OBJECTIF LUNE PlanetPress Workflow 2023.1 User manual

User Guide

Version 2023.1.0

Last Revision:2023-05-15

Upland Objectif Lune

2409 46e Avenue

Lachine

QC H8T 3C9

Canada

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duced, transmitted or distributed outside of Upland Objectif Lune by any means whatsoever without the

express written permission of Upland Objectif Lune. Upland Objectif Lune 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. Upland Objectif Lune reserves the right

to alter the information contained in this documentation without notice.

Table of Contents

Welcome to PlanetPress Workflow 2023.1 15

Installation and setup 15

System requirements 16

Operating System 16

Virtual environments 16

Minimum hardware requirements 17

Recommended hardware requirements 17

Requirements for individual Connect modules 17

Environment considerations 18

Terminal Services 18

Virtual environments 18

32-bit or 64-bit? 19

Antivirus considerations 19

Backup software 20

Microsoft Office compatibility 20

Installing PlanetPress Connect Workflow 20

Upgrading 20

Using the PlanetPress Connect Workflow installer 21

The Product Update Manager 23

Product activation 23

Silent installation 23

Command line parameters 23

Example 24

Backup existing Workflow version 24

Backing up a virtual machine 24

Backing up a real machine 24

Setting up the working environment 24

Network considerations 25

Local and network rights 25

Account requirements 25

Mapped drives 25

Network ports used by each service 26

Known Issues 27

Microsoft patch causing handling of XLS to fail 27

Data Repository error 28

Other known issues 28

Obtaining a certificate 31

Creating self-signed certificates 31

Basics 32

Related tools and resource files 32

Features 33

About Workflow Configurations 33

Creating a new configuration 34

Open a PlanetPress Workflow configuration file 35

Saving and sending a Workflow Configuration 35

Exit PlanetPress Workflow Configuration program 37

Workflow Configuration resource files 38

Connect resources 38

PlanetPress Design documents 42

PrintShop Mail documents 46

About data 46

About documents and variable data 47

Job file 47

Job file names and output file names 48

Data selections 49

About data emulation 54

Sample Data 63

Metadata 67

Working with JSON 77

Data Repository 80

Structure 80

Accessing the Data Repository 81

Where to find the Data Repository 82

ConnectionString 82

Debugging and error handling 82

About error handling 83

Using the On Error tab 83

Creating and using Error processes 85

Accessing the Logs 86

Resubmit backed up input files to a process 87

Debugging your PlanetPress Workflow process 89

About printing 92

OL Connect print jobs 93

PlanetPress Suite print jobs 94

PlanetPress Workflow printer queues 94

Shared printer queue properties 95

Windows Output printer queue 96

LPR Output Printer Queue 97

FTP Output Printer Queue 99

Send to Folder printer queue 100

Load balancing 101

Associating PlanetPress Design documents and PlanetPress printer queues 102

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Triggers 103

Objectif Lune Printer Driver (PS) 103

About processes and subprocesses 105

Processes 105

Startup processes 107

Subprocesses 107

Creating a process 107

Importing processes 109

Activating or deactivating a process 110

Process properties 111

About branches and conditions 115

Converting a branch to a subprocess 116

Using Scripts 117

Run Script task 117

APIs 118

The Script Editor and XSLT Editor 118

SOAP Server API Reference 124

The Watch Object 129

Data Repository API 146

Metadata API 162

Attributes 174

Count 174

Fields 174

Index 174

NodeType 174

Parent 175

Selected 175

SelectedCount 175

SelectedState 175

Add(Integer Index) 176

AttributeByIndex(Integer Index) 176

AttributeByName(const String Name) 177

Clear() 177

Copy() 177

Cut() 177

DatapageCount() 177

Delete() 177

DocumentCount() 178

FieldByIndex(Integer Index) 178

FieldByName(const String Name) 178

FieldByNameIndex(const String Name, Integer Index) 179

IndexInDocument() 179

IndexInGroup() 179

IndexInJob() 179

Item(Integer Index) 180

PageCount() 180

Paste() 180

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PasteAt(Integer Index) 181

Select(TSelectWhat SelectWhat) 181

SelectedDatapageCount() 181

SelectedDocumentCount() 182

SelectedIndexInDocument() 182

SelectedIndexInGroup() 182

SelectedIndexInJob() 182

SelectedPageCount() 183

Sort(const String Name, optional TSortFlags Flags, optional const String Name2, optional TSortFlags Flags2,

