Objectif Lune PlanetPress Connect - 1.5 Instruction Manual
User Guide
Version:1.5
User Guide
Version 1.5
Last Revision:2017-04-12
Objectif Lune, Inc.
2030 Pie-IX, Suite 500
Montréal, QC, Canada, H1V 2C8
+1 (514) 875-5863
www.objectiflune.com
All trademarks displayed are the property of their respective owners.
© Objectif Lune, Inc. 1994-2017. All rights reserved. No part of this documentation may be
reproduced, transmitted or distributed outside of Objectif Lune Inc. by any means whatsoever
without the express written permission of Objectif Lune Inc. Objectif Lune Inc. disclaims
responsibility for any errors and omissions in this documentation and accepts no responsibility
for damages arising from such inconsistencies or their further consequences of any kind.
Objectif Lune Inc. reserves the right to alter the information contained in this documentation
without notice.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents 5
Welcome to PlanetPress Connect 1.5 12
Icons used in this guide 12
Setup And Configuration 14
System and Hardware Considerations 14
System Requirements 14
Environment considerations 15
Database Considerations 17
Network considerations 20
Language and Encoding considerations 20
Performance Considerations 21
Installation and Activation 23
Installation Pre-Requisites 24
User accounts and security 25
The Importance of User Credentials on Installing and Running PlanetPress Connect 26
Installing PlanetPress Connect on Machines without Internet Access 28
Installation Wizard 29
How to Run Connect Installer in Silent Mode 35
Activating a License 38
Migrating to a new computer 41
Information about PlanetPress Workflow 8 41
Upgrading from PlanetPress Suite 7.6 42
What do I gain by upgrading to PlanetPress Connect? 45
Server Settings 48
Server Security Settings 48
Server Extension Settings 49
Uninstalling 52
Important Note:Stop any Anti-Virus Software before uninstalling Connect. 53
Impacts upon other Applications and Services 53
Uninstallation Wizard 53
The DataMapper Module 55
Basics 55
What's Next? 56
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Data Mapping Configuration 56
Creating A New Data Mapping Configuration 56
Opening a Data Mapping Configuration 66
Saving a Data Mapping Configuration 66
Data Mapping Workflow 67
Selecting Data 67
Extracting Data 76
About Promotional and Transactional Data 89
Steps 89
The Data Model 103
How to Use a Data Model? 104
About Records and Fields 105
Data Model File Structure 106
Data Source (Settings) 108
Input Data (Delimiters) 108
Boundaries 108
Data Samples 109
External JS Libraries 109
DataMapper User Interface 110
Menus 111
Panes 115
Example 122
Example 127
Left Operand 184
Condition 185
Operators 186
JavaScript 193
Defining Boolean Values 196
Boolean Expressions 196
Defining String Values 197
Building String Values 197
Defining Integer Values 198
Building Integer Values 198
Defining Float Values 199
Building Float Values 199
Defining Currency Values 200
Building Currency Values 200
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Extracting dates 201
Defining a date/time format 201
Examples of masks 202
Entering a date using JavaScript 202
Example 203
Defining Object Values 203
Toolbar 203
Shortcut Keys 205
Welcome Screen 205
DataMapper Scripts API 207
Objects 207
Functions 208
Methods 209
Write Your Own Scripts 214
Boundaries Using JavaScript 216
Objects 222
Functions 229
Methods 236
The Designer 255
Basic Steps 255
Templates 256
Contexts 269
Sections 271
Features 274
Print 275
Pages 276
Headers, footers, tear-offs and repeated elements (Master page) 276
Stationery (Media) 276
Creating a Print template with a Wizard 277
Print context 281
Print sections 284
Pages 291
Master Pages 299
Media 302
Email 307
Designing an Email template 308
Creating an Email template with a Wizard 311
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Email context 315
Email templates 317
Email header settings 320
Email attachments 324
Web 326
Creating a Web template with a Wizard 327
Web Context 331
Web pages 332
Forms 337
Using Form Elements 342
Using JavaScript 346
Capture OnTheGo 348
COTG Forms 349
Creating a COTG Form 349
Filling a COTG template 350
Testing the template 352
Sending the template to the Workflow tool 352
Using COTG data in a template 353
Designing a COTG Template 355
Capture OnTheGo template wizards 358
Using Foundation 362
Using COTG Elements 365
Testing a Capture OnTheGo Template 369
Content elements 373
Element types 374
Editing HTML 375
Attributes 375
Inserting an element 376
Selecting an element 377
