AutoManager® Meridian 2003b Readmecad.amsystems.com/.../docs/cyco_meridian2003b_whitepaper.pdf · 2004-02-11 · BEFORE YOU CONTINUE Upgrading to AutoManager Meridian 2003, 2003a

AutoManager® Meridian 2003b Readme Copyright © 2000-2003, Cyco Software BV, Rijswijk, The Netherlands

LICENSE AGREEMENT

By installing this program you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of the "AutoManager® Meridian (End-User) License Agreement", as distributed with AutoManager Meridian 2003.

ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT

This document contains last-minute information and updates to the AutoManager Meridian 2003 documentation. For detailed installation information and system requirements please refer to the AutoManager Meridian 2003 Installation and Administrators Guide, located in the Documentation directory on the CD-ROM. The following topics are covered in this Readme: Before you continue........................................................................................................................... 3

BACKUP! ....................................................................................................................................... 3 What’s New in AM-Meridian 2003b ................................................................................................... 4

New functionality............................................................................................................................ 4 Changes and improvements.......................................................................................................... 4

What’s New in AM-Meridian 2003a ................................................................................................... 7 EDM Server.................................................................................................................................... 7 Programming and Customization ..................................................................................................7 CAD Links ...................................................................................................................................... 7 WebAccess .................................................................................................................................... 8 Viewer ............................................................................................................................................ 8 Usability.......................................................................................................................................... 8 Miscellaneous ................................................................................................................................ 9

Installation Issues ............................................................................................................................10 Installing AM-Meridian 2003b ......................................................................................................10 Installation order ..........................................................................................................................10 Supported and Unsupported upgrades .......................................................................................10 Upgrading the EDM Server from AM-Meridian 2.1 or AM-Meridian 2002...................................10 Upgrading the EDM Server from AM-TeamWork 2003...............................................................10 Importing AM-Meridian 2 or AM-TeamWork vaults .....................................................................11 Automatic Update ........................................................................................................................11 Side-by-side Installations.............................................................................................................11 MS-SQL Server 2000 Service Pack requirements ......................................................................11

EDM Server Notes...........................................................................................................................12 Storing the Streams on another server........................................................................................12 Cache Loader (Applies to upgrade from AM-Meridian 2.x) .........................................................13 Oracle Database Driver ...............................................................................................................14 Privileges......................................................................................................................................14 Archiving ......................................................................................................................................15 Network errors .............................................................................................................................15 Circular references.......................................................................................................................15 Reserving licenses.......................................................................................................................15 Creating Oracle Vaults with similar names..................................................................................16 Windows Server 2003..................................................................................................................16

AM-Meridian 2003b Readme May 27, 2003 1

Minimum Privilege Requirements on Oracle ...............................................................................16 Customization issues.......................................................................................................................17

Compatibility with existing User Interface Extensions .................................................................17 Upgrading from AM-Meridian 2.1.................................................................................................17 Work Area events ........................................................................................................................17 Reporting......................................................................................................................................17 BLE Note......................................................................................................................................18

Application links...............................................................................................................................19 Supported CAD Applications .......................................................................................................19 Saving Inventor Assemblies ........................................................................................................19 Assembly Import Tool and Inventor 5.3 .......................................................................................19 Document Type of Inventor .IDV file............................................................................................19 AutoCAD drawing opens Read-Only ...........................................................................................19 Specifying date format in AutoCAD title blocks ...........................................................................19 Known issues with the Inventor Viewer .......................................................................................20

WebAccess Issues ..........................................................................................................................21 Setting correct security ................................................................................................................21

AM-Meridian Vault Consistency Toolkit...........................................................................................22 The Vault Consistency Wizard.....................................................................................................22 The Stream Recovery Wizard......................................................................................................22

........................................................................................................................................24 Disclaimer


BEFORE YOU CONTINUE

Upgrading to AutoManager Meridian 2003, 2003a or 2003b should be considered a major upgrade if you are on AM-Meridian 2002 or older. It is highly recommended that before installing AM-Meridian 2003 on a production server you perform a trial upgrade in an isolated test environment with copies of both your vaults and your customization. Only after you are satisfied that the upgrade process has the desired result, proceed to install AM-Meridian on a production server. Following a procedure like this will allow you to identify potential problems, and solve them

BACKUP! he daily backups of your critical data you make: before making significant changes to

g the n

together with Cyco, before they become real problems in your production environment.

Apart from tyour AutoManager environment, always perform a “Prepare for Backup” and then make a COMPLETE BACKUP of your system and store it in a safe location. Whether it be upgradinAutoManager software itself, updating some other system components, changing the configuratioor something apparently harmless as adding a Navigation View: ALWAYS make sure you can return to the previous working situation with little effort.


WHAT’S NEW IN AM-MERIDIAN 2003B

This section describes the new functionalities, solved software issues and quality improvements for AutoManager Meridian 2003b.

NEW FUNCTIONALITY The AutoManager 2003b releases introduce the following features.