optional const String Name3, optional TSortFlags Flags3) 183

Parameters 186

Exceptions 186

Parameters 187

Exceptions 187

Parameters 188

Returns 188

Parameters 188

Exceptions 188

Parameters 188

Returns 188

Exceptions 188

Parameters 188

Returns 189

Parameters 189

Returns 189

Exceptions 189

Parameters 189

Returns 189

Exceptions 189

AlambicEdit API reference 192

Stopping execution 218

Special workflow types 220

HTTP Server workflow 221

PDF Workflow 228

PlanetPress Capture Workflow 230

Workflow processes in a Connect Send solution 237

About variables 238

Job Info variables 239

System variables 240

Local variables 242

Global variables 243

Variable task properties 245

Workflow add-ons 247

PlanetPress Capture Tasks 247

Capture OnTheGo (COTG) 278

About PlanetPress Fax 278

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About PlanetPress Image 279

OL Connect Send 280

ZUGFeRD 280

About related programs and services 281

Available Input services 282

Available Output services 282

Start and stop PlanetPress Workflow Service 283

Users and configurations 284

Workflow Services 285

About Tasks 286

Adding tasks 287

Editing a task 288

Task properties 288

Variable task properties 289

Masks 291

Date and Time Format 291

Masks 291

Selecting a resource file in task properties 292

Variable file name 293

Input tasks 295

Initial Input tasks 295

Secondary Input tasks 296

Properties common to all input tasks 296

Available Input tasks 297

Create File 297

Email Input 299

File Count 302

Folder Capture 304

Folder Listing 307

FTP Input 309

HTTP Client Input 311

Input Error Bin 313

Input SOAP 315

LPD Input 316

Merge PDF Files 318

Microsoft 365 Email Input 320

Microsoft 365 OneDrive Input 325

NodeJS Server Input 328

PrintShop Web Connect 334

Secure Email Input 336

Serial Input 339

SFTP Input 341

SMTP Input 344

Telnet Input 347

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WinQueue Input 349

Action tasks 351

Add/Remove Text 352

Advanced Search and Replace 354

Barcode Scan 357

Change Emulation 361

Create PDF 365

Database Query 369

Decompress File(s) 374

Digital Action 375

External Program 384

Load External File 386

Logger 387

Mathematical Operations 388

Open XSLT 389

PDF/A-3 Attachments 390

Push to Repository 393

Rename 395

Run Script 395

Search and Replace 397

Send to Folder 399

Set Job Infos and Variables 400

SOAP Client plugin 400

Standard Filter 403

Translator 404

XML/JSON Conversion 405

Data splitters 406

About using emulations with data splitters 407

Database Splitter 408

Emulated Data Splitter 410

In-Stream Splitter 412

PDF Splitter 414

XML Splitter 417

Process logic tasks 420

Available Process logic tasks 420

Branch 421

Comment 422

File Count 422

File/Folder Condition 424

File Name Condition 425

File Size Condition 425

Go Sub 426

Loop 427

Run Script 428

Send to Process 430

SNMP Condition 431

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Text Condition 433

Time of Day Condition 434

Connector tasks 435

Available Connector tasks 435

Delete Capture OnTheGo Document 436

Input from SharePoint 437

Laserfiche Repository Output 439

Lookup in Microsoft® Excel® Documents 442

Output to Capture OnTheGo 444

Output to SharePoint 448

PlanetPress Fax 450

PlanetPress Image 452

PReS Print Controls 460

ZUGFeRD plugin 463

Metadata tasks 469

Create Metadata 469

Embed/Extract PlanetPress Workflow Metadata 471

Metadata Fields Management 472

Metadata File Management 474

Metadata Filter 475

Metadata Level Creation 476

Metadata Sequencer 478

Metadata Sorter 479

Metadata to PDI 480

Metadata-Based N-Up 481

OL Connect Send 483

Workflow processes in Connect Send 483

OL Connect Send tasks 483

Get Data 483

Get Job Data 487

Job Processor 491

OL Connect tasks 494

All In One 495

Create Email Content 502

Create Job 507

Create Output 509

Create PDF/VT 511

Create Preview PDF 512

Create Print Content 516

