Technical Support Providers

Small businesses that offer tech support will turn out better results than a big tech support company offering global support.  Having worked in tech support and worked with providers of various sizes, I have come to the opinion that small departments offer more meaningful support, better customer service and have superior knowledge.

When working with the large tech support providers the first person you work with has limited support experience and lacks knowledge of your system.  To get a representative with some experience and knowledge it usually takes 3 or 4 escalations before you get to a person who can assist you to a resolution.  If you have a specific question about specialized software, forget about it, a large tech support firm might not even know what you are talking about let alone be able to legitimately troubleshoot your issue.

With a small business support provider chances are the first Support Technician you talk to has worked with many different platforms and will have years of experience working with client systems and troubleshooting.  They will have seen the issue before (because they have run into it before with their own test environment).  More than likely the engineer you are working with works in a small room with 5 other support engineers with various backgrounds and areas of expertise to help troubleshoot and resolve the issue.  The support engineers with the small firm will have more invested in your experience with their assistance and take pride in their efforts.

Jeff Martin
ImageSource, Inc.  

Database Lookups Made Easy

Database lookups are easy with ILINX® Content Store.  Recently I configured a few and thought I would share some of the features.  I am assuming that you are somewhat familiar with database lookups in general, so this is not a step-by-step but just to point out some cool features.

Here is the application that we need a lookup for and we are going to base it off the SSN field.  We will need to click edit on the field and enable/configure the lookup

Fill in all the information to make the connection.  A couple of cool features are that you can choose to use the .NET driver (which is more current technology) or the normal OLE DB driver.  Also, the port used to connect is configurable.

And it doesn’t JUST do SQL…there are lots of options

Choose the table, view or stored procedure you want to use.  Then, edit the SQL query to map the fields and test.  Here you can also configure when the lookup occurs.  By default, there is a look ahead feature.  That means that after a certain number of characters entered, in this case 4, the database lookup returns up to 10 of the relevant possible matches on the criteria that has been entered.  The max of 10 is configurable as well by changed the SELECT TOP 10 in the SQL query.  The lower the number, the faster you can select a lookup.  Keep in mind however that for every character typed after the 4^th one to narrow down the results, the query has to re-execute so use your best judgment on how many characters should be typed before doing the lookup.  You can also set the check box to lookup on tab out.

So our lookup  is configured, but when we test the query we have a problem.  It seems that the Date field in ILINX is a ‘Date’ field, and the field in the database is text.  How can we solve this and still maintain the data integrity of our ILINX system?

This is where a custom SQL Query comes in handy.  Using the CAST() feature in SQL, we can make that string into a date!

We run our test again and we return results.  Click Finish and your database lookup for the Capture tab is done!

Mike Peterson
Support Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

To Image or Not to Image

Having chosen my career path towards project management, I am not as strong in desktop support as many others. However, I can work my way through just about anything but it might just take a little longer. I thought I would share my experience over the past week in attempting desktop support for myself.

Let’s begin; a few weeks ago I started to experience strange things with my how laptop was working. Just “wonky” (yes, that is a technical term… look it up). I decided to suffer through it but this past Monday I hit a road block—my computer wouldn’t let me move ahead any longer. I then turned to the guys in my office and they all said “Oh you must have a virus.” After a full scan… NO virus. So I went back to see what else I can try to fix this issue… the final suggestion was to reimage. OH JOY!!

Being the self-sufficient person I am and not wanting to bug someone else, I figured I would do this myself (I do have a degree in computers after all). I assumed after a few hours of work my laptop would be up and running again no problem but boy was I mistaken.I began backing up all my documents and favorites, listed out my software etc. Once I had everything I needed, I pressed the magic button and the partition was gone. The long process of putting it all back together began.

After a day and a half, I restored all my software back on except for ILINX®, thinking that it would take another hour or so (as all the other software took about that long). I went to download the software from the ImageSource download center and within 30 minutes I was back up and running with all my applications and workflows that I had backed up.

The moral of the story: when your last option is to reimage your machine, plan on it taking more than a day to get back up and running (especially if you don’t do it regularly). The good news: if you use ILINX software, it only takes a short time then before you know if you will be capturing and retrieving those documents again.
Jen Hilt
Project Coordinator
ImageSource Inc.