• Stand-alone office client plus office client enhancements • Reserving licenses • Document type security • Inventor 7 support

We will give you a quick summary of each of these new features. White papers are available to provide more information about the functionality and benefits of each of these new features. OFFICE CLIENT The functionality of the Office Client has been expanded significantly in this newest version, focusing on enhancements in the areas of ease-of-use, user-focused design and collaborative capabilities. The Office Client is now available as a stand-alone client as well as an integrated tool within Windows applications. Users can now run a special client, from which they can perform a myriad of activities, including creating new documents, launching various applications, participating in workflows, and performing work area transitions. The Office Client is only available for AutoManager Meridian. An additional license is required to use the Office Client. RESERVING LICENSES AutoManager Meridian uses a centralized administration to register the licenses that are available for client and server connections. The client and server licenses are based on concurrent usage of the software. AutoManager release 2003b introduces a new feature called ‘reserved licenses’. The ‘reserved licenses’ feature allows customers to reserve a number of licenses to a specific predefined group of users and thereby guaranteeing that a license will always be available for those pre-defined group of users. DOCUMENT TYPE SECURITY New in AutoManager 2003b is the option to have the unique set of document privileges per document type. This allows a more flexible security scheme where the type of document can be used to determine the rights of a user on a particular document. For compatibility reasons, it is still possible to use one set of privileges for all document types and thereby have the same administration and functionality of security as releases before AutoManager 2003b. AUTODESK INVENTOR 7 SUPPORT AutoManager 2003b delivers full support for Autodesk Inventor 7. Inventor 6 SP2 is still supported in this release. Previous Inventor releases are no longer supported with AutoManager 2003b.

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS In addition, the AutoManager 2003b releases contain several minor changes and quality improvements. Each item is described below, categorized by the areas of the software to which they apply. EDM SERVER Fixed and improved issues

• Importing only the latest revision of a document with the Database Import Wizard would actually import the last revision of the document according to sequence in the database in stead of according to the revision number. This is now fixed.


• The EDM Server no longer allows references to be orphaned. The most obvious problem that was caused by this was when revoking a document that had an outgoing reference to a now deleted document: when the document is revoked a reference is recreated to a deleted document, thus creating numerous problems.

PROGRAMMING AND CUSTOMIZATION New functionality

• It is now possible to hide the "Skip wizard" check box for batch imports. This will force users to fill in the document property wizard for each new document. This VB Script code demonstrates how to prevent the "Skip wizard" check box from being shown. Sub DocGenericEvent_InitializeNewDocument(Batch, Action) 'Add your code here If Action = AS_IT_IMPORTED Then Client.Confirmation( AS_CONFIRM_ALLOW_SKIPWIZARD ) = False End If End Sub

• The User object in VB Script has been extended to include an Initials property. This property is also available from VB Extension on the IASUser interface. Users can edit their own Initials from the PowerUser.

Fixed and improved issues • The condition "If New Document" did not work in WebAccess. • It was not possible to use a SYNCVERSIONED property on a wizard page in WebAccess. • The function Document.IsUniqueValue only checked within the current Work Area context.

This is now corrected in that it checks within the entire vault. • The UI Extension Designer now displays a warning before opening a designer project in

Visual Basic that was created with an older version, thus preventing inadvertent upgrading of these projects.

• The "Sort on" property of Reports was ignored. This is now fixed. • The Work Area event AfterAssign() did not work in WebAccess. This is now fixed. • The methods UserHasPrivilege() and IsPrivilegeGrantedToUser() of

IAMRoleBasedSecuredObject3 did not check username correct, and would only return valid results for the current user.

• Due to the implementation change in the Viewer control in AutoManager 2003a the IFlags parameter of the PrintCompleted event was incorrect. This is now corrected and is the same as previous versions.

CAD LINKS Fixed and improved issues

• Functionality is added to the AutoCAD link to better specify the date and time formatting in a title block. See the section “Application Links” further on in this document for details how to use it.

WEBACCESS Fixed and improved issues

• Logon and logoff in WebAccess used a full URL in stead of a relative URL, making it impossible to put the IIS server behind a reverse proxy.

VIEWER Fixed and improved issues

• Viewing Quattro files could result in an error message. • The accuracy of printing circles in AutoCAD drawings has been significantly improved. • In the HPGL/2 viewer several improvements were made for drawings that were previously

shown mirrored. However, there remain certain cases where drawings are still shown mirrored.


USABILNew fun

• The Application Integration now remembers the last used directory in the AutoManager in stead of defaulting to the root.

erUser it is now possible to display the entire contents of the Windows Explorer

n on a document. Through this advanced context

Fixed a•

MIS LNew fun

• The "Print" and "Print preview" commands are now no longer available on the viewer e PowerUser, so that security can be enforced through the Document menu.

d issues

• s on Windows NT 4. This is now fixed.

ero, watermarks would not

ITY ctionality

vault• In the Pow

context menu as part of the standard context menu. To do this press and hold the Shift key while clicking the right mouse buttomenu items like Inventor's Pack and Go are available.

nd improved issues If the displayname of a property contained a forward slash ("/") searching on that propertywould hang the PowerUser. This is now fixed.

CE LANEOUS

ctionality

window in thFixed and improve

• The Compare dialog was not correctly translated into French. Previewing a document with a watermark script defined could crash the PowerUser with certain printer driver

• When the "PrintOpt" registry setting for the viewer was set to zprint. This is now fixed.


WHAT’S NEW IN AM-MERIDIAN 2003A

This section describes the new functionalities, solved software issues and quality improvements for the AM-Meridian 2003a release. This release brings the latest Autodesk CAD support to our new AutoManager line of products, next to a number of significant quality improvements and new functionalities. The highlights of this update are AutoCAD 2004 and Inventor 6SP2 support. Further it is now possible to implement E-mail Notification through a dedicated Task Server. And last but not least, a number of significant improvements in the EDM server ensure the server performance is seriously increased.

EDM SERVER Fixed/Improved issues:

• Communication between MS-SQL and the EDM server has been improved when errors occur. Under certain conditions errors from MS-SQL would not be passed to the EDM Server, causing the write-ahead log files of the database driver to grow, and eventually making the vault unusable.

• Communication between Oracle and the EDM server has been improved when errors occur. Under certain conditions errors from Oracle would not be passed to the EDM Server, causing the write-ahead log files of the database driver to grow, and eventually making the vault unusable.

