OBJECTIF LUNE PlanetPress Connect 2018.1 User guide

User Guide

Version:2018.1

User Guide

Version 2018.1

Last Revision:2018-07-05

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.

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.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 4

Welcome to PlanetPress Connect 2018.1 16

Setup And Configuration 17

System and Hardware Considerations 17

Antivirus Exclusions 17

Database Considerations 19

Environment Considerations 24

Language and Encoding Considerations 26

Network Considerations 27

Performance considerations 27

System Requirements 30

Installation and Activation 31

Where to obtain the installers 32

Installation - important information 32

Installation - "How to" guides 32

Activation 32

Installation Prerequisites 33

User accounts and security 34

The Importance of User Credentials on Installing and Running PlanetPress Connect 35

Installing PlanetPress Connect on Machines without Internet Access 37

Installation Wizard 38

Running connect installer in Silent Mode 45

Activating a License 53

Migrating to a new workstation 56

Information about PlanetPress Workflow 8 63

Upgrading from PlanetPress Suite 6/7 64

What do I gain by upgrading to PlanetPress Connect? 67

Preferences 83

Server Configuration Settings 107

Engine configuration 108

Scheduling preferences 117

Server Security Settings 127

Connect: a peek under the hood 128

Page 4

The Workflow server 129

The Connect server 130

The Connect database 131

The File Store 131

The engines 132

The REST API 133

Known Issues 134

Business Graphics: Backward Compatibility Issues 134

Minor differences in PCLoutput introduced in 2018.1 135

Windows Server 2016 issue 135

No switch for case sensitivity in Dynamic Printer Rules editor 135

Limit of 100MB of image files within a single job 135

Print Output: Booklet Impositioning changes introduced in 2018.1 136

Change in boundaries.find() function 136

Issues with Microsoft Edge browser 136

Installation Paths with Multi-Byte Characters 136

Switching Languages 137

GoDaddy Certificates 137

MySQL Compatibility 137

PostScript Print Presets 138

Available Printer Models 138

External Resources in Connect 138

Using Capture After Installing Workflow 8 139

Capturing Spool Files After Installing Workflow 8 139

Colour Model in Stylesheets 139

Image Preview in Designer 139

Merge\Weaver Engines when Printing 140

REST Calls for Remote Services 140

Print Content and Email Content in PlanetPress Workflow 140

Print Limitations when the Output Server is located on a different machine 140

VIPP Output 141

Uninstalling 141

Important Note:Stop any active Anti-Virus software before uninstalling Connect. 141

