This course provides an introduction to FME Form and the fundamental practices to get started. Intended for those who are completely new to FME or who want to refresh themselves on the basics, this course provides attendees with the basic skills to build on and sets them on their way to becoming proficient FME users.
Recommended Prerequisites: None
Course Delivery Time: 2 Days
This course is broken into the following chapters:
Data Translation Basics
In this chapter, the FME platform is introduced with particular focus on FME Form and its two main components: FME Workbench and FME Data Inspector:
- What is FME?
- Introduction to FME Workbench
- The FME Workbench Interface
- Creating and Running Your First Workspace
- Introduction to FME Data Inspector and Data Preview
- The FME Data Inspector Interface
- Inspecting Data
- Feature Caching
- Data Inspector vs Data Preview
Data Transformation Basics
This chapter builds on the introduction to FME to allow users to compile workspaces that are capable of transforming and manipulating the schema and content of data. Essentially, providing the tools to take “What We Have” and transform it into “What We Want”:
- What is Data Transformation?
- Structural Transformation
- Schema Editing
- Schema Mapping
- Content Transformation
- Transformer Basics
- Connections (Series & Parallel)
- Feature Counts
- Group By Processing
- Coordinate System Transformation
- Reading & Writing
- Adding / Updating / Removing Readers & Writers
- Reader & Writer Parameters
- Workspace Hierarchy
Practical Transformer Use
Transformers are at the very heart of FME’s capabilities. As the name suggests, they are the fundamental toolset for data transformation in FME Desktop. This chapter provides the essential skills to search for and choose the correct transformers, the common elements of transformers, and introduces users to the most fundamental and popular transformers in FME Form:
- Locating Transformers
- Transformers Gallery
- Transformer Searching
- AI Assistant
- Most Valuable Transformers
- Managing Attributes
- Create / Set / Rename / Remove Attributes
- Text Editor & Arithmetic Editor
- Attribute Transformers
- Conditional Filtering
- Setting Test Conditions
- Tester & Test Filter
- Additional Filtering Options
- Data Joins
- Key-Based Joins
- Spatial-Based Joins
Best Practices
Just because a workspace runs to completion doesn’t mean it has been designed or operates in an optimal manner. This chapter details some of the methods and tools available in FME Form for ensuring that workspaces are easy to understand, efficient, scalable, self-documenting, and work as intended:
- Workspace Style
- Bookmarks
- Annotations
- Object Layout
- Connection Properties
- Workspace Debugging
- Log File Introduction
- Partial Runs
- Inspecting Outputs
- Checking Key Stages
- Methodology Basics
- Maintenance Methodology Considerations
- Performance Methodology Considerations