• Removing history from a large vault could cause the EDM Server to consume all available process memory on the server and eventually crash with an "Out of memory" error.

• Starting with version 2003a the Vault Consistency Wizard is also supported by the Oracle database driver.

• Several small memory leaks have been identified and fixed. • Messages from the Oracle database driver in the Windows Event log incorrectly

mentioned "HyperTrieve" as source. This is now corrected to mention "HyperCache".

PROGRAMMING AND CUSTOMIZATION New functionalities:

• Events and interfaces are added to ease the implementation of functionality to copy entire assemblies.

Fixed/Improved issues:

• A new flag AMCLIENT_EVT_CHANGED_VIEWLIST (AS_RF_CHANGED_VIEWLIST) is added as possible argument to the Refresh() method to make it possible to refresh the View Collections dialog and the Navigation list of the PowerUser after programmatically creating a new collection.

• The AutoEvent AE_AS_WHEN_REFRESHED was fired with the wrong argument when edit mode was cancelled by the user. The EditMode argument was True, while it should have been False. This is now corrected.

• When importing a previously exported Environment Template (.MET file) into a new vault, the order of the columns in Navigation views was reset to the default. The order is now preserved.

• Events and interfaces are added to ease the implementation of functionality to copy entire assemblies.

CAD LINKS New functionalities:

• AutoManager 2003a delivers full support for AutoCAD 2004. • AutoManager 2003a delivers full support for Inventor 6 SP2.


Fixed/improved issues: • Saving a drawing in AutoCAD 2002 under Windows 98 would often fail when a title block

link was used. • When creating a new assembly in Inventor by using the "Create Component" menu option

to add sub-assemblies and parts, saving the main-assembly without intermediately saving the sub-assemblies and parts would result in an error STG_E_FILEALREADYEXISTS ($8000300050).

• Pressing the "Advanced Search" button in the AutoManager Browse window crashed SolidWorks.

WEBACCESS Fixed/improved issues:

• Viewing documents in the Weblink with Advanced NetViewer functionality enabled was not possible if the Web server was accessed through a HTTP proxy.

• Viewing the redlines for documents in the Weblink with Advanced NetViewer functionality enabled was not possible if the Web server was accessed through a HTTP proxy.

VIEWER New functionalities:

• It is possible to use the Kodak Imaging control to view TIF files. See the Cyco Software Knowledge Base article (search for “Kodak”) for details how to enable this viewer.

• Starting with version 2003a it is possible to view Inventor drawings, assemblies and parts using the Inventor Viewer control. This control is a standard part of Inventor Release 6 and later. To install this control stand alone, download and install "Autodesk Inventor Design Tracking" from the Autodesk website.

• Starting with version 2003a it is possible to use VoloView or VoloView Express as viewer for (among others) AutoCAD, Mechanical Desktop and Architectural Desktop drawings.

• The AutoManager View Control has been largely rewritten to allow for the use of VoloView and the Inventor view control as viewers inside AutoManager. As a consequence the class name of the control was changed to AMViewX2Ex. The CLSID, however, was unchanged. If you use the View Control in a custom Visual Basic project, in most cases you would not need to recompile your project. If you do need to recompile, make sure the new Viewer Control is referenced (you will get a number of errors from Visual Basic when you open your project).


• The AutoCAD viewer displayed Unloaded Xrefs as if they were loaded. This is now improved.

• The viewer did not correctly recognize certain AutoCAD Release 14 drawings.

USABILITY New functionalities:

• In the Revisions dialog a "Go to" context menu item is added to the latest replacement of a document to make it easier to switch to the current version.

• In the Revisions dialog the last Replaced version of a document is displayed in green, making it easier to identify the latest released version of a document.


• Because of it's nature the AutoManager File System service logged a lot of identical or similar errors or informational messages in the Windows Event log, thus making it hard to find potential problems from other applications. AMFS now logs its messages to a separate file, located in %WINDIR%\Debug\UserMode\amfs.log.


MISCELLANEOUS New functionalities:

• Starting from 2003a a Task Server is installed with the Meridian software, which enables the implementation of E-mail notification. Note that the Task Server functionality requires Windows 2000 or later.

• The Update installation of 2003a now allows a "Repair" installation that re-applies the installation after modifying the installation with the original 2003 setup.


• "Create thumbnail on import" option didn't work for the first document in a selection, when that selection was imported with drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste.

• After importing an AM-WorkFlow database in AM-Meridian 2.14, and subsequently upgrading to AM-Meridian 2002 or 2003, fields that were empty in the AM-WorkFlow database would disappear after saving the properties in AM-Meridian for the first time. They would re-appear after saving the properties a second time.


INSTALLATION ISSUES

INSTALLING AM-MERIDIAN 2003B AM-Meridian 2003b is distributed only as an Update installation. There are several ways to obtain this Update: INTERNET The Update is available through the Cyco Software Knowledge Base. If you downloaded the Update this way, you can directly run the executable to install the update. You should have installed AM-Meridian 2003 or 2003a already. AM-MERIDIAN CD-ROM On the AM-Meridian 2003b CD-ROM the update is automatically appended to the full AM-Meridian 2003 setup.

INSTALLATION ORDER AM-Meridian 2003, 2003a and 2003b clients (PowerUser, Application Integration, application links) are unable to access older AM-Meridian EDM servers. However, older AM-Meridian and AM-TeamWork clients will be able to access the new AM-Meridian 2003 server. The EDM Server should therefore be upgraded first, and then the clients. Note: The AM-Meridian 2003 server no longer supports some of the methods used by older

clients to submit (or release) documents. Attempts from older clients to submit documents will fail with the message “Not Implemented”. This will be resolved after upgrading the client to AM-Meridian 2003.