The Final Installment of Serendipitous Cerebration

This is it.  The final installment.  The end.   Our tunnel of light leading us to the promise land of perfect integrations with Serendipitous Cerebration as our Virgil guiding us through the Malebolge of Content Management.

So we integrated PeachTree to ILINX Content Store via ILINX Integrate and a few weeks pass by with no word from the client.  Like most other Engineers, we figured no news == good news.  Then like a meteorite dropping from the heavens  a client that we will refer to as Dr. Frankenstein, We’d use “Dr. F” for short if any other references to them were made in this blog and they are not, submitted a ticket stating an issue has been identified that will need correcting.  Seemingly out of nowhere the Integration project quit opening up Content Store documents.  To be a bit more specific, the ILINX Integrate project was no longer able to get past the login screen.  Even when we logged in manually, we are still unable to get any image retrieval using the “Magic Buttons”.

When a formal inquisition was placed to the workers, it was learned that an issue showed itself a few days after the project was installed.  Nothing like hearing that the project you were working on less than a month ago is completely down, for like 2 weeks!  Did I mention we heard about there being 2 issues that broke the project weeks AFTER completion?  Oh and the crowning turd in the punch bowl, the client wants the error corrected yesterday.

Shooting the Trouble

ILINX Integrate is fairly strait forward to troubleshoot project issues with.  Open the .kap file using the Integrate Studio and run the project.  The Studio outputs log messages as part of the user interface, a very nice feature when trying to figure out what could have happened to a once working project.

 

 

 

 

Earlier we outlined how the project works, but let us take a few moments for a brief review.  Scrape values from PeachTree screens and feed the values into a URL search string for ILINX Content Store.  Now as much as I hate to admit to this, both parts broke.  No values were being gathered from the PeachTree Screens and the search URL no longer worked, but what happened?

Updates to ILINX Content Store

Of the 2 issues correcting the access URL was the first that we noticed.  ILINX Content Store had an updated revision that came out about a week after we completed the project and the client updated their system.  Part of the update was a modification to the access URL.  Easy fix, correct the URL in the project to match the new URL format.

 

 

 

 

 

Easy fix on this one, now when we test the URL corrections in a browser and enter in the parameters by hand we get a return from ILINX Content Store.  We could not however get the “Magic” buttons to work.

Software Updates Part Duex

Yes, that’s right some more updated/patched software in an integrated system that once updated breaks the integration/system.  Most support staff and/or engineers have encountered a software update that wreaked havoc on a system leaving technical support scrambling around like headless poultry.  PeachTree had an update, and part of that update has somehow changed the format of the AP and AR forms where the Invoice Number and PO Number fields became unreadable.

We fought with these 2 fields for who knows how long.  We tried different adapters, configurations, coding tests, all to no avail.  To be honest, it was starting to feel like we were fighting against a greased pig version of the Borg.  Blood pressures raised & tensions were high when the sound of maniacal laughter erupted behind me.  At first I figured that John “The Hit-man” Hart had snapped and I started checking to see which exits are unblocked.  The smile on his face was not that reassuring either, and crap he is looking in my direction and BLOCKING THE DOORWAY!  Finally John decided to let me in on what made him start acting like he was just released from Arkham hospital.

Apparently, Serendipitous Cerebration can temporarily cause delirium like symptoms in some people.  I managed to defuse the crazy by attempting to use the Jedi Mind trick to convince John that the project was still broken and that David Blaine, Chris Angel, and David Copperfield are casting an illusion making the fields only appear to read properly.   Training more Random must do with his Jedi powers, as John wasn’t buying it and I could see an open document in the ILINX Content Store window behind him.  Low and behold the fields are reading properly!

What had happened? 

