Years of developer activity retired…. Just like that
How would a developer who does not have access to KB find anything informative?
Is that intentional?
Why wouldn’t OT give out a fair warning to migrate content for content owners?
Much of code I kept for public consumption was here
So if anybody is looking for that write me I will try to find from local copies
Start with my first article in this series
BTW this is kind of a cookery show kind where they put the main course in the oven and take another finished one .I did not accomplish any of this in one day it took a lot of homework and trial runs.I read the case studies by the great Rob Coutts many times over.
For sanity we decided to use a new box for CS10.5
Recently I was tasked with upgrading our systems from its initial version to two times jump so 971 to 10.5.I will chronicle my experiences here. Perhaps provide a structure.I also want to quell some myths about the whole process just to make sure you can do this logically and correctly.
First create a draft plan,in my draft plan I included this.I would need at least one VM that can house or Production 971 Binaries,a clone of the database and a clone of the EFS.If one had been storing items in perhaps Archive Server one should have a playing copy of that also. An OTAS based livelink upgrade can pose its challenges if not done correctly but it is no different than a EFS if you do it wrong you can write test data into your productive store 🙂 This involves talking to other people like DBA’s and Storage folks as a heavily used LL system can have tons and tons of data.You will most likely encounter the after effects of long time use,different administrators and their styles etc.So after a few failed attempts I understood why OT says a DB5 verification is very important.The Verification basically runs single threaded and will try to pinpoint anomalies in the database.Most likely it will pinpoint content loss such as bulk imports etc without actual version files et al .In my case the database had wrong pointers,duplicate dataid’s (wow),removed KUAf Id’s(somebody had fun with a oracle tool).So after going back and forth between OT and us I just thought like this and created a program(oscript) to check important structures.I list 3,your mileage will vary but essentially I grabbed all categories ,form templates and wf map structures.None of these checks happen in DB5 it just looks for existence.In hilarious cases I uncovered a category data structure mysteriously would turn up as a drawing PDF.One could argue that the users would have noticed, so this was an old category that nobody noticed.You don’t have to do this but each of those anomalies would prevent a upgrade and it is back and forth with OT support so I did it just to get some time advantage.
The second thing was I had to get all the optional modules and our system is no different from any other system a lot of optional modules some inserting schema some not.
The third thing was our systems were customized with Oscript to provide enhanced user experience as well as awesome home written modules that takes the tedium of long running things like category upgrades,permission pushes et al a very intelligent add on to the OI module that people can use generically to upload their data like that.So our team sat down and thought of what we could retire and what we should re-code,refactor so many of them were thrown out .Many useful ones we kept.We particularly liked the Distributed Agent framework,ours is very similar to that but if time comes and there is an appetite we would code it for that.
About the re-coding effort here’s the clunker,we were to use CSIDE .Naturally all of my team are hard core Builder aficionados and boy that was a journey.I probably think we were the first org to do something with CSIDE so naturally I gave them a lot of screenshots and dumps and OT dev was very receptive.In extremely tight time constraints we developed parallel modules in 97 1 and 10 and just just sucked them up for our SRC code maintaining thing called TFS. We also learned how to work parallel on oscript but not being a code churning house our code is not that complicated so if I was working on a module somebody else was working on another as well.
So the environment prepared was
At this point one can take this to a CS10.5 binary and start the upgrade.That is my next article.
BTW- I am not a novice when it comes to Upgrades I started using livelink software in 1999 and has worked in version 8.1.5 so I pretty much know the heartbeat of an upgrade and gets pleasure in challenges and how one methodically removes the challenges.Do not try an upgrade if you have not dry run the procedure without fail a couple of times.In most cases the upgrade can be done timely the planning can take weeks,if not months.
Forms
Forms as the name implies is a object where you can capture input and store them in livelink . The exact methods are only going to serve as what you design your forms to be.I wrote this because a user was asking about this in the KB
Main Attributes: Forms can be made to work only by installing the “Forms Module”,which in turn will give you a Form Template sub type(230). This serves as the straw man for your data requirements.
Installation of WEB FORMS will give you HTML form capability like wise if you install PDF Forms it will give you that capability.
