#272 Allow input file to define transfer job details

[Terry O'Neill]

Allow for a transfer job details such as the transfer job number to be populated from an input file. For use at the NAA this file would be some sort of export file from the RecordSearch system. This would help to mitigate against some possibility of human error in entering in such details.

[John]

Human error is always a factor with job numbers. I plead guilty to making mistakes on many occassions.

Requiring an export file containing the job number to be generated would necessitate changing recordsearch - I imagine that would be a fairly low priority to make that change. You also have to assume that humans will be able to make a mistake here too - selecting the wrong job for export.

You may also introduce security "issues", where you have to connect a carrier device to both the Archives network and the Preservation network.

What are the consequences of having the wrong job number? Not much - highly likely that most retreival would be done at the item level, rather than the job level. I adknowledge that it is a very good idea to ensure that all relevant info is synchronised between recordsearch and repository

How hard is it to fix? Mechanism already exists to renumber jobs.

To identify if you have a problem, you could do a comparison between jobs on RecordSearch and those in the digital archives to identify cases where the job number has been entered incorrectly