Impacts upon other Applications and Services 142

Uninstallation Wizard 142

General information 143

Connect: a peek under the hood 143

Page 5

The Workflow server 144

The Connect server 145

The Connect database 146

The File Store 146

The engines 147

The REST API 148

Connect File Types 149

The DataMapper Module 150

DataMapper basics 150

What's next? 151

Data mapping configurations 151

Creating a new data mapping configuration 152

Opening a data mapping configuration 156

Saving a data mapping configuration 156

Using the wizard for CSV and Excel files 156

Using the wizard for databases 158

Using the wizard for PDF/VT or AFP files 161

Using the wizard for XML files 163

Data mapping workflow 164

Creating a data mapping workflow 164

Testing the extraction workflow 165

Data source settings 166

Extracting data 169

Steps 191

The Data Model 202

About records 203

Creating a Data Model 203

Editing the Data Model 204

Using the Data Model 205

Fields 206

Detail tables 212

Data types 219

Data Model file structure 228

DataMapper User Interface 231

Keyboard shortcuts 232

Menus 237

Panes 241

Page 6

Example 248

Settings for location-based fields in a Text file 274

Settings for location-based fields in a PDF File 274

Settings for location-based fields in CSV and Database files 275

Settings for location-based fields in an XML File 276

Text and PDF Files 279

CSV and Database Files 281

XMLFile 282

Text and PDF Files 286

CSV and Database Files 288

XMLFiles 290

Left operand, Right operand 294

Condition 296

Operators 296

Text file 297

PDF File 298

CSV File 300

XML File 300

JavaScript 302

Toolbar 302

Welcome Screen 304

DataMapper Scripts API 305

Using scripts in the DataMapper 308

Setting boundaries using JavaScript 310

Objects 315

Example 320

Example 322

Examples 325

Example 327

Example 328

Example 329

Examples 332

Examples 335

Example 339

Example 343

Text 345

Page 7

XML 345

Functions 346

The Designer 355

Designer basics 355

What's next? 356

Features 356

Templates 357

Contexts 373

Sections 374

Print 378

Copy Fit 380

Creating a Print template with a Wizard 381

Print context 385

Print sections 388

Pages 397

Master Pages 404

Media 408

Email 414

Designing an Email template 415

Creating an Email template with a Wizard 419

Email context 422

Email templates 424

Email header settings 428

Email attachments 434

Web 437

Creating a Web template with a Wizard 438

Web Context 442

Web pages 443

Forms 449

Using Form elements 454

Using JavaScript 460

Capture OnTheGo 463

COTG Forms 463

Creating a COTG Form 464

Filling a COTG template 465

Testing the template 466

Sending the template to the Workflow tool 467

Page 8

Using COTG data in a template 467

Designing a COTG Template 470

Capture OnTheGo template wizards 473

Using Foundation 477

COTG Elements 480

Using COTG Elements 487

Testing a Capture OnTheGo Template 492

Using the COTG plugin: cotg-2.0.0.js 499

Dynamically adding COTG widgets 502

Saving and restoring custom data and widgets 505

Capture OnTheGo API 510

Content elements 522

Element types 522

Editing HTML 523

Attributes 524

Inserting an element 525

Selecting an element 526

Deleting an element 527

Styling and formatting an element 527

Barcode 528

Boxes 570

Business graphics 574

COTG Elements 582

Date 588

Forms 590

Form Elements 594

Hyperlink and mailto link 598

Images 599

Table 605

Text and special characters 609

Snippets 611

Adding a snippet to the Resources 612

Adding a snippet to a section 613

Creating a snippet 613

JSON Snippets 614

Styling and formatting 614

Local formatting versus style sheets 614

Page 9

Layout properties 615

Styling templates with CSS files 616

Styling text and paragraphs 625

How to position elements 631

Rotating elements 634

Styling a table 635

Styling an image 639

Background color and/or image 643

Border 644

Colors 647

Fonts 651

Locale 654

Spacing 655

Personalizing Content 656

Variable data 656

Conditional content 657

Dynamic images 657

Detail tables 657

Snippets 658

Scripts 658

Loading data 658

Variable Data 669

Formatting variable data 675

Showing content conditionally 678

Conditional Print sections 681

Dynamic Images 682

Detail Table 683

Personalized URL 688

Writing your own scripts 689

Script types 690

Creating a new script 691

Writing a script 692

Managing scripts 694

Testing scripts 697

Optimizing scripts 701

Loading a snippet via a script 706

Loading content using a server's API 708

Page 10

Control Scripts 711

The script flow: when scripts run 725

Selectors in Connect 726

Designer User Interface 731

Dialogs 732

Keyboard shortcuts 816

Menus 822

Panes 834

Toolbars 851

Welcome Screen 857

Print Options 858

Job Creation Presets 932

Output Creation Settings 943

Page breakdown 961

Codabar Settings 968

Code 128 Settings 971

Code 39 Settings 973

DataMatrix Settings 976

EAN-128 Settings 979

EAN-13 Settings 982

EAN-8 Settings 985

Interleaved 2 of 5 Settings 988

PDF417 Settings 991

QR Code Settings 994

UPC-A Settings 998

UPC-E Settings 1001

Designer Script API 1020

Designer Script API 1021

Examples 1029

Examples 1031

Examples 1032

Examples 1034

Examples 1036

Examples 1037

Examples 1038

Page 11

Examples 1039

Examples 1040

Examples 1042

Examples 1043

Examples 1044

Example 1044

Example 1045

Example 1046

Examples 1047

Creating a table of contents 1048

Example 1049

Examples 1049

Examples 1052

Examples 1053

Examples 1054

Replace elements with a snippet 1054

Replace elements with a set of snippets 1054

Example 1055

Example 1056

Creating a Date object from a string 1064

Control Script API 1077

Examples 1093

Generating output 1101

Print output 1101

Fax output 1101

Email output 1102

Web output 1102

Optimizing a template 1103

Scripts 1103

Images 1103

Generating Print output 1104

Saving Printing options in Print Presets 1105

Connect Printing options that cannot be changed from within the Printer Wizard 1106