Forms is used extensively in delivering a awesome user experience,however the form template code is very busy and in efficient as it will add unwanted(literally thousands of lines of javascript ) so anything you can do to optimize javascript you can do that. In the course of your work you will create a Form Template,create HTML Views so that user experience can be controlled via javascript logic,thousands and thousands of examples full forms etc in the KB.
In a article where I put earlier where we all were active in communities at one pointhttps://appukili.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/important-free-developer-links/
I find that a OT moderator putting my exact lines as I replied in a post
Little has changed although the product from Patrick Vitali called “Answer Modules” has out rightly taken of the tedium of developing in forms.
Every Which way a Form can be used“https://knowledge.opentext.com/knowledge/cs.dll?func=ll&objId=3501264&objAction=ArticleView&viewType=1”
Almost all organizations will need data in forms to be reported so use SQL as storage.If you keep it at default it could go as version files which is not parsable by a SQL tool nor will it have header info(you won’t know which field is which). Users using the Transmittal product usually get bitten by the fact that most of the work in transmittals revolve around forms and if you don’t make it SQL storage you will never be able to report on it.Actually on my first project installing transmittals I bungled and then I looked under the covers to understand it.Even now there is no mention in any guide saying change forms to SQL storage.A recent help to a 
You can very greatly experience a users’ livelink workflow experience by chnaging the process to use FORMS while maintaining the business logic of the workflow
Advanced Topics in Forms/Workflows
This I put here and only if you know Oscript is this of any use
Livelink Workflows for the impatient
Livelink comes up with a extremely powerful Workflow Engine .At the minimum if you have only installed Livelink OOB you get a decent workflow features.This involves a “business user” to design a logical map that may involve “players” or “roles”.The only criterion is the process needs to be repeatable or it can be plotted in visio or such like.Note Livelink WF came before the wf consortium came up with open standards but it will have almost everything one sees in the standard.
Some key terms-
It is quite possible that a good business user or a livelink user can be trained over a day to understand the process flow/swim lanes.I usually design my maps on a paper.I have a cheat sheet of sorts I maintain and many of the things in this article is based on that. Always check “Verify Map Definition” to understand any problems this may have.
The Item Handler is a predictive step modeled by some placeholder logic( Design Book 3) although which it appear useful it could look frustrating as very little process automation can be done just by it.The workarounds or “auto magic” is usually a human at a prior step.If you use it with XML WF Extensions a lot of “auto magic” can be done with it.
The “XML WF EXtensions” is a optional module that uses the capability of livelink objects to have a XML representation(everybody probably has heard of XML Export/XML Import)
the XML WF Ext uses XML representations of livelink objects and manipulation of those objects by a SAX(or DOM not sure I know LL has both in it ) parser. Usually people get bitten by load balancers and file system permissions.
Like wise -XML Work Flow Interchange.Can send /call Web Services of other systems.
ESign – A specialized workflow that can do electronic signatures prevalent in 21 CFR11 operations.
Perfectly suited for livelink organizations who will not invest in Oscript coding /scared by OT sales/marketing in not writing Oscript understanding of this remarkable product.It was very expensive when I started livelink programming so it is a personal bias as well since I like to look at the map and many times I can get a 1-1 representation to the process.
OT Workflow Design 1 and Design 2 is a must read if you are doing anything with workflows.it also has decent interface methods for web services as well
Privileges
Privileges apply to you as the “user” versus permissions are what the Object allows a “user” to do.There are differences.For e.g for installing something in windows you need to be part of the “administrators” group similarly to install something you need to be in the “system administrators” group. A “administrator group user” has almost very high privileges to do things in a OS similarly they have a high degree of authority in livelink as well.So when a user is created we set at the minimum these privileges Login Enabled and Public Access So when a objects is accessed at run time livelink’s algorithm is does user have login,does user have PA and does Object have PA and what like S,or SC so it is a given that the user will be able to click the link. In very simple terms use PA effectively to address contents that is useful for the whole environment almost like using livelink as a glorified web server.
Now other things are self explanatory has User Creation,System administration and others leading to making Group Leaders etc.In short if you spend some time understanding the architecture you will be amazed and the simple but very effective thought being given into its devlopment.