Styling and formatting an element 378
Barcode 379
Boxes 419
Business graphics 422
COTG Elements 424
Date 429
Forms 430
Form Elements 435
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Hyperlink and mailto link 438
Images 440
Table 445
Text and special characters 449
Snippets 451
Adding a snippet 451
Creating a snippet 452
JSON Snippets 452
Styling and formatting 453
Local formatting versus style sheets 453
Layout properties 453
Styling templates with CSS files 454
How to position elements 462
Styling text and paragraphs 464
Background color and/or image 468
Border 469
Colors 472
Fonts 476
Spacing 478
Styling a table 479
Rotating elements 483
Locale 484
Personalizing content 485
Variable data 486
Conditional content 486
Dynamic images 486
Dynamic tables 487
Snippets 487
Scripts 487
Loading data 488
Variable Data 497
Formatting variable data 503
Showing content conditionally 506
Dynamic Images 508
Dynamic table 510
Personalized URL 514
Writing your own scripts 515
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How scripts work 515
Creating a new script 516
Writing a script 517
Managing scripts 519
Testing scripts 523
Optimizing scripts 526
Loading a snippet via a script 530
Control Scripts 532
Designer User Interface 546
Dialogs 547
Menus 617
Panes 628
Toolbars 643
Welcome Screen 648
Print Options 649
Job Creation Presets 701
Output Creation Settings 710
Designer JavaScript API 728
Designer API 728
Control Script API 728
Designer Scripts API 729
Control Script API 782
Generating output 798
Print output 798
Email output 798
Web output 799
Optimizing a template 799
Scripts 799
Images 800
Generating Print output 801
Saving Printing options in Printing Presets. 802
Connect Printing options that cannot be changed from within the Printer Wizard. 802
Print Using Standard Print Output Settings 803
Print Using Advanced Printer Wizard 804
Adding print output models to the Print Wizard 805
Splitting printing into more than one file 806
Variables available in the Output 806
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Generating Fax output 813
Generating Tags for Image Output 814
Generating Email output 815
Email output settings in the Email context and sections 816
Generating Email output from Connect Designer 817
Generating Email output from Workflow 818
Email attachments 819
Using an ESP with PlanetPress Connect 820
Generating Web output 825
Attaching Web output to an Email template 826
Generating Web output from Workflow 827
Web output settings in the Web context and sections 828
Release Notes 829
Overview 829
Connect 1.5 Designer Enhancements and Fixes 830
Connect 1.5 DataMapping Enhancements and Fixes 834
Connect 1.5 Output Enhancements and Fixes 834
Connect 1.5 General Enhancements and Fixes 836
Connect 8.5 Workflow Enhancements and Fixes 837
Known Issues 838
Copyright Information 843
Legal Notices and Acknowledgments 844
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Welcome to PlanetPress Connect 1.5
Note
Since we are always looking for new ways to make your life easier, we welcome your
questions and comments about our products and documentation. Shoot us an email at
doc@ca.objectiflune.com, or visit the online help: help.objectiflune.com and use the
feedback tool at the bottom of the page.
PlanetPress Connect is a series of four tools designed to optimize and automate customer
communications management. They work together to improve the creation, distribution,
interaction and maintenance of your communications.
The PlanetPress Connect Datamapper and Designer is designed to create output for print,
email and the web within a single template and from any data type, including formatted print
streams. Output presets applied outside the design phase make printing device independent.
The Designer has an easy-to-use interface that makes it possible for almost anyone to create
multi-channel output. More advanced users may use native HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
PlanetPress Connect also includes a process automation server, called Workflow. It is capable
of servicing response form web pages and email to provide interactive business
communications.
PlanetPress Connect can create documents for tablets and mobile devices that run a free
CaptureOnTheGo App. Users with a CaptureOnTheGo subscription can then download
documents to their own devices, interact with them and send the captured data back to
PlanetPress for conversion into additional documents or workflows.
This online documentation covers PlanetPress Connect version 1.5.
