FME Resources: 5 places to look to get started or unstuck
Whether you’re new to FME or a pro working on a specific data transformation, we know we’ve got a lot of resources and materials floating around, and it can be overwhelming trying to navigate it all. Here is an inside look at where our FME Experts go when we help our customers. We’ve broken down where to find all FME resources, from broad topics like “working with 3D data” to specific ones like “adding textures to CityGML”.
1. FME Tutorials
If you’ve identified your topic of interest, like a data format you want to work with, or you have a specific transformation in mind, like resampling a raster, we have free tutorials by category that you’ll find useful. Each example has step-by-step instructions and downloadable workspaces. These workspaces contain data so you can use your own source data and play around with a ready-to-go workflow.
Did you know: our tutorials are part of the FME Knowledge Base, a space where Safers share their knowledge with the FME Community through articles, tutorials, and other means.
View the list of all FME Tutorials
2. FME Training (live online or recorded)
Our FME training courses walk through how to author workspaces, teach you how to improve the efficiency of your FME workflows, and outline what else you can use FME for. To take full advantage of your license or free trial, we highly recommend taking a free course. We offer options between short (one half-day) and long courses (a week of half-days), both live and pre-recorded.
If you can’t fit this into your schedule, you can work at your own pace through the FME training manual. We work with FME every day and still refer to it because it’s got great explanations and examples!
View all live and recorded FME Training courses
3. Documentation
Nobody reads docs, you say? We do!
If you’ve ever asked a Safer a technical question, the docs are often the first place we check. Our Tech Pubs team strives to make FME’s documentation as thorough and helpful as possible by showing you the parameters in formats and transformers and giving practical examples on how to configure them. It’s helpful to consult documentation to find out if your format has dependencies, or what geometries and attributes it supports so you know you’re using the functionality correctly.
Did you know: you can view documentation quickly and interactively in FME Workbench by selecting View > Windows > Help.
4. Webinars
Tired of reading? Watch a webinar!
When you watch our webinars, you’ll see live demos, learn about real-world scenarios, and understand the “why” behind each topic. You can search our recorded webinars for your topic of interest or sign up to attend an upcoming one, where you can ask questions of the presenter.
View all recorded and upcoming webinars
5. Ask the FME Community
The Forums are probably my favourite part of the FME Community. All of Safe Support, our Authorized Partners, and just a lot of very brilliant people contribute to this space, which means response times are incredibly speedy. This is the best place to pose how-to questions and is-it-even-possible questions that you haven’t found an answer to.
Pro tip: Aim to include an FME Workspace and sample data with your question! Providing a workspace template is a nice way to share your workspace and source data all packaged up in one convenient .fmwt file. Tell us what you’re working on, what result you’re currently getting, and how it differs from what you want to get. Who, where, what, why, and when never gets old when you’re describing a technical problem!
Bonus: Complete lists of FME functionality
- Transformer Gallery – all of FME’s transformers, categorized and ranked by popularity.
- Integration Gallery – all of FME’s reader/writers and connectors, categorized.
- Format Matrix – like the Integration Gallery but in an alphabetical table.
- FME Hub – workspace templates, custom transformers, and more, created by the FME Community and Safers. Here you’ll find custom solutions like Cityworks integrations and specific “Safe Lab” functionality.
Help from a human: Safe Support and Partners
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or just want to talk to a real person about FME (we are not bots on Live Chat!), our Safe Support team is happy to help. Reach out to us on any of these platforms for support.
You can also browse our extensive Partner network to find an FME Partner near you or in your timezone. Our excellent Partners can provide you with FME-related services, solutions, and answers.
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We hope this was useful in getting you started or unstuck on your FME data journey. Using these insider tips on how we at Safe help our customers, we hope you can find what you need with the ease of an FME Expert!
What’s your go-to resource? Comment below to share any spaces for FME that you’ve found useful.