The Add New Item Truth Table
The livelink system is replete with several subtypes some of the are very useful and harmless like folders,documents etc so nobody changes anything from default. However you would be very concerned if somebody go unauthorized access to Live Reports,workflows,form templates etc,so what I do is I will look at the personal workspace of a default user and see all the “New Items” being shown there.Then I evaluate what should a untrained user be allowed to create in my system.For all the complicated ones I will create a manual group called “r-Form Template Creators” and add ‘Admin’ to that.Now if I have trust to give a group or a user I would expand my group.So when these new person goes and he has permissions to “Add Items,Reserve , Delete” this user will see “Form Template” there. However h(s)e moves to another folder where he has only “S,SC” he does not see it there.Note different object subtypes do different things.I am not keen to explain everything like Tasks,Discussions,Projects ec they are for you to explore and set right.Before releasing a system to production give a simple user access and do some Gorilla Testing that will help you more than the amount of money spent on stress testing.Obviously you should have at laest oe or two good front ends and a good beefy admin server to do your search stuff.
Permissions
At the outset a Livelink system represents some vestiges of a File System like Unix or Dos.People having worked in that is probably familiar with the term U G O which stood for User,Group,Others.This is what you see in the std permission bit of an object on its ACL. Every object has one ,many times you set the container object right and let the inheritance trickle in.In many places if you set it right you can forget it.But if you install livelink Out of the Box and has no training or nobody to watch it over you are probably going to end up in rogue territory.This is because the user ‘Admin’ and ‘Default Group’ has very high permission bits set.Out of which the owner is a role,so if you start a folder where Admin did not willfully do the permissions set normalization and if you gave ‘Appu’ creation privileges for folder when ‘Appu’ creates objects he becomes owner who is very powerful and so on.Now this could be argued as not a big problem until it runs amok.So what a good permission model is Owner See,See Contents or Nothing,Group See,SC or Nothing and PA,S,SC or nothing.Now you will create administrative groups something simlilar to these discussions and you will be fine.
Always rely on proper groups that you can create and maintain in a directory service (AD is very common) and have those groups synchronized in.It is quite possible that HR systems release feeds into Directory services hence when users leave your organization they will go as well.There will be no permission problems because the real administrative group has overriding permissions that the owner based approach.Simple try it and you will be happy and 50 % of your help desk tickets will come down.
This is what one hears in OpenText engagements as “Community Modelling” well my next part will cover object truth tables as well.
Permissions bit use BitWise logic in FileSystems as well as livelink does recently a programmer told me he finds the awesome bitwise logic un understandable.I just thought wow where is the programming world heading into 🙂
There is nothing wrong in owner having high permissions so long as the administration is willing to support it and understand it.
Security Clearance and Supplemental Markings are OT’s way of securing against inheritance rules in big hush hush organizations.
Categories is a template in livelink so that you can “model” your metadata requirements.In essence after you “create” the category and create meaningful “leaves” or “attributes”,you can allow others to use it as models where you can use awesome livelink search api .Here’s the RUB most container objects like Folders does not make the “mandatory” compulsory but if you try to add a versionable subtype like “Document” it becomes mandatory.Now imagine somebody starts using a OT tool like EC or Explorer to copy a file system full of things into livelink,the folder gets replicated but livelink will stop the user from proceeding forward until documents get filled with mandatory metadata.If memory serves me right OT will even allow a flag that says substitute a top filled attribute to be trickled in.Now if you are a programmer,integrator or even a casual user trying to get things done in a jiffy what you need to know is the “mandatory” aspect is tied to a livelink server instance(not globally enforced) as well as reversible in a subtype setting.So you can go to the admin.index and try to navigate to the command “Configure Required Attributes”.You will find that folder is un checked as well as document is checked,this is what prompts the mandatory pop up to occur when you add things.Note if you defeat what the modelers intended you will end up having data that does not get returned in a meta data search.Also try to use the livelink GUI as much as possible before you start programming as programming just replaces the human clicker at the gui, this is often overlooked by all new comers.
Added:Hugh pointed out the fallacy of a default attribute.Yes it is true that people will not put values if it can be inherited.But by the same token if the category is in need pf a upgrade and has 1 million items to be upgraded,it just adds to the cost of programming or operational efficiency.So Moral just do your design judiciously thinking that not only GUI users but there might be times you need to change the values around 🙂
BTW-To supply default values to help in a upgrade is what I have done most in my job 😉 Many times it is a quick and dirty job with the mandatory values read off a file.In my current employment we have a beautiful batch framework that is able to do all bells and whistles almost could sell this to OT.