Icons used in this guide
Icons are used throughout this guide to point your attention to certain information.
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Note
Complementary information that is not critical, but may help you better use PlanetPress Connect.
Tip
Information that is useful or suggests an easier method.
Technical
Information that may require specific knowledge to understand.
Warning
Information that is potentially critical to using PlanetPress Connect. Pay close attention.
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Setup And Configuration
This chapter describes the PlanetPress Connect installation and the different considerations
that are important in regards to the installation and use of PlanetPress Connect.
l "System and Hardware Considerations" below
l "Installation and Activation" on page23
l "Server Settings" on page48
l Uninstalling
System and Hardware Considerations
There are a variety of considerations to be aware of. These are documented in the following
pages:
l "System Requirements" below
l "Environment considerations" on the next page
l "Database Considerations" on page17
l "Network considerations" on page20
l "Language and Encoding considerations" on page20
l "Performance Considerations" on page21
System Requirements
These are the system requirements for PlanetPress Connect 1.5
Operating System (64-bit only)
l Microsoft Windows 2008/2008 R2 Server
l Microsoft Windows 2012/2012 R2 Server
l Microsoft Windows Vista
l Microsoft Windows 7
l Microsoft Windows 8.1
l Microsoft Windows 10
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Note
Windows 8.0, Windows XP, Windows 2003 and older versions of Windows are not
supported by PlanetPress Connect.
Minimum Hardware Requirements
Note
For tips and tricks on performance, see "Performance Considerations" on page21.
Warning
Copying (duplicating) a Virtual Machine with Connect installed and using both images
simultaneously constitutes an infringement of our End-User License Agreement.
Note
While some virtual machine environments (from VMWare and Microsoft) are supported,
other virtual environments (such as Parallels, Xen and others) are not supported at this
l NTFS Filesystem (FAT32 is not supported)
l CPU Intel Core i7-4770 Haswell (4 Core)
l 8GB RAM (16GB Recommended)
l Disk Space: At least 10GB (20GB recommended)
Environment considerations
Virtual Machine Support
PlanetPress Connectsupports VMWare Workstation, VMWare Server, VMWare Player,
VMWare ESX (including VMotion), Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V/Azure
infrastructure environments as software installed on the Guest operating system.
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time.
Terminal Server/Service
PlanetPress Connect does not support Terminal Server (or Terminal Service) environment as
possible under Windows 2000, 2003 and 2008. This is to say, if Terminal Service is installed
on the server where PlanetPress Connect is located, unexpected behaviours may occur and
will not be supported by Objectif Lune Inc.. Furthermore, using PlanetPress Connect in a
Terminal Service environment is an infringement of our End-User License Agreement.
Remote Desktop
Tests have demonstrated that PlanetPress Connect can be used through Remote Desktop. It is
however possible that certain combination of OS could cause issues. If problems are
encountered, please contact OLSupport and we will investigate.
PlanetPress Connect 1.3 and later have been certified under Remote Desktop.
64-bit Operating Systems
PlanetPress Connect is a 64-bit software and can only be installed on 64-bit operating systems.
Antivirus Considerations
l Antivirus software may slow down processing or cause issues if they are scanning in
temporary folders or those used by PlanetPress Connect. Please see KB-002: Antivirus
Exclusions for more information.
l Antivirus software might interfere with installation scripts, notably a vbs script to install
fonts. McAfee, in particular, should be disabled temporarily during installation in order for
MICR fonts to install and the installation to complete successfully.
Windows Search Indexing Service
Tests have concluded that the Windows Search service, used to provide indexing for Windows
Search, can interfere with Connect when installing on a virtual machine. If the installation
hangs during the last steps, it is necessary to completely disable this service during installation.
l Click on Start, Run.
l
Type in services.msc and click OK.
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l
Locate the Windows Searchservice and double-click on it.
l
Change the Startup Type to Disable, and click Stop to stop the service.
l
Try the installation again.
l
Once completely, you may re-enable the service and start it.
Commandline switches and .ini entries
PlanetPress Connect is intended to work stably and reliably, based on Java and the Eclipse
framework. To ensure this reliability and robustness, many Java and Eclipse parameters have
been tested and tuned, which is reflected in the respective .ini entries and the used command
line switches. A collection of valuable settings has been elaborated and found its entry in
PlanetPress Connect “good switches list” (called the “whitelist”).