Create Web Content 519

Download EML Messages 523

Execute Data Mapping 525

File Store - Delete File 529

File Store - Download File 530

File Store - Upload File 531

Mark Connect Sets for Deletion 532

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Merge Jobs 533

PDF to Bitmap 534

Render Email Content 536

Retrieve Items 539

Set Properties 543

Update Data Records 545

Output tasks 546

Available Output tasks 547

Delete 547

FTP Output 548

Microsoft 365 Email Output 549

Microsoft 365 OneDrive Output 552

SFTP Output 554

Print using a Windows driver 556

Printer Queue Output 557

Secure Email Output 560

Send Email 562

Send to Folder 565

Document Management tasks 566

DocuWare 567

M-Files 577

Input from SharePoint 584

Output to SharePoint 586

Email Services 589

Mailjet 589

SendGrid 592

Legacy tasks 595

Add document 596

Create MRDX 596

Download to Printer 597

Generic Splitter 599

HTTP Server Input 603

Microsoft® Word® Documents To PDF Conversion 607

PrintShop Mail 610

Send Images to Printer 613

SOAP Client plugin 615

Action-EMF Converter (Windows Print Converter) 617

PlanetPress Capture Tasks 620

Unknown tasks 638

Preferences 639

Other preferences and settings 640

General appearance preferences 641

Ribbon Color Scheme 641

Colors 641

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Inactive process 641

Object Inspector appearance preferences 641

Colors 641

Options 641

Configuration Components pane appearance preferences 642

Colors 642

Options 642

Default configuration behavior preferences 642

Notification Messages behavior preferences 644

Preferences 644

Sample Data behavior preferences 646

Preferences 646

Network behavior preferences 646

Preferences 647

PlanetPress Capture preferences 647

The available PlanetPress Capture user options are: 648

PlanetPress Capture Server/Client 648

PlanetPress Document Manager 649

PlanetPress Capture ODBC Settings 650

PlanetPress Capture Pen Management Tool 653

PlanetPress Capture License Management 654

OL Connect preferences 655

PDF text extraction tolerance factors 656

Delta Width 656

Delta Height 657

Font Delta Height 657

Gap 657

General and logging preferences 657

Messenger plugin preferences 659

Preferences 659

HTTP Server Input plugin preferences 1 659

Preferences 659

HTTP Server Input plugin preferences 2 663

LPD Input plugin preferences 664

Preferences 664

NodeJS Server Input plugin preferences 1 665

NodeJS Server Input plugin preferences 2 667

NodeJS Server Input plugin preferences 3 667

Testing the server 668

Changing the Log in page 668

Setting the duration of the authentication 669

Serial Input plugin preferences 669

Preferences 669

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SMTP Input preferences 670

Preferences 670

Telnet Input plugin preferences 671

Preferences 671

PlanetPress Fax plugin preferences 671

Preferences 672

OpenText RightFax options 674

FTP Output Service preferences 674

Options 674

PlanetPress Image preferences 675

PlanetPress Image 1 or logging tab 675

PlanetPress Image 2 or database tab 676

PlanetPress Image 3 or network tab 677

PlanetPress Image 4 or login tab 677

LPR Output preferences 678

Options 678

PrintShop Web Connect Service preferences 679

Editor Options 680

The user interface 684

Customizing the Workspace 685

Dock and undock areas of the Program Window 685

Show or hide areas of the program window 686

Combine and attach areas 687

Resize the program window areas 691

Change the Interface language 691

PlanetPress Workflow Button 692

Options 692

Configuration Components pane 693

Components Area Sections 693

PlanetPress Design document properties 696

Moving and copying configuration components 698

Renaming objects in the Configuration Components Pane 700

Reordering objects in the Configuration Components pane 701

Grouping Configuration Components 701

Expanding and collapsing categories and groups in the Configuration Components pane 703