John was working with configuring different adapters when out of nowhere it started working.  During some of the testing, John was building out adapters and configuring to read frames inside of frames and switching back and forth without deleting the adapters.  What he found that ended up working was first building out & configuring a Windows adapter then to changing the configured Windows adapter into a Windows .Net adapter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only difference that I can see here is that the configuration for the Windows adapter reads the Secondary Window Information differently.  Using Notepad I tested what we found.  I was unable to configure the secondary screen to read the entry portion of the Notepad window using a .Net adapter, so I tried configuring a Windows adapter and it is able to find and read the Notepad screen.  When I switch to the .Net adapter I found that I had to remap the entry field, but this time it could find the field properly.  It’s a strange illogical way to configure a screen but sometimes you are just happy that it started working that finding out the details as to how takes a bit of a back seat, and without Serendipitous Cerebration we’d probably still be fighting this beast.

I apologize for the lack luster conclusion to this blog series, but 1 long blog later I feel that even given the strangeness of the…..OHHH something shiny, is that Nexus?

 

Co Authors: Random Kurt-Patrick Duncan McParks & John Hart
ImageSource Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Serendipitous Cerebration – Part Next to Last

One of the last hurtles we were presented with during this project was the ILINX Content Store login screen. The Login screen was written in “Windows Presentation Foundation”, and while Integrate can identify the screen WPF wasn’t cooperating on allowing us to insert any values into the Username and Password fields. Getting the required Username/Password for the current login was a matter of a VB script pulling the AD credentials. Like I said, we have the needed login values but without being able to find/select input fields we felt pretty sunk. Then it dawned on us, the curser always starts in what we will refer to as “PlaceX”. To make a short story drawn out into a long story short again, we used another chunk of script mimicking the keyboard controls to navigate the page and input the login credentials into the required entry fields. So we are ready to deploy. We created a network file share titled “Integrate_Projects”, created an “Integrate” AD Users group, assigned read access to the share, and placed the appropriate users into the “Integrate” group. The workstations install procedure for the ILINX Integrate client involved using the Installer, for those Win 7 users we had to add the laborious step to “Run As Administrator”. Configurations on each workstation is simply opening the Integrate settings and telling Integrate where to find the .kap file. For this project we had around 10 workstation installs. Install and configure for all took less than 55 minutes even after finding and correcting a few minor bugs and running down workstations through the cube farm labyrinth without any string to fund our way back. During the installs we showed all the workers how to use the new tool, training was very easy and went something like this; “When you open an AP or AR invoice a button will pop up, press that button and your document opens in a browser window. Let’s take a look.” As always this project was met by the end users just like any other project Go Live with a mix of people happy to see a useful tool implemented and parading the Engineer around the office on their shoulders and the workers who amble around the office shouting “CHANGE BAD!” like they were a green skinned/bold necked scientific lusus naturae fleeing a crowd of pitchforks and torches. It all was feeling good and then it happened, one of those early morning emails that you know hides a choice little nugget of frustration before you open it; yep I was right Dr. Frankenstein put in a ticket. Something happened and now the Integrate buttons pop up, but pressing the Integrate button does nothing more than making clicky mouse noises and populating the user’s faces with confused/irritated looks. This email was the doorman that let Mr. Serendipitous Cerebration in to assist in the resolution of this issue and we’ll get to review is working style in the final episode of …

 

Random Kurt-Patrick Duncan McParks
ImageSource Inc.

Serendipitous Cerebration – Part (X = 5-2) of (X+2)

Once we got what we felt was all of the needed information from the client as to their expectations and requirements.  We formulated a solid battle plan, sharpened our keyboards, and forged ahead with a spirit steeled on the principle of “Rat’s Head, Ox’s Neck”.

DA PROJECT CONFIGURATION
What we need to see happen first is to be able to recognize the appropriate screens, in this case PeachTree’s   AP and AR Invoice Screens and map them in ILINX Integrate.

Here is an example of one of the PeachTree screens.  Both the AP and AR screens are very similar.  The 2 main differences are the screen header and one of input fields.  The screen Headers is how we plan on differentiating between the screens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Configuration for these screens is pretty straight forward and we built basic applications using the “Windows” Connectors seen in the sample below “Project 1”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To finish off the screen configurations we need to tell ILINX Integrate how to differentiate one screen from another.