The protection of the end user’s system is one of our main goals and therefore we have
implemented a very strict verification mechanism, which ensures, that only these whitelisted ini
entries and commandline switches are accepted, when one of Connect components is started
and run. Please be therefore advised, that any non-whitelisted ini entry or commandline switch
will be accepted and will - if tried to be used - lead to the respective application’s “sudden
death”. If you should encounter such a behaviour then please double-check your Connect log
file/s for respective entries.
Database Considerations
This page describes the different considerations and pre-requisites for the database back-end
used by PlanetPress Connect, whether using the MySQL instance provided by the installer, or
pre-existing instance.
Using the MySQL Instance from the Installer
The MySQL Instance provided in the Installation Wizard is already pre-configured with options
to provide the most stable back-end setup.
These are the specific options that have been changed in our version of "my.ini":
l
max_connections = 200 : PlanetPress Connect uses a lot of database connections. This
number ensures that even in high volume environments, enough connections will be
available.
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l
max_allowed_packet = 500M : In some implementations, especially when using Capture
OnTheGo, large packet sizes are required to allow transferring binary files. This
substantial packet size maximum setting ensures that the data received by PlanetPress
Connect will be able to be stored within the database.
l
character-set-server = utf8 , collation-server = utf8_unicode_ci , default-characterset=utf8 : These indicate database support for UTF-8/Unicode.
Using a pre-existing MySQL Instance
If MySQL server is already installed and you wish to use it, the following should be taken into
consideration:
l The MySQL account must have access to all permissions using the GRANT Command,
including creating databases.
l The database configuration must include the options detailed in the "Using the MySQL
Instance from the Installer" on the previous page topic above.
l The SQL instance must be open to access from other computers. This means the bind-
address option should not be set to 127.0.0.1 or localhost.
Using MS SQL Server from the Installer
l
When MS SQL is selected, the default values for root user are sa and 1433 for the port.
l If db settings from a previous installation are found, the pre-exising settings will be
displayed for the matching db type (for MS SQL settings, this will only work if they were
created with Server Config Tool 1.5.0 or later, or the Connect installer 1.6.0 or later). If the
db type is changed in the configuration page, the default values for this db type will be
displayed. If the pre-existing db settings are set to Hsqldb, the default db type selection
will be MySQL.
l Selected db settings are stored in the preferences as usual (C:\ProgramData\Objectif
Lune\Ol
Connect\.settings\ConnectHostScope\com.objectiflune.repository.eclipselink.generic.pref
s)
Updating With No Local MySQL Product
l When updating a Connect installation from 1.5.0 which contains a Server Product but no
local MySQL Product, the DB Configuration Page will detect which db type was set
before (especially if the db configuration was switched from MySQL to MS SQL using the
Server Configuration Tool), and default to those settings.
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l On Update from 1.4.2 or earlier, the DB Configuration Page will always default to MySQL
connection settings, and if the installation was manually tweaked to connect to MS SQL
Server, the user has to switch to "Microsoft SQL Server" type and enter connection details
again.
Installing / Updating Connect Using a Local MySQL
l The Configuration page for the local MySQL is displayed.
l MySQL settings are pre-filled with default values if no existing MySQL db configuration is
found.
l MySQL settings are pre-filled with existing db configuration settings, if they point to a
MySQL db type.
When modifying Connect
l If local MySQL is removed from an installation, the DB Configuration page will offer
additionally the Microsoft SQL Server db type with respective default values.
l If local MySQL is added to an installation, the usual MySQL Configuration page with
default values will be displayed.
Important
If a Server Product and a MySQL Product were selected to be installed on Connect 1.5.0, and
then the Server Configuration Tool is used to switch the database used by the Server to an
external Microsoft SQL, then the Update to 1.6 requires an extra step. The procedure is as
follows:
1.
Run the Update to Connect 1.6. This will assume the local MySQL database needs to
be updated and configured, so the user has to enter a root password on the MySQL
Configuration Page (can be any password matching Connect security rules).
2.
After the update, the Connect 1.6 Setup needs to be run once more to modify Connect.