SUPPORTED AND UNSUPPORTED UPGRADES Cyco Software has tested and supports upgrading AM-Meridian 2002 Service Pack 2 to AM-Meridian 2003/2003b. If you are still using AM-Meridian 2002 without any service pack or with Service Pack 1, you should upgrade to Service Pack 2 first before continuing with the upgrade to AM-Meridian 2003. If you are using AM-Meridian 2.14 or older, please contact Cyco Software before continuing.

UPGRADING THE EDM SERVER FROM AM-MERIDIAN 2.1 OR AM-MERIDIAN 2002 After installing AM-Meridian 2003 as an upgrade to AM-Meridian 2.1 or AM-Meridian 2002, a reboot will be necessary to complete the installation. After the reboot it is necessary to login under the same user account again to complete the installation process. When the installation is completed and the services on the server are started, the EDM Server will automatically start upgrading the Vaults on the server. Depending on the number of Vaults on the server and their size, it may take some time before all the Vaults are upgraded. During this time it may happen that the Explorer process on the server stops responding for a period of time because AMFS has to wait for the EDM Server to complete upgrading the Vaults. The Explorer should become available again automatically after the EDM Server has finished upgrading. The server will record the upgrade process in the Application Log. You can use the Event Viewer to monitor which vaults have been upgraded.

UPGRADING THE EDM SERVER FROM AM-TEAMWORK 2003 After installing AM-Meridian 2003 as an upgrade to AM-TeamWork the existing vaults need to be upgraded. This is easily done by creating new vaults and importing the old vaults (select the ‘Import Contents from Another vault’ option). After a successful import the original vaults can be removed.


IMPORTING AM-MERIDIAN 2 OR AM-TEAMWORK VAULTS It is not possible to import a vault to AM-Meridian 2003 directly from an older AM-Meridian or AM-

-Meridian 2003 and at the same time keep

AM-Meridian 2002 clients can be upgraded to AM-Meridian 2003 automatically. For details please ase article on this subject:

TeamWork server. If you want to migrate a vault to AMyour existing environment intact, you can do so by doing a “Prepare for backup” on the original vault, then copy the snapshot or backup file to the AM-Meridian 2003 server, and do a “Restart after restore”. After the database is restored, the EDM Server will automatically upgrade it.

AUTOMATIC UPDATE

read the Knowledgebhttp://www.cyco.com/extranet/Meridianknowledgebase.nsf/DBUI/NT0000545E

SIDE-BY-SIDE INSTALLATIONS “Side-by-side” installations are no longer supported, and AMSwitch is therefore not installed with

more.

K REQUIREMENTS For MS-SQL Server 2000, Service Pack 2 or later is required. Not having this Service Pack

rver. Service Pack 3 or newer is

AM-Meridian 2003 setup any

MS-SQL SERVER 2000 SERVICE PAC

installed may lead to access violations in the EDM serecommended because it includes a number of important security fixes.


EDM SERVER NOTES

STORING THE STREAMS ON ANOTHER SERVER With AM-Meridian 2003 it is possible to locate the streams on another machine than the EDM Server is running on. At this moment this has been verified to work with Windows NT/2000 and Novell NetWare 3.2 only. Other platforms, such as SAMBA based shares, were not tested and may or may not work, depending on the configuration possibilities. To be able to achieve this, a number of conditions have to be met:

• The EDM Server must run under a different account than the local System account, which is the default. The account used should have full access to the location where the streams are to be stored.

• A high-bandwidth, low-latency connection between the EDM Server and the Streams server, 100Mbit/s but preferably faster. Because the network traffic between the EDM Server and the Streams server is high volume, a dedicated connection is a must.

• If the streams are stored on a Novell NetWare server use of the Gateway Service for NetWare on the EDM Server machine is required. This means the EDM Server must be running on Windows NT or 2000 Server. Windows NT Workstation or Windows 2000/XP Professional are not supported.

Microsoft SQL Server Starting with AM-Meridian 2002 the authentication of the EDM Server to MS-SQL has changed from SQL authentication to Windows NT authentication. The account information to connect to SQL Server is controlled by three registry values under the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Cyco\AutoManager Meridian 2003\CurrentVersion\Installed DataStores:

MSSQL_<servername>_AccountName MSSQL_<servername>_Password MSSQL_<servername>_WindowsAuthenticationMode

If SQL is located on the local machine, the servername part is empty, so the keys look like this:

MSSQL__AccountName MSSQL__Password MSSQL__WindowsAuthenticationMode

If the value for WindowsAuthenticationMode is 1, then the AccountName must indicate a local or domain NT user account (for example “DOMAIN\Administrator”). If WindowsAuthenticationMode is 0, AccountName indicates a MS-SQL account (for example “sa”). The value for Password can be either an encrypted binary value (this is the way the AutoManager Administrator stores it), or a plain-text string value. You can secure the plain-text password by applying permissions to the Installed DataStores key with REGEDT32. Beware that the account that the EDM Server is running under (by default this is the SYSTEM account) should also have full access to this key. There are several issues you should be aware of:

• When assigning a Windows NT account for use by the EDM Server to access a SQL server, care must be taken that the account is a member of the local Administrators group on the machine running the SQL server, and has the “log on as a batch job” privilege.

• No attempt is made to synchronize the password when changing the password through the AutoManager Administrator. If the password of the Windows NT account needs to be


changed this has to be done first through the Windows User Manager for Domains. After the password has changed there, it has to be changed in the AutoManager Administrator.