 

 

 

 

We do this by using the Window Finder tool.  Drag and drop style selection of screens with the “Flash” button to show you if you have the proper elements/screens selected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Verify that Integrate sees the proper screen by using the “Flash” button.  Now we have screens that flash when tested using the selection tool, time to select the fields from the invoice applications that we need to pull values from.

 

 

 

 

On both screens we need to capture the values entered into the” Customer ID” field.  Click the Identify Field button, and using the Info Editor select the field.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rinse and repeat with the other fields that need to be identified as well, for AP adding the “VendorID” and “Invoice No.” for AR.  For those of us that are following along in your books, you should end up with something akin to this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK, this is what we have completed in this project already; configured “Windows” applications, recognized individual PeachTree screens, and input fields configured.  Now that the screens are identified and the entry fields have been configured, it’s time give the screens a job or “Task” to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are accessing the content in ILINX Content Store via a URL that takes in parameters to retrieve stored images in Content Store.  So add a Web “URL Task” here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At some point, technology will advance to the point that when building Integrate projects the program will read your mind to configure the tasks and events.   Current projections estimate this feature will be available in an underground version of ILINX Integrate v6.02×10²³.  Until that time, we will have to use the old tried and true method, entering in your configuration settings using the mouse and keyboard.  At this time if you feel the need to be a bit closer to version v6.02×10²³, as opposed to the current build v611, configure using input devices engineered after 1995.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

&

 

 

 

 

 

 

So with our fancy, or not so fancy, I/O enter in the following…

 

 

 

 

 

*Parts of the URL redacted to protect the innocent.

If you look closely in the top URL, you will notice 2 portions of the URL follow this format, ${SomeParamater}.   Each value entered into the URL in this format creates an input parameter that can be mapped to one of the fields we configured earlier.  The example above is for the AR configuration and we placed the ${PramCustomer} & ${PramInvoice} into the URL where we want the values read from the PeachTree Invoice to be entered.

 

 

 

 

 

The last Item that we need to add to the screens is an “Event”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently the developers knew in advance how “Cool” this project would be and named the Event we wanted appropriately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have our “KoolButton” action added with a name that gives some indication as to what function is to take place when pressed.  When this project is running & one of the configured PeachTree screens is opened, a free floating button will appear on the screen.

 

 

 

Click the button and BAM, ILINX Integrate is opened in a browser window and begins searching for the corresponding document in the image repository.  Now we can hit the “Green Arrow” to run & test the application.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warning: Testing can be hazardous.  Green Arrow can hit back!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once testing has confirmed everything is up to par, do a final save of the Project’s .kap file.  In our next installment, we will review the deployment process and finally delve into realm of Serendipitous Cerebration and how it became a factor in this project.  TTFN.

 

Co Authors: Random Kurt-Patrick Duncan McParks & John Hart
ImageSource Inc.

Serendipitous Cerebration (Part 2 – Project Planning)

Serendipitous Cerebration as a problem solving technique can only be applied in the rare cases when normal logical troubleshooting has failed.  As much as we hate to admit it, when all logical problem solving avenues have been exhausted and our troubleshooting prowess to a flummoxed state of tentation, this is when we begin to enter the realm where serendipitous cerebration hides in dark, dank crevasses.  In reviewing this project, our hopes are that you can see how the process of Serendipitous Cerebration can develop.

The Project was to integrate a line of Accounting Software (PeachTree) to an Imaging Document Repository (ILINX®Content Store).  The purpose for the integration was to speed the process of document retrieval.  We selected ILINX Integrate to work as a gangplank stretching out from the PeachTree Galleon to the ILINX Content Store docks for the transferring of cargo, Account Payable and Account Receivable (AP and AR) Customer and Invoice Numbers for a seamless document look up.  The mechanism for initiating the document retrieval process will be a set of floating pop up buttons, one for AP & one for AR.  So when an end user opens an invoice in PeachTree, the type of invoice is recognized and prompts a “Magic Button” to materialize like a Superhero to save the day (think Batman and gadgets, cause gadgets are cool.  Unfortunately this has no real relation to this project).  One button press and clickety-clack you’re looking at the requested document in a browser window.