Deleting something from the Configuration Components pane 703

Dialogs 703

Access Manager 703

Access Manager hosts.allow File 708

Activate a printer 709

Advanced SQL Statement Dialog 710

Data Repository Manager 711

The Data Selector 714

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Data Selector display preferences 717

The File Viewer 720

LaserFiche Repository Output Task - Configure Tags 720

LaserFiche Repository Output Task - Configure Templates 720

PDF Viewer 722

Printer utilities 723

Process properties 725

Rule Interface 729

The PlanetPress Workflow Service Console 732

Task Properties dialog 734

Update document 735

Virtual Drive Manager 736

The Debug Information pane 736

The Message Area Pane 737

The Object Inspector pane 738

Editing properties 738

The Plug-in Bar 738

Categories 739

Settings and customization 739

The Process area 741

Cutting, copying and pasting tasks and branches 741

Highlight a task or branch 743

Disabling tasks and branches 743

Moving a task or branch using drag-and-drop 744

Redo a command 745

Removing tasks or branches 745

Replacing tasks, conditions or branches 745

Resize the rows and columns of the Process area 746

Collapse and expand branches and conditions 746

Undo a command 747

Zoom in or out within the Process Area 747

The Quick Access Toolbar 747

Adding buttons 747

Removing buttons 747

Moving the toolbar 748

The PlanetPress Workflow Ribbon 748

The Task Comments Pane 751

The PlanetPress Workflow Service Console 751

Controlling Services 751

Viewing log files 752

Knowledge Base 753

Legal Notices and Acknowledgments 753

Copyright Information 759

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Welcome to PlanetPress Workflow 2023.1

This PDF documentation covers version 2023.1. To view the documentation of previous versions

please refer to the PDF files available in the Downloads section of our website:

http://www.objectiflune.com/OL/Download/DownloadCenter.

Workflow plays a major role in many of our solutions. Working in conjunction with PlanetPress Connect,

PlanetPress Capture, CaptureOnTheGO, PlanetPress Imaging, PlanetPress Fax, and a variety of plu-

gins, it helps improve your communications processes. Processes such as communication creation,

interaction, distribution and even maintenance.

Workflow is a "super dispatcher". It caters for inputs from a huge variety of sources, such as email, web

pages, databases, individual files (PDF, csv, XML, etc), print streams, FTP, Telnet and ERP systems.

This data can then be analyzed, modified, stored, verified, routed and used as triggers for other pro-

cesses from entirely within Workflow. Finally it is passed to one of our other products (or not) to be out-

putted in multiple ways (printed, emailed, posted, archived, sent to third party solutions, etc..).

Consider Workflow as a set of buildings blocks that enable you to build your own customized auto-

mated processes which will fit your environment and not the other way around. Create processes that

will save you time and money!

Notes in this guide

Notes are used throughout this guide to draw your attention to certain information.

Note: Important information that deserves your attention.

Tip: Information that may help you use PlanetPress Workflow better or that suggests an easier

method.

Caution: Information that is potentially critical to using PlanetPress Workflow

Installation and setup

The installation procedure for Workflow is described in the topic "Installing PlanetPress Connect Work-

flow" on page20.

The following topics describe the different considerations that are important in regards to the install-

ation and use of PlanetPress Workflow.

l"System requirements" on the next page

l"Environment considerations" on page18

Page 15

l"Setting up the working environment" on page24

l"Known Issues" on page27

System requirements

These are the recommended system requirements for PlanetPress Workflow 2023.1.