• When the EDM Server and the SQL server are running on separate machines, keep in mind that setting the SQL password through the properties of the EDM Server will apply only to the local machine. To set the username and password for the actual connection between the EDM Server and SQL server, this must be done through the properties of the Vault. This account will of course apply to all vaults stored on the remote SQL server.

• When no vaults exist on a remote SQL server, there is no way to set the account and password. By default the ‘sa’ account will be used. If the ‘sa’ account is not available a Windows account will have to be set manually. To do this, first select the account using the EDM Server properties in the administrator. This sets the account for the local machine. This information is stored in the registry under the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Cyco\AutoManager Meridian 2003\CurrentVersion\Installed DataStores: MSSQL__AccountName MSSQL__Password MSSQL__WindowsAuthenticationMode Then edit these keys to include the name of the machine running SQL server. MSSQL_<servername>_AccountName MSSQL_<servername>_Password MSSQL_<servername>_WindowsAuthenticationMode This sets the account used to connect to the remote SQL server. If SQL server is also running locally, then use the EDM Server properties in the administrator to set the local account settings again.

• After installing MS-SQL from the AM-Meridian CD-ROM, SQL is installed with a blank “sa” account password. To change the password use the OSQL utility to execute the sp_password stored procedure: osql -Q "EXEC sp_password NULL, '<new password>', 'sa'" -U sa Using this command will prompt for the current password of the “sa” account. If the password was not previously changed, simply press Enter, otherwise enter the old password for the “sa” account.

CACHE LOADER (APPLIES TO UPGRADE FROM AM-MERIDIAN 2.X) While it is running AM-Meridian keeps a cache of data in memory to avoid disk access and get the best possible performance. AM-Meridian 2002 had some important changes to the way the cache is managed. These also apply to AM-Meridian 2003. AM-Meridian 2.x has a CacheLoader program, which causes the cache of AM-Meridian to be loaded by pre-fetching data that will probably be needed from disk. By running this program outside working hours after creating a backup, the initial performance of the server is better when people start working with AM-Meridian the next morning. The CacheLoader in AM-Meridian 2.x has several shortcomings. The CacheLoader needs to be scheduled as a separate task by the administrator. It is controlled by an .INI file, which must be carefully tuned in order to get the best possible performance. Since CacheLoader is not a service, it must be run from a station that is logged in to the network. CacheLoader needs a lot of time to


initialize the cache; on large databases it can take several hours. In case the server is restarted during working hours, this is impractical because the load generated by the CacheLoader is so big that "real" users experience very poor performance while CacheLoader is running. In AM-Meridian 200X, a cache loader is integrated into the AM-Meridian server, and therefore transparent to the system administrator. The cache loader is much more efficient and self-tuning, meaning that it dynamically adjusts to the way AM-Meridian is used. When the server shuts down or when a Prepare for Backup is done, it writes a .CHE file to the vault directory describing the currently loaded data; when the server is started again, it uses the information in the .CHE file to reload the cache. The integrated cache loader in AM-Meridian 200X is tuned such that it will run at a lower priority then other transactions. Therefore, if the server is restarted during working hours, it will not further degrade performance of normal users (although the fact that the cache itself is not yet initialized will initially cause slower response). In case the server is restarted after an abnormal termination such as a power failure or software crash, the cache will be cleared. As users start accessing the vault, the EDM Server will rebuild the cache. A shortcoming in AM-Meridian 2.x is that when a snapshot was created, or when the user would do Prepare for Backup, this would cause the entire cache to be cleared. Starting with AM-Meridian 2002, the cache loader does not reload the cache at that point, and performance during snapshots and Prepare for Backup is much better than with AM-Meridian 2.x. If you are migrating from AM-Meridian 2.x and you are currently using the CacheLoader program, you are advised to no longer use it with AM-Meridian 2003. In fact, the external CacheLoader program is no longer provided with AM-Meridian 2003. You should be aware that when you start using AM-Meridian 2002, its cache will initially be empty (because there is not yet a .CHE file) and therefore you may experience sluggish performance at first. This will quickly improve over time.

ORACLE DATABASE DRIVER In AM-Meridian 2003 the Oracle database driver is included. The Administrator’s guide contains a section on using AM-Meridian on an Oracle server. Note: The Vault Consistency Wizard supports vaults based on the Oracle driver starting from

AM-Meridian 2003a. In AM-Meridian 2003 this was not supported.

PRIVILEGES AM-Meridian 2003 introduces new privileges. By default none of the user roles will have these privileges. After upgrading to AM-Meridian 2003 you will have to assign these privileges. From the Configurator you can select the roles that provide access to the related new features. The new privileges are: Category Name Comment Shared Dynamic Collection Create Save a find result as a shared dynamic

collection Shared Dynamic Collection Delete Shared Dynamic Collection Edit Shared Dynamic Collection Execute query Using a shared collection. Shared Dynamic

Collections are created from the PowerUser. By default all roles will have this privilege for a new collection.

Report Execute report For each report you need to assign this privilege to the roles that are allowed to use it.


Please note that the role assignments on the root folder of the vault will determine the access to Reports and Shared Dynamic Collections. Further details about these privileges can be found in the Configurator Guide.

