Export file to External SQL Database (BLOB)

KlaasFeenstra

Hello,

I need to store scanned purchase invoices into an external SQL database. How can I do this. Once stored in this external database I also need to read this Blob file from Navision.

Thanks in advance.

Klaas

Lars_Westman

I suggest that you never store the scanned image in a blob in the first place. Otherwise You might end up with a huge database in the end. I helped a customer some time a go which had 15GB scanned images in the database. Someone thought it was a good idea to scan with higer resolution and the size of the files went up.

A better solution is to store the images outside the database and then You just need to pass the path and filename to the other database.

/Lars

KlaasFeenstra

Hello Lars,

For this reason I don't want to create the blobs in the same database as Navision, for some other clients we save it directly on a file server, but this client wants to have it into a database because of an easier control of access. If it is on a file server everybody can access all invoices and for the client it is not acceptable.

Thanks,

Klaas

Lars_Westman

OK.

You can access an external database through views that You define in the NAV database. That way You can access that data almost as if it was inside NAV. I have done that several times but I have not tried it with blob fields though. It might be worth a try.

kine

KlaasFeenstra wrote:

...but this client wants to have it into a database because of an easier control of access. If it is on a file server everybody can access all invoices and for the client it is not acceptable.

What about folder permissions, permission groups in AD etc.? Or they are missing file access management?

stryk

I also suggest to look into the FILESTREAM feature of SQL Server 2008 (does not necessarily apply to NAV db but maybe the external one) which allows you to store the image etc. within the file-system but still provides transactional control!