Operating System

lMicrosoft Windows 11

lMicrosoft Windows 10 (Pro and Enterprise versions only)

lMicrosoft Windows 8.1

lMicrosoft Windows Server 2022

lMicrosoft Windows Server 2019

lMicrosoft Windows Server 2016

lMicrosoft Windows Server 2012/2012 R2

Note: PlanetPress Workflow2023.1 is expected to run on some older operating systems, but just

as Microsoft no longer supports these older operating systems, Upland Objectif Lune will not

provide support for Upland Objectif Lune products running on them.

Virtual environments

PlanetPress Workflow supports the following virtual environments:

lVMWare Environments. This includes VMWare Player, VMWare Workstation as well as VMWare

ESX Server.

lVMWare VMotion. This means the virtual machine hosting PlanetPress Workflow can be auto-

matically moved from one ESX server to another in a clustered installation.

lMicrosoft Hyper-V/Azure infrastructure environments.

lAmazon Web Services (AWS)

PlanetPress Workflow is not officially supported on any other virtual machines such as Virtual PC, Par-

allels, Bochs, Xen, etc. While running PlanetPress Workflow on these virtual machines may work

finewe have not tested them and cannot offer support for them.

Caution: The PlanetPress Workflow End-User License Agreement (EULA) specifies that a Plan-

etPress Workflow software license may only be used on a single virtual or physical PC at a time.

While copying a virtual machine for backup purposes is acceptable, running two instances of the

same machine, using the same serial number, is strictly prohibited.

Page 16

Minimum hardware requirements

As with any software application, minimum hardware requirements represent the basic hardware on

which the software will run. Note however that settling for the minimum specification is unlikely to pro-

duce the performance you expect from the system. It can be used when configuring a trial or a devel-

opment system, however.

lFile system: NTFS (FAT32 is not supported)

lCPU:multi-core

lRAM: 6GB

lDisk Space:At least 10GB*1

*1: Requirements will depend upon the amount of data you process through PlanetPress Workflow. For instance, a

PostScript file containing several thousands of documents could easily take up several GBs.

Recommended hardware requirements

Due to its versatility, OL Connect is used for a wide variety of applications. Consequently, it is difficult to

determine which hardware configuration will produce the best results for any given implementation.

The following specs should therefore be viewed as a general guideline that is most likely to produce

expected results for most implementations. You should, however, keep in mind that it may not rep-

resent the optimal setup for your particular application.

lFile system: NTFS (FAT32 is not supported)

lCPU:Intel Core i7-4770 Haswell or equivalent

lRAM: 16GB

lDisk Space: 20GB*

lStorage Type: Solid State Drive (SSD)

lNetworking: 10Gb Ethernet

*: Requirements will depend upon the amount of data you process through PlanetPress Workflow. For instance, a

PostScript file containing several thousands of documents could easily take up several GBs.

Requirements for individual Connect modules

OL Connect Products comprises multiple modules that can be operated separately on multiple PCs.

Each module has its own set of requirements that may differ from the other modules. While the hard-

ware requirements described above are relatively generic when installing all Connect modules on a

single server, they should not be interpreted literally for each individual module.

When installing on multiple PCs, keep the following rules of thumb in mind:

Page 17

lThe Connect Workflow module requires less RAM but fast hard drive access. It also benefits from

fast multi-core CPUs, in order to run processes in parallel.

lThe Connect Server module requires more RAM and benefits from fast multi-core CPUs. Disk

access speed is less of a concern.

lThe Connect Designer module requires more RAM and fast disk access to provide a responsive

user-experience.

lThe back-end database (MySQL by default) benefits from more RAM, speedy disk access and

fast networking as it will be solicited by all modules simultaneously.

Environment considerations

This page provides technical information about the environment in which PlanetPress Workflow is inten-

ded to run.

Terminal Services

PlanetPress Workflow does not support Remote Desktop (Terminal) Services because Workflow runs

on single server and only one user can log on at once.