ARCHIVING With AM-Meridian 2003 an archiving utility is provided. Revisions of documents can be exported from the vault to an open archive format. Property values are stored in a database and document content is copied to a folder structure. Outdated revisions can optionally be removed from the vault. Please note that archiving can be a lengthy operation and causes a considerable load on the

the current – first – implementation, archiving is a lengthy memory intensive operation. Cyco is

o archive in a single batch to 3,000 to 5,000. t version

ote: The EDM server setting “Optimize for best single-user performance” will improve the

NETWORK ERRORS L Server or Oracle RDBMS as a back-end for the EDM Server, it may happen

n using MS-SQL and

CIRCULAR REFERENCES n 2003 the EDM Server no longer allows the creation of circular

ain to

hen importing an existing assembly that has circular references with the Assembly Import Tool,

RESERVING LICENSES n uses a centralized administration to register the licenses that are available

utoManager release 2003b introduces a new feature called ‘reserved licenses’. The ‘reserved

an

server. We advise to perform archiving operations on a limited set of documents at a time and outside office hours. Inworking to improve performance and reduce memory consumption. In the mean time, when archiving please consider the following:

• Limit the number of documents t• After importing the database size is not automatically decreased. In the curren

this can only be achieved by importing into a new vault.

Nserver performance during an archiving operation. Always return this setting to “multi-user” before regular users log-on to the system.

When using MS-SQthat the connection between the EDM Server and the database server is lost. This can happen for example when the network cable has been disconnected, or when the SQL or Oracle service have been restarted. Typical error messages that may appear in these cases are “[DBNETLIB][ConnectionWrite (WrapperWrite()).]General network error.” whe“ORA-12571: TNS:packet writer failure.” when using Oracle. The solution to these problems is to restart the EDM Server service in the Control Panel.

Starting with AM-Meridiareferences between documents. Existing circular references between documents will remexist, but it is not possible to create new ones. Wall references will be created correctly up to the point they turn back to refer to the main assembly.

AutoManager Meridiafor client and server connections. The client and server licenses are based on concurrent usage of the software. Each user draws out of a pool of licenses for the licenses required when accessing an AM-Meridian vault. Alicenses’ feature allows customers to reserve a number of licenses to a specific predefined groupof users. From the license server machine the system administrator can configure that particular licenses need to be reserved for particular user groups. For example, engineers need to have access to a HyperTrieve and PowerUser license. With such a license reservation those users calways enter the system.


Please see the Installation and Administrator’s Guide for more technical details on how to onfigure ‘reserved licenses’ at an AutoManager Meridian installation.

With Oracle-based vaults the table names that the AM-Meridian server includes a prefix based on example, when creating a vault named “Oracle

AutoManager Meridian 2003b has been tested and found working on Windows Server 2003. ult locked down security settings in Internet Information Server 6.0,

ue.

The Installation and Administrator’s Guide documents the required privileges for the “MERIDIAN” d “UNLIMITED TABLESPACE”. Further research

CE Note that UNLIMITED TABLESPACE can also be achieved by other means, for example Quota.

eware that it is essential that the EDM Server has sufficient space. If the EDM Server runs out of

c

CREATING ORACLE VAULTS WITH SIMILAR NAMES

the first eight characters of the vault name. For Vault 1”, the table names for this vault all will have the prefix “ORACLE_V”. If you then attempt to create a second vault in the same Oracle Instance with the name “Oracle Vault 2”, the prefix forthe table names is identical. To create vaults with names that are identical in the first eight characters, use a separate Oracle Instance for each vault.

WINDOWS SERVER 2003

However, due to the defaWebAccess will not work with the default settings. Cyco Software is working to resolve the iss

MINIMUM PRIVILEGE REQUIREMENTS ON ORACLE

account in Oracle to be “CONNECT”, “DBA”, anhas shown that the minimal requirement is in fact:

• CREATE PROCEDURE • CREATE SEQUENCE • CREATE SESSION • CREATE TABLE • UNLIMITED TABLESPA

Btable space the vault will very likely be corrupted and will need to be restored from a backup.


CUSTOMIZATION ISSUES

COMPATIBILITY WITH EXISTING USER INTERFACE EXTENSIONS One of the starting points for any release of AM-Meridian is to maintain compatibility of existing customization. Also for the AM-Meridian 2003 release most existing customization can be (re) used without being recompiled. One known exception is caused by an optimization in use of Part References. DOCUMENTS WITH PARTS When submitting (or releasing) a document, AM-Meridian will automatically submit any parts that are referenced by this document. Before AM-Meridian 2003 this functionality was implemented by the AM-Meridian server methods:

• IAMVersionable2.EndDraftVersionEx • • IAMDocumentWorkFlow.ReleaseDocument

• IAMVersionable4.EndDocumentDraftVersion • IAMDocumentWorkFlow3.SetStateToReleased

IAMVersionable3.EndDraftVersionExWithComment

These methods have been replaced by

Any customization that calls these methods directly should be adjusted. You can replace the method calls by one of the new server methods. Note: The new server methods will not check for part references. Please contact our support

department if your customization code requires this functionality. Sample code will be made available to demonstrate how the client libraries can be used to implement this.

MULTIPLE REVISIONS PER TRANSACTION The AMM server cannot create more then one revision of a document per transaction. The AMM 2003 server methods BeginDraftVersion and ChangeState will return an error when attempting to create a second revision.

UPGRADING FROM AM-MERIDIAN 2.1 Customization issues regarding upgrade from AM-Meridian 2.1 are described in this knowledge base article: http://www.cyco.com/extranet/Meridianknowledgebase.nsf/DBUI/NT000054DA

WORK AREA EVENTS AM-Meridian will fire events for each document that is added to, or removed from, a Work Area. In previous versions of AM-Meridian special code was required to modify property values from these events (as described in http://www.cyco.com/extranet/MeridianKnowledgeBase.nsf/DBUI/NT0000543A). As of AM-Meridian 2003 this is no longer required. Property values can be modified using the normal Get/SetPropertyValue method that is available in the UIExtension designer.