3.
On the Product Selection page, now the MySQL product can be unselected.
4. When stepping forward in the Wizard, the DB Configuration page will be displayed which
allows to configure the Microsoft SQL Server with appropriate settings.
After this modification, the local MySQL is removed, and also the service dependency from
Server to MySQL is removed.
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Note
If Connect was initially installed not containing the local MySQL product (i.e. on 1.5 installation an
external MySQL was configured as database), then the Update to 1.6 will allow to select either
external MySQL or external Microsoft SQL on the DB Configuration Page.
Network considerations
The following should be taken into consideration in regards to network settings and
communications
l
If a local proxy is configured (in the Internet Explorer Optionsdialog, the option Bypass
proxy server for local addresses must be checked, or some features depending on
local communication will not work.
Language and Encoding considerations
Please note the following considerations:
l
Language:
l PlanetPress Connect is currently offered in several languages. These languages
can be switch between via the Preferences dialog. The current languages include:
l English
l French
l German
l Spanish
l Italian
l Portuguese
l Chinese (Simplified)
l Chinese (Traditional)
l Japanese.
The default language is English.
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The PlanetPress Connect help system (this document) is currently only available in
English.
l
Encoding:
l Issues can sometimes be encountered in menus and templates when running
PlanetPress Connect on a non-English operating system. These are due to
encoding issues and will be addressed in a later release.
Performance Considerations
This page is a comprehensive guide to getting the most performance out of PlanetPress
Connect as well as a rough guideline to indicate when it's best to upgrade.
Performance Analysis Details
In order to get the most out of PlanetPress Connect, it is important to determine how best to
maximize performance. The following guidelines will be helpful in extracting the best
performance from PlanetPress Connect before looking into hardware upgrades or extra
PlanetPress Connect performance packs.
l
Job Sizes and Speed: In terms of pure output speed, it's important to first determine what
job size is expected, and adjust Scheduling Preferences accordingly. The basic rules are:
l If processing a small number of very large records (when each individual record is
composed of a large number of pages), more instances with an equal amount of
speed units is better. For hardware, RAM and Hard Drive speeds are most
important, since the smallest divisible part (the record) cannot be split on multiple
machines or even cores.
l If creating a very large number of small records (hundreds of thousands of 2-3 page
individual records, for instance), a smaller number of instances with a large number
of speed packs would be better. As for hardware, then the number of cores becomes
critical, whereas RAM and hard drive are secondary. Performance Packs, as well as
the MySQL instance being separate, would be helpful if your most powerful
machine starts struggling.
l Mix and match. For example, one instance prioritized for large jobs and the rest for
smaller, quicker jobs. Or the contrary. Or, whatever you want, really.
l
RAM Configuration: By default, each instance of the Merge Engine and Weaver Engine
is set to use 640MB of RAM. This means that regardless of speed units, if not enough
memory is available, output speed might not be as expected. Assuming that the machine
itself is not running any other software, the rule of thumb is the following: The total number
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of used memory in the machine should be pretty much the maximum available (around
95%).
For each engine, it's necessary to modify the .ini file that controls its JAVA arguments.
Edit as follows:
l For the Merge Engine: see C:\Program Files\Objectif Lune\OL
Connect\MergeEngine\Mergeengine.ini
l For the Weaver Engine: see C:\Program Files\Objectif Lune\OL
Connect\weaverengine\Weaverengine.ini
l The parameters are -Xms640m for the minimum RAM size, -Xmx640m for the
maximum RAM size. Explaining Java arguments is beyond the scope of this
document. Please read references here, here and here for more details (fair
warning: these can get pretty technical!).
l
Template and data mapping optimization: Some functionality offered by the
DataMapper and Designer modules are very useful, and sometimes downright awesome,
but can cause the generation of records and of contents items to slow down due to their
nature. Here are some of them:
l
Preprocessor and Postprocessor scripts: manipulating data using a script may
cause delays before and after the data mapping action has actually taken place,
especially file conversion and data enrichment from other sources.
l
Loading external and network resources: In Designer, using images, javascript
or css resources located on a slow network or on a slow internet connection will
obviously lead to a loss of speed. While we do our best for caching, a document
with 100,000 records which queries a page that takes 1 second to return a different
image each time will, naturally, slow output generation down by up to 27 hours.
