Ingest Workflows in Figgy (Single Items & Bulk)

Owned by Kimberly Leaman
Last updated: Oct 09, 2023
6 min read

A Walkthrough of the Ingest layout and File Manager feature enhancements

This document will walk you through the Figgy Ingest Workflow for individual and bulk ingests. We have broken the tasks down to smaller sections and placed them in chronological order for your convenience. We have also created an overview of new feature enhancements within the file manager.

If you have questions or concerns, do not hesitate contacting Trey Pendragon [Slack name: Trey], Kim Leaman [Slack name: Kim (Kelea)], Roel Munoz [Slack name: Roel] or anyone in Digital Library Services via the #digital_library Slack channel. Is something wrong with Figgy? You can also quickly contact us and our wonderful IT colleagues on the #figgy and #digital_library Slack channels using the @dls mention.

Table of Contents

Adding records to Figgy

  • Go to figgy.princeton.edu
  • Log in by clicking the “Login” button in the upper right hand side of your screen. You will be prompted to enter your Princeton University NetID and Password.
    • You will know you are logged in to figgy by looking at what was the Login button, in the upper right hand side of your screen. If you are logged in to figgy, you will see in place of “Login” your net id:
  • For Individual Item Ingest: Within the “Scanned Resource” options, below the “Books, Manuscripts, Scanned Documents and CDs” Section on the page, select “Add New” from the menu that appears. 
    • In the “Title” field, type paste the preferred title of a Title only ingest, OR add the source metadata ID (the Alma MMS ID or Component ID) to the box below.
    • In “Collections” field, type the preferred Collection (It will come up in the dropdown of options) and hit enter OR click on the preferred collection name in the option in your drop down. Once selected, a green checkmark will appear to the right of your collection name in the dropdown menu.
    • In “OCR Language”, select the appropriate language for the item (if there is one). There will be a dropdown list to choose from.
    • In Copyright, select “Copyright Not Evaluated”
    • Ensure your visibility is correct, (Ex: “Open”, if you wish your item to be visible to the world).
    • Click “Save” in the right sidebar.

Uploading Files to Figgy (Individual)

  • Pull up the Figgy record of the item you are working with by searching for the MMS ID in the search bar
  • Click on “File Manager” at the bottom of the window
  • Click “Ingest from Server” (if your files are on the server) OR “Ingest from Local Files” (if you are ingesting from your computer) 
    • Important tip:  do NOT do this until the files have finished copying to the file system.
  • For this example, I have selected “Ingest from Server”
  • In the file browser that opens, navigate to your directory (folder) of choice folder and click on the folder. This will open that folder (see below)
  • Within “pudl”, I have opened the ingest directory 3510643 by clicking on the folder.
  • I then have the option to either click the “Select All”  button OR I can select individual files I want to ingest. Until files are selected, the “Ingest [NUMBER] selected file(s)” button is not activated. Once the file or files are selected, your “Ingest….” button color will change from light/opaque blue to dark blue.
    • Helpful Hint: You can select multiple files by clicking a starting file, holding shift, and then clicking an ending file, or you can ctrl (or command)+click to toggle a single file to be selected. 
  • Click “Ingest [NUMBER] selected file(s)”  and wait for the files to upload. The pending uploads will display on a list within Filemanager
  • once the files have been uploaded, the page will refresh with blank thumbnails for each page.

Finishing Up

  • Click on the name of the item at the top of the File Manager to return to the item’s overview page
  • Verify that the files correspond to the correct item
  • Ensure that there is no yellow banner above the viewer with a message saying that pages are still being processed; if the notice is present, check again later until it disappears
  • Occasionally, the banner will not disappear and instead show that there are one or two pages that refuse to process; this means that those files were corrupted when being copied to the file system and the issue will need to be addressed. Please contact Kim Leaman, Trey Pendragon, or write directly to us in the #figgy or #digital_library slack channels.
  • If all looks good, scroll down to “Complete” and select the “Complete” status badge
  • In “Review comment” next to the status badges, type “Files uploaded. [initials] [date]” and click “Submit”.
  • A Figgy Ark link has been created! 

What if I have to delete a file or PDF in File Manager and re-ingest?

Sometimes, a file or pdf may need to be deleted and reingested for a variety of reasons. When this is needed, there are a couple of steps that need to happen to help with the user experience in our applications like the online catalog!

  1. Ensure the record you are working on is not complete. If it has already been completed? No problem! Move it to the “Takedown” state.
  2. Delete the PDF / troublesome ingest in file manager, within the record that is now in pending/metadata review/takedown state.
  3. Reingest the item in file manager.
  4. Move item back to complete, if that is the desired state.

Uploading Files to Figgy (Batch)


  • FAQ: What is the maximum number or size allowed for batch ingest?
    • There isn’t one!  Thanks to changes in the backend, both batch and drag and drop options should not have file or batch size issues.  
  • Within the “Scanned Resource” options, below the “Books, Manuscripts, Scanned Documents and CDs” Section on the page, select “Bulk Ingest” from the menu that appears. 
  • Below “Bulk Ingest for Scanned Resources”,  you can select the Ingest Folder (Directory) by clicking on the folder icon to the right of the “Ingest Folder” field, below “Metadata”.
  • In the file browser that opens, navigate to your directory (folder) of choice folder and click on the folder. This will open that folder (see below)
  • Select the folder (directory) that you would like to bulk ingest.  You will notice that the “Ingest [NAME] directory” button will not activate unless a properly organized directory for bulk ingest is selected:
  • Example: Ready for Bulk Ingest: “Ingest [NAME] directory” button color has changed from light/opaque blue to dark blue.
  • Example: Bulk Ingest not an option: “Ingest [NAME] directory” button color is inactive and is a light/opaque blue to dark blue.
  • Click on the activated “”Ingest [NAME] directory”.  This will take you back to your main “Bulk Ingest Scanned Resources” Screen.  Add the requested selections for: 
    • Workflow State
    • Collection(s)
    • Holding Location
    • Visibility
  • Click “Bulk Ingest”. You will be directed back to the Figgy home screen and a green banner stating “batch ingest of scanned resources started” should be at the top of your page.