What are the differences between section renditions and attachments in NuGenesis LMS, and when should each be used? - WKB29414

ENVIRONMENT

• NuGenesis 9 LMS
• NuGenesis 8 LMS
• NuGenesis 8 ELN

ANSWER

Section renditions are representations of the section contents in an alternative format. Each section has at least one rendition, which is the default picture that is sent over by the OLE application when the user closes a section. OLE applications may offer additional representations of the section contents. An administrator in LMS can configure a section template to use one or more renditions. The list of renditions depends on the section type: Excel offers about eight, Word four, and PowerPoint two. LMS requests the rendition from the OLE application when a user closes a section. The rendition is stored in the database but NOT displayed in the main document. It's listed only in the Section Renditions part of the LMS client interface. The renditions are searchable. Renditions are updated automatically whenever a user opens and closes a section (provided that the section is configured for the renditions).　

For example, the default rendition for an Excel section is the XLSX file format. Excel offers several different formats for the data, one of them being "Biff8". That's the name for the old Office 2003 file formats. In this way, a section could have a rendition in the Excel 2007 format and in the the Excel 2003 format.　

Section attachments are files that are attached to individual sections in a document. There is no connection between the section's main contents and its attachments. They are added whenever a user attaches a file to a section with the Upload button on the Section Attachments tab. They are not updated when a user opens and closes a section. The attachment can be any file to which a user has access. The file format is not limited to those supported by the OLE application. Section attachments are searchable. They are not displayed in the main document.　

Both renditions and attachments allow users to upload files from disk and then set the Data Type of the uploaded data. If it's "Binary", then the file is indexed by the Oracle Text Search function; if it's Spectrum, Structure, or Reaction and the LMS system has a chemistry database (Spectacle Server or ICCartridge), then the file is passed on to the chemistry database for indexing. The document/section can later be found by searching for the structure/spectrum/reaction data in the LMS Document Search interface.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The main use case for renditions is to get a searchable copy of the data when the main section contents are not searchable. Office sections that use 2007 or later file formats are not directly searchable in LMS due to limitations of the Oracle Text "AUTO_FILTER" and Office 2007 files within OLE Compound Binary files. If the section has a rendition in the Excel 2003 format, then LMS can index the rendition, and later users can find the document through a content search.

Another, related, case is with ChemDraw sections. ChemDraw's native formats of CDX and CDXML are not searchable in LMS; however, ChemDraw supports a .MOL rendition, which sends a copy of the data in the .MOL V2000 format, and that format can be indexed by the chemistry database. The same goes for MarvinSketch (a chemical structure drawing program that is far less well known than ChemDraw).　

For section attachments, the main use case is when you need to preserve a file in its original format inside LMS. PDF files, for example, are converted to EMF files (one per page of the PDF) when dropped into an LMS document. Usually the conversion is accurate, but it is a conversion, and some metadata will be lost. Attaching the original PDF to the section allows reviewers to view the data in its first format. The same goes for JPG, TIF, PNG, and other image file formats; LMS converts them to EMF when dropped into the client. The original files can be uploaded as section attachments for document reviewers.