l
External JavaScript Libraries: While loading a single JavaScript library from the
web is generally very fast (and only done once for the record set), actually running a
script on each generated page can take some time. Because yes, JavaScript will
run for each record, and often take the same time for each record.
l
Inefficient Selectors: Using very precise ID selectors in script wizards can be much
faster than using a text selector, especially on very large documents. (more details
on this in another upcoming page).
l
Complex Scripts: Custom scripts with large, complex or non-optimized loops can
lead to slowing down content creation. While it is sometimes difficult to troubleshoot,
there are many resources online to help learn about JavaScript performance and
coding mistakes. Here, here, and here are a few. Note that most resources on the
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web are about JavaScript in the browser, but the greatest majority of the tips do,
Note
A PDF version of this guide is available for use in offline installations. Click here to
download it.
indeed, apply to scripts in general, wherever they are used.
High-Performance Hardware
The following is suggested when processing speed is important. Before looking into a
Performance Packs to enhance performance, ensure that the below requirements are met.
l
A physical, non-virtualized server. VMWare servers are great for reducing the numbers
of physical machines in your IT space, but they must share the hardware between each
other. While you can create a virtual machine that seems as powerful as a physical, it will
still be sharing hardware with any other virtual machines, and this will adversely affect
performance.
l
MySQL Database on a separate machine. MySQL's main possible bottleneck is file I/O,
and as such a high-performance setup will require this server to be on a separate
machine, ideally with a high-performance, low-latency hard drive. A Solid State Drive
(SSD) would be recommended.
l
High-Quality 16+ GB Ram.This is especially true when working with many server
instances ("speed units") running in parallel. The more parallel processing, the more
RAM is recommended.
l
4 or 8 physical cores. We're not talking Hyper-Threading here, but physical cores.
Hyper-Threading is great with small applications, but the overhead of "switching"
between the virtual cores, and the fact that, well, they're virtual, means the performance is
much lesser on high-power applications such as OL Connect. In short, a dual-core
processor with Hyper-Threading enabled is not equivalent to a quad-core processor.
Installation and Activation
This topic provides detailed information about the installation and activation of PlanetPress
Connect 1.5.
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PlanetPress Connect 1.5 is comprised of 2 different installers: one for the PlanetPress Connect
software and one for PlanetPress Workflow 8.
Where to Obtain the Installers:
The installers for PlanetPress Connect 1.5 and PlanetPress Workflow 8 can be obtained on
DVD or downloaded as follows:
l If you are a Customer, the installers can be downloaded from the Objectif Lune Web
Activations page: http://www.objectiflune.com/activations
l If you are a Reseller, the installers can be downloaded from the Objectif Lune Partner
Portal: http://extranet.objectiflune.com/
For information on licensing, please see Activating your license.
Installation Pre-Requisites
l Make sure your system meets the System requirements.
l PlanetPress Version 1.5 can be installed under a regular user account with Administrator
privileges.
l
Connect must be installed on an NTFS file system.
l PlanetPress requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 already be installed on the target
system.
l In order to use the automation feature in Version 1.5, PlanetPress Workflow 8 will need to
be installed. This can be installed on the same machine as an existing PlanetPress®
Suite 7.6 installation or on a new computer. For more information, please see Information
about PlanetPress Workflow 8.
l As with any JAVA application, the more RAM available, the faster the product will
execute.
Users of Connect 1.1
In order for users of PlanetPress Connect 1.1 to upgrade to any later version through the
Update Manager it is necessary to install a later version (1.1.8 or later) of the Objectif Lune
Update Client.
If you do not have such a version installed already, the next time you run your Update Client it
will show that there is an update available of itself to Version 1.1.8 (or later).
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Simply click on the download button in the dialog to install the new version of the Update
Note
From PlanetPress Connect Version 1.2 onwards, the new version (1.1.8)of the Update
Client is included by default with all setups.
Client. Note that it is no problem to run the update while the Client is open. It will automatically
update itself.
Once you have done this, PlanetPress Connect 1.5 will become available for download.
Users of Connect 1.0
Users of this Connect version 1.0 cannot upgrade directly to Version 1.5. This is because
Connect Version 1.0 is a 32 bit version of Connect.