Generating Print output from Workflow 1106

Page 12

Print Using Standard Print Output Settings 1107

Print Using Advanced Printer Wizard 1109

Adding print output models to the Print Wizard 1109

Splitting printing into more than one file 1111

Print output variables 1111

Generating Fax output 1120

Generating Tags for Image Output 1121

Generating Email output 1123

Email output settings in the Email context and sections 1124

Generating Email output from Connect Designer 1125

Generating Email output from Workflow 1126

Using an ESP with PlanetPress Connect 1126

Generating Web output 1131

Attaching Web output to an Email template 1132

Generating Web output from Workflow 1133

Web output settings in the Web context and sections 1134

Overview 1135

Connect 2018.1.3 Enhancements/Fixes 1137

Connect 2018.1.2 Enhancements/Fixes 1137

Connect 2018.1.1 Enhancements/Fixes 1138

Connect 2018.1 General Enhancements 1139

Dynamic Print Control for PostScript printers 1139

Improved Business Graphics 1142

Connect 2018.1 Designer Enhancements/Fixes 1148

Connect 2018.1 DataMapping Enhancements/Fixes 1155

Connect 2018.1 Output Enhancements/Fixes 1158

Workflow 2018.1 Enhancements/Fixes 1161

Known Issues 1166

Overview 1166

Connect 2018.1.2 Enhancements/Fixes 1169

Connect 2018.1.1 Enhancements/Fixes 1170

Connect 2018.1 General Enhancements 1171

Dynamic Print Control for PostScript printers 1171

Improved Business Graphics 1174

Connect 2018.1 Designer Enhancements/Fixes 1180

Connect 2018.1 DataMapping Enhancements/Fixes 1187

Connect 2018.1 Output Enhancements/Fixes 1190

Page 13

Workflow 2018.1 Enhancements/Fixes 1193

Known Issues 1198

Overview 1198

Connect 2018.1.1 Enhancements/Fixes 1201

Connect 2018.1 General Enhancements 1203

Dynamic Print Control for PostScript printers 1203

Improved Business Graphics 1205

Connect 2018.1 Designer Enhancements/Fixes 1211

Connect 2018.1 DataMapping Enhancements/Fixes 1218

Connect 2018.1 Output Enhancements/Fixes 1221

Workflow 2018.1 Enhancements/Fixes 1224

Known Issues 1229

Overview 1229

Connect 2018.1 General Enhancements 1232

Dynamic Print Control for PostScript printers. 1232

Improved Business Graphics 1234

Connect 2018.1 Designer Enhancements/Fixes 1240

Connect 2018.1 DataMapping Enhancements/Fixes 1247

Connect 2018.1 Output Enhancements/Fixes 1250

Workflow 2018.1 Enhancements/Fixes 1253

Known Issues 1258

Previous Releases 1258

Overview 1258

Connect 1.8 General Enhancements and Fixes 1261

Connect 1.8 Performance Related Enhancements and Fixes 1265

Connect 1.8 Designer Enhancements and Fixes 1266

Connect 1.8 DataMapping Enhancements and Fixes 1271

Connect 1.8 Output Enhancements and Fixes 1274

Capture OnTheGo (COTG) Enhancements and Fixes 1279

Workflow 8.8 Enhancements and Fixes 1280

Known Issues 1285

Overview 1289

Connect 1.7.1 General Enhancements and Fixes 1291

Connect 1.7.1 Designer Enhancements and Fixes 1296

Connect 1.7.1 DataMapping Enhancements and Fixes 1304

Connect 1.7.1 Output Enhancements and Fixes 1307

Workflow 8.7 Enhancements and Fixes 1315

Page 14

Known Issues 1318

Overview 1322

OLConnect Send 1325

Connect 1.6.1 General Enhancements and Fixes 1327

Connect 1.6.1 Designer Enhancements and Fixes 1328

Connect 1.6.1 DataMapping Enhancements and Fixes 1329

Connect 1.6.1 Output Enhancements and Fixes 1329

Connect Workflow 8.6 Enhancements and Fixes 1331

Known Issues 1333

Overview 1338

Connect 1.5 Designer Enhancements and Fixes 1339

Connect 1.5 DataMapping Enhancements and Fixes 1343

Connect 1.5 Output Enhancements and Fixes 1343

Connect 1.5 General Enhancements and Fixes 1345

Connect 8.5 Workflow Enhancements and Fixes 1346

Known Issues 1347

Overview 1351

Connect 1.4.2 Enhancements and Fixes 1353

Connect 1.4.1 New Features and Enhancements 1353

Connect 1.4.1 Designer Enhancements and Fixes 1355

Connect 1.4.1 DataMapping Enhancements and Fixes 1357

Connect 1.4.1 Output Enhancements and Fixes 1357

Connect 8.4.1 Workflow Enhancements and Fixes 1358

Known Issues 1358

Legal Notices and Acknowledgements 1363

Copyright Information 1368

Page 15

Welcome to PlanetPress Connect

2018.1

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. Use the feedback tool

at the bottom of the page or shoot us an email at doc@ca.objectiflune.com.

