Archives Transfer Tool

The Archives Transfer Tool is currently a Dropbox based app for donors to transfer digital material (often for MIT community groups and members).

The system is a small collection of platforms/tools:

• a Dropbox Shared Folder into which files can saved by end users

• a folder on the NAS (Network Attached Storage) for preparation work on the files before ingest into preservation

• a Python script that moves files and metadata from Dropbox to the NAS

Setting up a transfer

This step is done synchronously with the collections team. Once they create a submission agreement with the group, take the follow steps:

1. Create a subfolder in the Dropbox shared folder that will receive content (including adding the authorized user as an editor of this subfolder)

2. Create a default metadata file with information from the submission agreement that will apply to all the files that will be uploaded to the subfolder

3. Create a subfolder within cdps-processing/ATT to receive the content copied by the Python script from Dropbox

4. Direct a user to follow the steps outlined here to transfer the files.

5. When DDC has been notified that an authorized group transferred a set of files, confirm all have been uploaded to the associated folder in Dropbox

6. Files will now need to be downloaded from Dropbox to the NAS using a Python script before accessioning or processing can begin. The next steps are where the process is handed over fully to the DDC processing team.
   

Getting situated with the ATT python app

1. Make sure that you are logged in to Dropbox in your default web browser

2. Download the latest version of the the ATT repository (which also means you need to have Python 3.x installed on your computer) to your workstation and followed the instructions in the README.

3. Mount the cdps-processing share on your workstation

Moving the files

1. Open Terminal / PowerShell and navigate to the root of the downloaded copy of the interim-att folder.

2. Make sure that your environment is properly configured

   1. you should have a .env file in the folder (see the README for details)

   2. you should have run make install (or make update) to get the rest of the environment configured

3. Run the “check” command to verify that the script can connect to Dropbox and connect to the NAS

   
   

    Expand source

   interim-att % pipenv run att check
   Loading .env environment variables...
   1. Go to: https://www.dropbox.com/oauth2/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=6pvw4x2047kxu4d&token_access_type=offline&code_challenge=<challenge_code>&code_challenge_method=S256
   2. Click "Allow" (you might have to log in first).
   3. Copy the authorization code.
   Enter the authorization code here: <auth_code_from_browser>
   2025-06-06 12:04:46,793 INFO att.cli.check(): Successful Dropbox OAuth via PKCE
   2025-06-06 12:04:47,775 INFO att.cli.check(): SUCCESS: Connected to MIT Dropbox
   2025-06-06 12:04:47,777 INFO att.cli.check(): SUCCESS: NAS Folder is connected.

4. Run the “bulk-file-copy” command, passing in the name of the CSV file as the required argument. You will need to include the subfolder you are transferring from in the path to the CSV. For instance, AMITA/sample_csv.csv 
    Expand source

   interim-att % pipenv run att bulk-file-copy --remote-csv "AMITA/sample_csv.csv"                                                           
   initial-application
   Loading .env environment variables...

5. Navigate to the ATT folder in the cdps-processing share to verify that the files were copied and that the metadata files and checksum manifest files were generated in the correct subfolder.

Packaging the files for further processing

The downloaded folder is not organized in a way that will allow for processing in Archivematica. To do this, you will need to use another tool for logical transfer such as SIPCreator or DART. You can follow the steps on those pages with specifics to content from ATT:

1. When packaging the files, select the files only
2. Once the content has been packaged, add the original metadata files and manifest files to the submissionDocumentation folder as outlined in the section of the tool you used (SIPCreator or DART)
3. When done packaging the files, follow the next steps outlined in those documents.
4. You should go back and clean out the subfolder in Dropbox. Make sure that when you are cleaning up the subfolder that you leave behind the default_metadata.json and sample_csv.csv files!

can be found in the "erst" folder of the submission drive. These instructions explain how to confirm the transfer and get it ready for processing.

If you have received a transfer from the archives transfer tool, it will already be in the erst folder in the submission drive within a folder by group or individual name.

1. Within the folder, each transfer will have a random unique ID and a sequential number within that. For example, a path in the erst folder might be: "Department of Urban Studies and Planning\21-10-2019.1571687161334.zBHEEP\21" where "21" is the folder with the actual content.
2. Review the contents of the transfer to ensure the material was what the donor intended to send.
3. If not correct, contact the donor to do another transfer or confer with the donor that extra material is alright to delete.
4. In order for Archivematica to be able to parse the package, you must move and edit some of the metadata files.
   1. Create a submissionDocumentation folder as outlined in the adding submission documentation to the bag section of the Exactly documentation.
      
   2. Move the “att-metadata.txt” file into the submissionDocumentation folder.
   3. Rename the “att-manifest-md5.txt” to checksum.md5 and move it into the metadata folder (the folder one level up from submissionDocumentation).
5. Change the name of the sequential number folder that contains the files and the metadata folder (for instance the "21" folder mentioned in the example of step 1) to the standard transfer package name related to its accession, in other words: accession number appended with acc, for example: 2020_034acc or if transferring multiple packages from the same accession, 2020_034_001, etc.
   
6. Proceed to the Next steps guidance at the start of this section.