Melbourne, Australia
Data	Waste Collection (Esri Shapefile)
Overall Goal	Create a workspace to translate waste collection data in Shapefile format to GeoJSON (Geographic JavaScript Object Notation)
Demonstrates	Basic workspace creation with FME Workbench
Start Workspace	None
End Workspace	C:\FMETraining\Workspaces\FormBasics-Ex2-Complete.fmw

Congratulations! You have just landed a job as a technical analyst in the GIS department of your local city.

On your first day, you've been asked to do a simple file format translation.

We've outlined all of the actions you need to take, though FME's interface is so intuitive you should be able to carry out the exercise without the need for these step-by-step instructions.

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1

Start FME Workbench

If it isn't open already, start FME Workbench by selecting it from the Windows start menu. You'll find it under Start > FME Form 2024.x > FME Workbench 2024.x

If Workbench is already open, click on the Start tab above the main canvas.

2

Select Generate Workspace

Select File > Generate Workspace to begin with the Workspace Generation process. Alternatively, you can use the shortcut Ctrl+G:

3

Define Translation

The Generate Workspace tool opens up a dialog in which to define the translation to be carried out. Fill in the fields in this dialog as follows:

Parameter	Value
Reader Format	Esri Shapefile
Reader Dataset	C:\FMETraining\Data\Australia\WasteCollection\WasteCollection.shp
Writer Format	GeoJSON (Geographic JavaScript Object Notation)
Writer Dataset	C:\FMETraining\Output\WasteCollection.json

The dialog will look like this:

Remember, you can set a format by typing its name, by selecting it from the drop-down list, or by choosing 'More Formats' and selecting the format from the full table of formats. For now, ignore the Workflow Options and leave the default of 'Static Schema.'

4

Generate and Examine Workspace

Click OK to close the Generate Workspace dialog. A new workspace will be generated into the FME Workbench canvas. The list of attributes is exposed by clicking the arrow icon on each Zones object:

Then, you can expand the rectangular object labelled Reader Feature Types to contain the exposed attribute list. This object is called a bookmark; we will discuss it more later in the course:

5

Run Workspace

Run the workspace by clicking the run button on the toolbar, or by using Run > Run Workspace on the menu bar. The workspace runs and the log file reports a successful translation:

6

Locate Output

Locate the destination data in Windows Explorer to prove that it's been written as expected (don't forget the Open Containing Folder button from Exercise 1). In the next section, we'll cover how to inspect the dataset visually to ensure that it is correct:

7

Save Workspace

Save the workspace. We'll be using it in a later exercise. Remember there is a toolbar save button, and on the menu, there is File > Save.

TIP

When a translation is run immediately without adjustment it's known as a "Quick Translation". Because FME is a 'semantic' translator, with an enhanced data model, the output from a quick translation is as close to the source data in structure and meaning as possible, given the capabilities of the destination format.

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CONGRATULATIONS

By completing this exercise, you have learned how to:

• Create an FME Workspace

• Run an FME Workspace