I am currently developing a service using the SharePoint 2010 Client Object Model to programmatically upload Excel worksheets to a Drop Off Library and then set the properties on the file. This process is working well. However, the Drop Off Library is governed by Content Organizer Rules that aren’t being applied to the uploaded file. I have examined every property I thought I could have missed:
- ContentTypeId is being properly set
- _ModerationStatus is being set to 0
- The two properties required to invoke the rule are being set to valid values
- Update is being called on the ListItem
- The file is checked in after the ListItem is updated
The list doesn’t have minor versioning enabled so I don’t make any calls to publish.
What’s most frustrating is that if I edit the document properties using the Web UI and check it back in without making any changes, the file is moved to its final location. What might I have overlooked that is preventing Content Organizer Rules from being applied to newly uploaded files when using SP2010 COM?
The ultimate answer to this question turned out to be that everything was indeed being set correctly. However, one cannot force the evaluation of content management rules programmatically. The information I required was provided by a post from Steve Curran on this MSDN thread.
In SharePoint 2010 Central Administration under the “Monitoring” section there is a control panel for “Timer Jobs” that includes an item to “Review job definitions.” On this panel, there should be a job named “Content Organizer Processing.” This is a nightly task that will run and clean up content according to the rules you have established in your site. After uploading a file to the drop off library programmatically, you will likely find that hitting the “Run Now” button for this job will cause the file to be moved to its final destination if the properties are set correctly.
The solution was to change the frequency of this job under the Recurring Schedule section from a nightly process to one that is executed every 15 minutes (or whatever interval you determine will work best).
A word of caution: Be certain to note that if you send automated e-mail to the site administrator or a mailing list when files are left in the drop off library that do not have their properties set correctly, these will start arriving with the same frequency as the job’s execution.