Users must first upgrade to Version 1.1 and from there upgrade to Version 1.5
If you are updating manually you must first upgrade to Version 1.1 before installing 1.5. If you
attempt go directly from Version 1.0 to Version 1.5 the installation will fail.
Also see "Users of Connect 1.1" on the previous page for extra information about updating from
that version.
User accounts and security
Permissions for PlanetPress Connect Designer
PlanetPress Connect Designer does not require any special permissions to run besides a
regular program. It does not require administrative rights and only needs permission to
read/write in any folder where Templates or Data Mapping Configurations are located.
If generating Print output, PlanetPress Connect Designer requires permission on the printer or
printer queue to send files.
Permissions for PlanetPress Connect Server
The PlanetPress Connect Server module, used by the Automation module, requires some
special permissions to run. These permissions are set during installation, in the Engine
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Configuration portion of the Installation Wizard, but it can also be configured later by modifying
permissions for the service. To do this:
l In Windows, open the Control Panel, Administrative Tools, then Services (this may
depend on your operating system).
l Locate the service called Serverengine_UUID , where UUID is a series of characters that
depend on the machine where the software is installed.
l
Right-click on the service and select Properties.
l
In the Connection tab, define the account name and password that the service should
use. This can be a local account on the computer or an account on a Windows Domain.
The account must have administrative access on the machine. It should also correspond
to the user account set up in PlanetPress Worfklow.
The Importance of User Credentials on Installing and Running PlanetPress Connect
OL Connect and required credentials depends heavily on the Connect component and
respective tasks and what sort of user credentials are needed.
First of all, it is important to distinguish between installation and run-time
Installation
The Connect installer puts all required files, folders, registry entries and much more to their
correct places and locations. As many of these locations are protected against malicious
accesses, that very user under whose context the Connect installation is started and running,
needs very extensive rights on the respective computer. This user must belong to the Local
Administrators group on that machine. Here are some required capabilities, this user:
l Must be able to write into the "Programs" folder.
l Must be allowed to check for existing certificates and must also be allowed to install new
ones into the global certificate store on that machine.
l Must be able to write into HKLM and any subtree of it in the registry.
l Must be able to INSTALL, START and RUN services and also to MODIFY service
settings.
l Must be known in the network the machine belongs to and must also need to be able to
use shared network resources like shared drives and/or printers etc.
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This list may not be complete, but it gives the extent of the requirements. Generally, the local
administrator of the machine will have all these credentials, but there may exist network
restrictions and policies, which will block one or more of these capabilities. In such cases, the
respective network administrator should provide a valid user account for the installation.
User Account
The user account shall be used to later RUN one of the Connect Server flavors (Server or
Server Extension). This dedicated user account has to be entered on the respective installer
dialog page and must be allowed to START, STOP and RUN services on this machine. This is
different from the credentials of the installation user account, which additionally requires the
right to INSTALL services. Please be aware of this fact!
Additionally, the Server user must be able to access any network resources that are required for
OL Connect to function properly. This includes e.g. additional drives, printers, scanners, other
computers and, where appropriate, internet resources, URLs, mail servers, FTP servers,
database servers and everything else planned to be used for the intended operation of
Connect. The Server user is the run-time user.
Connect Components
Usually, a standard end user will only be facing Connect Designer and maybe the License
Activation Tool. Designer this does not require administrator rights. Either everything required
to create documents or also to run some tasks will be already available (installed by the
installer) or be accessible in a way, where no specific credentials are required. However some
tasks like starting an email campaign will possibly require a respective account at a mail server.
But this has generally nothing to do with the credentials of the Designer user.
Activation Tool
To run the Software Activation Tool, administrator rights are required because this tool needs to
write the license file in one of the protected folders of Windows. The tool will however allow to
restart it with respective credentials if required.
MySQL
MySQL database service is installed by the install user (thus again the requirement of
installing, starting, running and modifying services). Once running it will just work.
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Merge and Weaver Engines
These components do run under the Designer (if only Designer is installed) or the Server /
Extension service(s) and inherit the rights of their parent application.
Server (Extension) Configuration Tool
This component needs to access the settings of the Server. As these are stored and read by the
Server, it should be clear that the user used to run the Configuration tool should be the same as
the Server Service user as explained above.