Form Based Livelink Workflows and WF Attribute based workflows
Coming soon
Oscript is a 4GL that is the basis of the application that the OpenText company adopted when they chose to market Livelink the Document Management System.It is safe to say that anything the Livelink product lacks and is a valid requirement can be coded in this language.The power of the the Oscript language takes root in the philosophy that was prevalent in the 60’s . Oscript is a superior offering to traditional OOP languages such as Java or C++ that is what Pundits say.
To a trained Oscripter one is able to understand how livelink code is received as well as change it.Now change to any COTS product comes at a cost.That is where the strategy as well as overall grasp in the product comes into mind.If the organization has decided for itself that it will spend the big bucks on livelink, one approach is to identify the ways to use it more.Where the organization is going to make mistakes is when it sees the cost of the “customization”.Many decision makers wrongly decide to go after fly by night programmers/vendors to be totally left in the fray.OT has a professional vested interest to sell customers more code and services so I have been in decisions where sales and marketing will say do not customize livelink, but that is only half truth in them.If you buy these OT customizations, they are almost certain to be written in Oscript .In many cases it would have been written by senior Oscripters with thought on maintenance aspects and upgrade ability as well.The same kind of service can be bought by other Oscript houses,in many cases these are extremely talented ex OT ‘ers. Many of the Professional Services modules sometimes outgrows the intents and becomes a marketable module as well.I have no knowledge and am just speculating on that.Once you have identified and decided to use livelink the best avenue is to hire or ask services of reputed vendors.Modules that contained Oscript code that I used to code in 1999 (first time was on a livelink 8 system) livelink 9.1 version I can almost compile in the modern 10.5 version.My entire career was and is fruitful because I tried to interact/collaborate and share with the OT team in the KB as well as smaller websites like Greg Griffiths.I was also able to mentor myself amongst very die hard oscripters that I knew from work and just by tracing code to find bugs that needed closure before OT could provide fixes.The knowledge of OT code also allows me to become a better application architect,administrator and integrator.
If the organization is strong in Java and .Net skills then note that the user interface at this time cannot be changed using those languages,however you may use exposed API’s to make functioning applications that use Livelink as the data store
Typical things organizations can and should do.
Opentext Programmers have black boxed thing so that many things acts as internal API’s.For e.g we are able to do work without understanding how the “Node” itself is created in livelink. Other examples are the way Oscript can talk to the search system.
Not many people know that livelink uses a api to search.
Out of the world Oscript Offerings.
Christopher Meyer a Long OT veteran his website . It is un believable stuff that I have seen.
Patrick Vitali the maker of AnswerModules
IDE’s one can use
CSIDE a eclipse jar file for versions CS10.5
Livelink Builder CS10 and Versions prior.
Finally I found the link to my original blog.In 2007 I joined Alitek as a senior person and was instrumental in training/mentoring most of the people there to fearlessly transgress Oscript .I am not sure if OT marketing /sales because of their vested interests trying to scare people from using the language of the application would create rumors in less technical decision makers of the org.What has happened is a reckless decline of proper design architects in the beautiful language of livelink .It is written in un paralleled style withstanding many patterns of OOP.
In any case what I would advise decision makers is if you have installed and said that Content Server I even hate that name, Livelink it is for me is there for the ORG then hire/train good developers.It does not matter if you cannot get Oscripters. All you need to do is get a good thinking programmer either versed in java or .net technologies.The person could be set for training and that is it.
Do not employ cheap gimmicks like skins,reporting avenues etc. What a org needs can be handled by Oscript. You DO NOT HAVE to look anything other than oscript to get 150 % out of your livelink application.
Link to Patrick Vitali’s Stuff out of the world
Link to Christopher Meyer’s
The above links are concrete proof of why Oscript Rocks Really.
Now anyone who knows their computer science one on one would not be questioning why Oscript could not be mastered.
I was very thrilled to get accolades from OT and was told it was done by a peer group which does mean something to me.Now they gave me a blog and I lost the blog because I could not obey one of their time things.I doubt if OT has a award for selfless souls now most awards I see at CW is for huge accounts and managers .Money talks in software decisions one must conclude.
https://communities.opentext.com/communities/cs.dll?func=ll&objId=8298936&objAction=view
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