 

 

 

Once we understood what the involved components were, what the final expected behavior of said components should be, and set our timelines, and formulated a plan of attack, we were ready to get started on the construction phase.  So please stay tuned for the next thrilling installment in this 5 part series!

 

Co Authors: Random Kurt-Patrick Duncan McParks & John Hart
ImageSource Inc.

Serendipitous Cerebration (Part 1)

I recently worked on a team tasked with a software integration project that connects invoices from between some Accounting software to ILINX®  Content Store.  The integration software was used for pulling invoice values from both our AP and AR invoices for modifying the image indices for the stored content in ILINX Content Store.  Following a series of patches for Windows, Content Store, and the accounting software, Murphy’s Law began rearing their ugly heads and the integration solution in place that retrieved and updated indices flat quit working.

Most of the issues resolved themselves in short order, but ONE issue – the ability to read one field.  We were able to connect and pull values from every other field on the Accounting form.  To complicate issues more, 2 of the fields from the invoices are used to identify the proper document in Content Store and the broken field was one of these.  Trying to isolate the cause of the issue quickly started feeling like wrestling with a squamous Kimono dragon bent on devouring as much time and resources as a large Monitor lizard can muster.

A couple of techs, multiple attempted connector types, some choice language, and a forehead sized dent in my keyboard later it connected and started pulling.  After all of the hair pulling and frustration I’m left with one of those moments when things started working for no reason and continued to function as originally expected, and while you still need to determine what happened you’re just too ecstatic that the software is no longer harassing you with error messages.

I’d never advise using Serendipitous Cerebration as a preferred method of problem solving.   In fact, if Serendipitous Cerebration is your preferred method of problem solving, chances are there is a lot of floundering around before isolating the issue down to a workable solution.  Which is why I’m guessing that most of us try and not go that route, but I’d bet that there are not many techs out there that have had similar moments when, out of the blue, an issue seemingly resolves itself and all you want to do is jump up and start cheering before attempting to figure out what really corrected the issue.

Please check back for the Part 2 of this 5 part blog on 9/30/11!

 

Co Authors: Random Kurt-Patrick Duncan McParks & John Hart
ImageSource Inc.

Slowing Down?

For those of you with Enterprise Content Management systems, you know that a lot (if not all) of your data is stored in a database.  A lot of times, performance issues are not a result of your Content Management system itself, rather your database is not tuned properly.

Most of what I have to work with is Microsoft SQL Server.  There are a few tips for making sure that your database is performing at its best.  Every system is different, but there are some basic fundamentals that need to be checked.

1)      Memory.   SQL will eat up all the memory you give it.  Make sure that the host machine has plenty available and tune the SQL memory usage so that it does not use up all available memory on the host and slow the whole system.

2)      Network.  Your database server needs to have good connectivity to your client machines.  This means that the network has to have adequate speed and a low enough latency for all SQL connections and data streams to be maintained.

3)      Indexes.  A database uses a basic structure to store information.  Every search it performs has to find a single row, which can be like finding a needle in a haystack.  Fortunately, in addition to rows, SQL also has indexes to aid in searching.  Most systems will use indexes.  However, indexes have a tendency to become fragmented if they are not maintained, so part of your SQL maintenance should be to tune the indexes.

I hope this gets you going in the right direction!  If you feel that your content management system is not performing adequately, let the ImageSource Support Department know!

 

Mike Peterson, MCTS
Support Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

Bits and Bytes

Today’s topic is short and sweet – Backups!  Backups are worth their weight in gold to an administrator. Even though backups have never been put on a scale, we know they weigh a lot! In the world of Enterprise Content Management, backups have to be attacked from many different angles usually.  System registry, databases, filesystems and more have to be backed up and then integrated back together on a restore, which can be complicated to say the least.

But there is one ECM system that does not require complicated backup strategies: ILINX Content Store!  That’s right – all you do is configure database backups.  No registries—file system is completely optional and in the event of a recovery, a fast reinstall of the server software and a database reattach is all that is required.  Conveniently all the settings, data, and preferences are saved in the database.   Compare that backup strategy to other industry-leading ECM systems and you will see how simple it is.

Mike Peterson
Support Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.