Installing PlanetPress Connect on Machines without Internet Access
Installing PlanetPress Connect1.5 in offline mode requires some extra steps. These are listed
below.
GoDaddy Root Certificate Authority needs to be installed.
In order to install PlanetPress Connect it is necessary for the GoDaddy Root Certificate
Authority to be installed (G2 Certificate) on the host machine and for this to be verified online.
When a machine hosting the installation does not have access to the Internet, the installation
will fail because the verification cannot be performed. To solve this problem one must first
ensure that all Windows updates have been installed on the host machine. Once the Windows
updates are confirmed as being up to date, then complete the following steps:
1. Go to https://certs.godaddy.com/repository and download the following two certificates to
copy to the offline machine:
l GoDaddy Class 2 Certification Authority Root Certificate - G2 - the file is gdroot-
g2.crt
l GoDaddy Secure Server Certificate (Intermediate Certificate) - G2 - the file is
gdig2.crt
2. Install the certificates: Right mouse click -> Install Certificate, and follow the steps through
the subsequent wizard.
3. Now copy the PlanetPress Connect installer to the offline machine and start the
installation as normal
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Windows certificate validation - Certificate Revocation List retrieval should be switched
off
For your security Objectif Lune digitally signs all relevant files with our own name and
certificate. The integrity of these files is checked at various times by different, context related,
methods. One of these checks, done during the installation process, uses the Windows
certificate validation check. .
The Windows certificate validation process not only checks the integrity of a file against its
signature, but also usually checks if the certificate itself is still valid. That check is done against
the current Certificate Revocation List (CRL), which needs to be retrieved from the internet.
However, if the machine in question does not have internet access, the retrieval of the CRL
must fail, which will lead to subsequent validation issues.
To circumvent such issues it is highly recommended to switch off the CRL retrieval prior to
installing Connect on machines without internet access. There is no security risk associated
with this, as the CRLs would never be retrievable without internet access, anyway. Advantage
of the switch will not only be found during the installation and operation of Connect, but also in
some speed improvements for any application which use signed binaries.
To switch off CRL retrieval on the computer, complete the following steps:
1. Open the “Internet Options” via the Control Panel
2. Select the “Advanced” tab and scroll down to “Security” node.
3. Uncheck the entry “Check for publisher’s certificate revocation” under that node.
4. Click the OKbutton to close the dialog.
5. Re-start the computer.
Installation Wizard
Starting the PlanetPress Connect installer
The PlanetPress Connect installer may be supplied as an ISO image or on a DVD:
l If an ISO image, either burn the ISO onto a DVD or unzip the contents to a folder (keeping
the folder structure)
l If on a DVD, either insert the DVD and initiate the installation from there or copy the
contents to a folder (keeping the folder structure)
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Navigate to the PlanetPress_Connect_Setup_x64.exe or and double-click on it. After a short
Note
PlanetPress Connect requires prior installation of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 (please refer to
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21 for more details).
while the Setup Wizard will appear as a guide through the installation steps.
Selecting the required components
After clicking the Next button, the component selection page appears, where the different
components of PlanetPress Connect can be selected for installation. Currently, the following
are available:
l
PlanetPress Connect Designer: The Designer module. It may be used as a standalone
with no other installed modules, but it will not have certain capabilities such as
automation and commingling.
l
PlanetPress Connect Server: The Server back-end giving capabilities such as
automation, commingling, picking. It saves all entities generated from the Automation
module into a database for future use.
l
MySQL Product: The database used by the PlanetPress Connect Engine to save its
items. This item is optional if an existing MySQL server, either on the same computer or a
separate server, is to be used.
l
Installation Path: This is the location where modules are to be installed.
The installer can also calculate how much disk space is required for installing the selected
components as well as how much space is available:
l
Disk space required: Displays the amount of space required on the disk by the selected
components.
l
Disk space available on drive: Displays the amount of space available for installation on
the drive currently in the Installation Path.
l
Recalculate disk space: Click to re-check available disk space. This is useful if space
has been made available for the installation while the installer was open.
l
Source repository location: Displays the path where the installation files are located.
This can be a local drive, installation media, or a network path.
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