REPORTING AM-Meridian 2003 introduces configurable reporting functionality. You can optionally generate reports as text files or MS Office documents (Word, Excel, Access). Please note that this requires MS Office 2000 or later to be installed on the client machine. MS Office 97 (or older versions) and other Office suites are not supported.


http://www.cyco.com/extranet/Meridianknowledgebase.nsf/DBUI/NT000054DA

http://www.cyco.com/extranet/MeridianKnowledgeBase.nsf/DBUI/NT0000543A

BLE NOTE The Business Logic Extensions (BLE) are developed for a specific market and can be used as a FREE additional software extension on the standard AM-Meridian software. The BLE are delivered as 'sample code' - with an independent 'Set up' - and thus must be considered as 'as is'. Although Cyco Software will keep on improving and developing the BLE, these software extensions are NOT part of the standard software product that is covered by our AM-Meridian subscription program. The BLE as they are offered in AM-Meridian right now, are therefore not supported by our Helpdesk.


APPLICATION LINKS

SUPPORTED CAD APPLICATIONS For a list of supported CAD applications, please see this Knowledge Base article: http://www.cyco.com/extranet/Meridianknowledgebase.nsf/DBUI/NT0000554A

SAVING INVENTOR ASSEMBLIES After modifying an assembly in Inventor, it is possible that Inventor will want to save a large number of the parts or subassemblies, even if these files were not affected by the change. Obviously, Inventor cannot save these files if they are not currently Under Change or are Working Copies. It is currently still necessary to manually indicate to Inventor to not save these files when prompted. ASSEMBLY IMPORT TOOL AND INVENTOR 5.3

tor 5.3 and Inventor 6, the Assembly Import Tool is not

DOCUMENT TYPE OF INVENTOR .IDV FILE file is linked to the .IAM file in a way that forces them to

o make this work, the Document Types for the .IDV file and the .IAM file must have the same

AUTOCAD DRAWING OPENS READ-ONLY -only in AutoCAD, even though it is a working copy for the

o be repaired. To open the drawing read-write so

AD. • n

SPECIFYING DATE FORMAT IN AUTOCAD TITLE BLOCKS r title block, what date/time format to use. To

ITLEBLOCK] rmat=[format string]

he format string can consist of one or two parts: one for the date, and one for the time. To specify

ate formatting options: h.

s two digit number with leading zero. breviation is determined by the

systems regional settings.

Because of incompatibilities between invenable to resolve references when importing an assembly when Inventor 5.3 is installed. In this case it is necessary to import the assembly manually and do Update References afterward. With Inventor 6 installed the Assembly Import Tool will resolve references correct.

Starting with AM-Meridian 2003 the .IDVbe in the same workflow state. This will make sure that the person that has the assembly under revision is able to update the .IDV file as well. Tworkflow. If they do not it will be impossible to release the assembly.

When an AutoCAD drawing opens readcurrent user, there are two possible causes:

• The drawing is damaged and needs tthat it can be repaired, close the drawing, disable the viewer in the AM-Meridian PowerUser, and open the drawing again. Then use the AUDIT command in AutoCThe viewer in the AM-Meridian PowerUser did not release the drawing fast enough whethe PowerUser lost focus. Disable the viewer, and open the drawing again.

For the AutoCAD link it is now possible to specify, pespecify the format, add a value to the relevant title block definition in the AutoCAD Application Link Settings: [TTitleBlockDateFo Ta date format use “D{date format string}”; to specify a time format, use “T{time format string}”. If an empty string is used (“D{}” and “T{}”) the system settings are used for short formats. If not TitleBlockDateFormat value is specified at all, the default “D{}” will be used. Dd Day of the montdd Day of the month addd Day of the week as three letter abbreviation. The used ab


http://www.cyco.com/extranet/Meridianknowledgebase.nsf/DBUI/NT0000554A

dddd Day of the week as full name. The used name is determined by the systems regional settings.

MM two digit number with leading zero. M r abbreviation. The used abbreviation is determined by the systems

y umber without leading zero.

yy

form Hours in 12-hour notation.

notation as two digit number with leading zero.

ingle character. The used abbreviation is determined by the systems

ample

{dddd MMMM d yyyy} T{hh:mm:ss tt} Sunday June 1 2003 02:04:23 PM yyyy} T{HH:mm:ss} 01-Jun-2003 14:04:23

is likely that the link between AutoCAD nd AutoManager is unable to convert the values back from the title block to the AutoManager

ROLLING THE INVENTOR VIEWER Starting with version 2003a it is possible to view Inventor drawings, assemblies and parts using

a standard part of Inventor Release 6 and later. To install "Autodesk Inventor Design Tracking" from the

and hold mouse wheel • Zoom – Turn the mouse wheel

VIE NWh v pable of locating parts and subassemblies the a embly was last saved. After importing an

ly Import Tool these new locations typically do not match the original

the part or assembly before the last save. This is caused by the ventor Viewer control not releasing the file. To work around this issue, close the AM-Meridian

PowerUser, and start it again.

M Month as number. Month as

MM Month as three letteregional settings.

MMMM Month as full name. The used name is determined by the systems regional settings. Year as two digit n

yy Year as two digit number with leading zero. yy Year as four digit number. Time atting options: hhh Hours in 12-hourH Hours in 24-hour notation. HH Hours in 24-hour notation as two digit number with leading zero. m Minutes. mm Minutes as two digit number with leading zero. s Seconds. ss Seconds as two digit number with leading zero. t AM/PM string as s

regional settings. tt AM/PM string as word. The used text is determined by the systems regional settings.