Terminal Services may also be referred to as Terminal Server or Remote Administration Mode (Win-

dows Server 2003 and 2008).

Single-User Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) (where only one person can use RDP at a time) is sup-

ported for PlanetPress Workflow version 6.2 and higher, however it is only supported in Windows XP or

Windows 2003. While later versions of Windows may not cause issues when accessing PlanetPress

Workflow through RDP, these combinations are no longer tested and may not be functional.

Virtual environments

PlanetPress Workflow supports the following virtual environments:

lVMWare Environments. This includes VMWare Player, VMWare Workstation as well as VMWare

ESX Server.

lVMWare VMotion. This means the virtual machine hosting PlanetPress Workflow can be auto-

matically moved from one ESX server to another in a clustered installation.

lMicrosoft Hyper-V/Azure infrastructure environments.

lAmazon Web Services (AWS)

PlanetPress Workflow is not officially supported on any other virtual machines such as Virtual PC, Par-

allels, Bochs, Xen, etc. While running PlanetPress Workflow on these virtual machines may work

finewe have not tested them and cannot offer support for them.

Page 18

Caution: The PlanetPress Workflow End-User License Agreement (EULA) specifies that a Plan-

etPress Workflow software license may only be used on a single virtual or physical PC at a time.

While copying a virtual machine for backup purposes is acceptable, running two instances of the

same machine, using the same serial number, is strictly prohibited.

32-bit or 64-bit?

PlanetPress Suite version 7.1.3 and higher, as well as PlanetPress Connect, support a 64-bit operating

system. However, PlanetPress Workflow remains 32-bits in this environment, which means that for all

intents and purposes there is no difference between those two environments as far as PlanetPress

Workflow is concerned.

Antivirus considerations

PlanetPress Workflow generates a very large amount of temporary data on your hard disk, especially

when manipulating or creating PDF files. This can sometimes cause issues when any other software is

trying to access the temporary files at the same time as PlanetPress Workflow and its components are

trying to read, write, create or delete those files.

If you experience these issues you may want to temporarily disable your antivirus "live", "daily" or

"deep" scans for the following folders and processes:

Caution: Disabling any antivirus scanning permanently on any folder or program is not recom-

mended, and Objectif Lune cannot be held reliable for any consequence of disabling your anti-

virus or whitelisting the folders or executables listed here, or any other change in your antivirus

protection setup!

lOn Windows 7/2008 and later:

lC:\ProgramData\Objectif Lune\PlanetPress Workflow 8\

lC:\Users\[user]\AppData\Local\Temp\ (where [user] is the user under which Workflow is

configured)

lC:\Users\[user]\Connect (where [user] is the user under which Workflow is configured)

lOn all systems:

lC:\Windows\Temp\

Note: C:\Windows\Temp\ is used by multiple software which may cause risks on

your computer. However, PlanetPress Workflow may use this folder as temporary

storage, especially in the case of creating PDF files. We do not recommend disabling

Page 19

scan on this folder, unless you notice performance issues when generating PDFs,

and then only as a test.

lProcesses:

lFTPPutService.exe

lHTTPService.exe

lLPDService.exe

lLPRService.exe

lPPWatchService.exe

lPSWService.exe

lSerialService.exe

lSMTPService.exe

lTelnetService.exe

lppNode.exe

lPPFaxService.exe

lPPImageService.exe

lMessengerService.exe

Backup software

For similar reasons, it is important to know that backup software can also access files while copying

them to a remote backup location, so you should make sure that no PlanetPress Workflow process is

working during your backups.

Microsoft Office compatibility

The Microsoft Office 2010 line of products, other than Pro and Enterprise, has not been certified for use

with PlanetPress Workflow. Some of its products may not be compatible with the connectors included

in OL Connect.

Installing PlanetPress Connect Workflow

Upgrading

Upgrading from Workflow versions predating 2019.1

In order to update Workflow to 2019.2 or higher from Workflow versions prior to 2019.1 it is first neces-

sary to update the Connect License.

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