PlanetPress Connect is a series of 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 are 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 templates 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 2018.1.

Page 16

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 page31

l "Known Issues" on page134

l "Server Configuration Settings" on page107

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" on page30

l "Database Considerations" on page19

l "Environment Considerations" on page24

l "Known Issues" on page134

l "Language and Encoding Considerations" on page26

l "Antivirus Exclusions" below

l "Performance considerations" on page27

Antivirus Exclusions

The information on this page is designed to assist IT managers and IT professionals decide

what anti-virus strategy to follow with consideration to PlanetPress Connect and their internal

requirements and needs. This page describes the mode of operation and the files and folders

used by PlanetPress Connect as well as the files, folders and executables that are

recommended to be ignored for best possible performance and to avoid issues caused by

antivirus file locks.

Page 17

IT managers and IT professionals then may decide the anti-virus strategy to follow for their

internal requirements and needs depending on the statements outlined herein.

Directories and folders

Main installation folder

All Connect applications are installed under an arbitrarily selectable main folder. We will refer

to it as the "Installation Target" hereafter. The installation target will hold the executables and

files and sub-folders required for the operation of the whole product suite. All these files and

folders are static after installation.

It depends upon the company virus protection strategy, if such files and folders are to be

monitored or not. Running virus protection on these files and folders should not have a big - if

even any - impact on the performance of the Connect suite.

With some exceptions, which are listed below.

Connect Service

The Connect Service is run via the executable file Service.exe. This file has been reported as

causing issues with some antivirus packages, so we recommend adding this file to the antivirus

exclusion list, if possible.

The executable will be installed to the installation target "Connect Server" sub-folder. If the

default folder was selected during the installation process the file is likely to be as follows:

C:\Program Files\Objectif Lune\OL Connect\Connect Server\Service.exe

Working folders

Working folders for Connect are created and used on a per-user-basis under the respective

user's profile folder, accessible on Windows with the standardized system variable

%USERPROFILE% in the sub-folder "Connect".

Applying virus protection to these working folders will have differing levels of impact. These

impacts are as follows:

l

%USERPROFILE%\Connect\filestore: This folder will hold non-intermediate files for the

operation of Connect. Files in this folder will be used frequently, but not with a high

frequency.

Virus protection on this folder and contents should not have too much of an impact on the

speed of the whole Connect suite.

Page 18

l

%USERPROFILE%\Connect\logs: As the name implies, log files are created and

updated here. These log files are plain text files.

Virus protection on this folder and contents may have an impact on the speed of the

whole Connect suite.

l

%USERPROFILE%\Connect\temp: Storage folder for temporary data, usually

intermittent files in multiple folders.

Virus protection on this folder and contents might have a serious impact on the

performance of Connect.

l

%USERPROFILE%\Connect\workspace: Usually containing settings and helper files

and folders.

Virus protection on this folder and contents should not have too much of an impact on the

speed of the whole Connect suite.

Database 1

Depending on the components installed, a database instance is created in a folder called

"connect.database" under the Windows system temp folder. The temp folder is accessible via

the standardized system variable %TMP%.

Usually, folders holding temporary files and folders should be excluded from a virus protection,

because this influences the overall performance of the whole system at all. However the

responsible person for the computer protection has to decide about the monitoring of such

temporary folders following the company guidelines.

Database 2

Another database instance is used by Connect.This is the Connect back-end database. The

path to this folder is stored in the standardized system variable %PROGRAMDATA%. The

Connect back-end database is located in the subfolder "Connect\MySQL".

As this database will be in constant use when Connect is running, virus protection on this folder

and its sub-folders may have a serious impact on the performance of Connect.

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 (external) instance.

Page 19

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.

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-character-

set=utf8 : These indicate database support for UTF-8/Unicode.

Installing / Updating Connect Using an existing local MySQL instance

If MySQL Server is already present and you wish to use it, the following should be taken into

consideration:

l The minimum supported MySQL version is 5.1.31.

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" above 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.

Warning

If you chose not to install the supplied MySQL database, and instead opt for using a pre-

existing (External) database then you yourself must ensure that the External database is

accessible to Connect.

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OBJECTIF LUNE PlanetPress Connect 2018.1 User guide

OBJECTIF LUNE PlanetPress Connect 2018.1 User guide

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