Ex s: DD{dd-MMM-D{m-d-yy} T{h:mmt} 6-1-03 2:04p Note that when specifying date/time formatting strings it avault. KNOWN ISSUES WITH THE INVENTOR VIEWER CONT

the Inventor Viewer control. This control is install this control stand alone, download andAutodesk website. To control the display of the viewer, the following controls are available:

• Pan – Press

• Rotate – Press and hold the left mouse button

WI G ASSEMBLIES en iewing assemblies the Inventor Viewer is only ca

y re at the same location they were when the assifassembly with the Assemblocations and therefore the assembly will show up empty. To resolve this, open the assembly in Inventor and save it once. VIEWER NOT DISPLAYING THE CURRENT STATE Under certain conditions it is possible that the Inventor viewer does not display the last saved tate, if the viewer opened s

In


WEBACCESS ISSUES

SETTING CORRECT SECURITY When using WebAccess on a default installation of Internet Information Services 5, updating thumbnails, synchronizing properties and other functionality may appear to fail without any direct cause. Also some access denied errors might occur. The most common cause for these problems is that the Application Protection setting may be set to the default “Medium (Pooled)” which causes the WebAccess to run under the IWAM_<computername> account. There are two possible solutions to this problem:

• Change the Application Protection setting to “Low”. This causes WebAccess to run in the same process as the IIS service.

• Make sure that the IWAM_<computername> account has read permissions on the entire Inetpub folder, and “Modify” permissions on the AMTemp folder (default location C:\Inetpub\Scripts\AMTemp).

Note that the Application Protection setting is the preferred solution if AutoManager WebAccess is the only application using on the IIS server. It has little effect on security, but it merely makes sure IIS application can be run isolated from each other.


AM-MERIDIAN VAULT CONSISTENCY TOOLKIT

In an AM-Meridian vault certain inconsistencies may start to exist over time, especially if the vault .0 or earlier. Some of these inconsistencies may lead to the

ream ached

THE VAUThe sthis wiza sure it is availa

sure you have executed the ‘Prepare for Backup’ command in the AM-Administrator for this vault, and backed up the resulting snapshot or .BAK file to tape. To run the Vault Consistency Wizard, open the Explorer, and browse to the AM-Meridian Program folder. There, execute AMVltCons.exe. The wizard will now guide you through the process. In the case an SQL database is used, the performance of the Vault Consistency Wizard can be improved by increasing the LoggingLimit registry setting under the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cyco\AutoManager Meridian\CurrentVersion\Installed DataStores\GrayVault2\CompoundItemService] "LoggingLimit"=dword:00000008 This registry value contains the maximum amount of room to use for write-ahead log files for the SQL driver in megabytes. The default value is 8. Please note that after running the Vault Consistency Wizard on a SQL database the database filenames will have slightly changed. The SQL database name, and AM-Meridian vault name should however be the same as before running the wizard. After the Vault Consistency Wizard is finished, the repairs done by it can be found in CHECK.TXT in the vault’s directory.

THE STREAM RECOVERY WIZARD The second part of the Vault Consistency Toolkit is the Stream Recovery Wizard. Streams (the document content) that are no longer attached to their document object in the database may contain valuable data. The Stream Recovery Wizard will collect all these unattached streams and collect them in a folder of your choice. Because the connection between the document content and the properties (filename, document type, project, etc) has been lost it is not possible to automatically move the document to its correct location in the database. Also the recovered file will have a cryptic filename, such as {0F5092F4-CE15-11D5-0000-8FA0546EE97A}. Categorizing, renaming and moving the recovered documents unfortunately need to be done manually.

dates back to AM-Meridian 2document content being detached from the document in the database. To repair these inconsistencies a toolkit is now available, consisting of two separate wizards:

1. First, the Vault Consistency Wizard is run to repair any inconsistencies in the vault. 2. When the first step (the Vault Consistency Wizard) is successfully completed, the St

Recovery Wizard is run to retrieve any streams from the vault that are no longer attto documents.

LT CONSISTENCY WIZARD fir t part of the Vault Consistency Toolkit is the Vault Consistency Wizard. Essentially, what

rd does is create a new database while importing from the original one, and makeble under the original name.

Creating this new database with the Vault Consistency Wizard can take a long time depending on the size of the database. Only run this wizard during off hours, such as the weekend. Before running the Vault Consistency Wizard, make


If you select a target folder somewhere in the same database, you can start categorizing and moving the recovered streams as soon as the wizard is finished, with the assistance of the viewer

leting them the Configurator. A

lot o e ction is n e The Stream Recovery Wizard may also be useful to gather unattached streams after a ‘Restart after Restore’ has been done. In that case the latest added streams most likely do not have a

the restored backup.

n the loss of

built in the PowerUser. Note that older versions of AM-Meridian also simply detached these streams without dewhen for example a Working Copy was revoked or inserting a new template in

f th streams recovered by the wizard will be these kinds of documents and manual seleeed d.

corresponding document object in To run the Stream Recovery, open the Explorer, and browse to the AM-Meridian Program folder. There, execute AMStmRec.exe. The wizard will now guide you through the process. Note: It is theoretically possible to manually configure multiple AM-Meridian vaults in a way that

they use the same directory to store their streams. The Stream Recovery Wizard does not support such a configuration, and using it in such a configuration could result istream data.


DISCLAIMER

The information provided in this document is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Cyco oftware disclaims all warranties, either express or implied, including the warranties of

dvised of the possibility of such damages. Some states do not allow the exclusion or mitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages so the foregoing limitation may not

Smerchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall Cyco Software or its suppliers be liable for any damages whatsoever including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, loss of business profits or special damages, even if Cyco Software or its suppliers have been aliapply.


Documents

AutoManager® Meridian 2003b Readmecad.amsystems.com/.../docs/cyco_meridian2003b_whitepaper.pdf · 2004-02-11 · BEFORE YOU CONTINUE Upgrading to AutoManager Meridian 2003, 2003a