Introduction to ElliottÒ V8.0

Overview

Version 8.0 brings major improvements in user experience and database security to Elliott.  At the same time, however, it remains database-compatible and feature-compatible with Elliott V7.5.  In fact, an organization can run both V7.5 and V8.0 at the same time.  Individual users can switch back and forth between versions for different tasks, or even run both versions on their desktops at the same time.  Because of this database-compatibility and feature-compatibility, upgrading to Elliott V8.0 is a low-risk opportunity.

New Features

There are many new features and enhancements in this release:

• Navigation: A new Microsoft Office®-like Control Center replaces the V7.5 menu system.
• Three User Interface Options:  For PC, tablet and mobile devices.
• Tasks and Fonts: Each task is launched in a separate window, referred to here as a Legacy Screen, with more intuitive control of fonts.
• Security: A revamped directory structure enhances database security and simplifies updates.
• Help: Web-based Help ensures the latest documentation is always available.
• Reporting: Reporting improvements include multiple, simultaneous destinations; Deferred Processing improvements; and a new, more powerful Report Viewer.
• Spooled Reports Manager: A new Office-like Spooled Reports Manager program improves the access and management of spooled reports.
• Spooled Reports Structure: A new Spooled Reports architecture removes previous limitations, eliminates need for archiving, enhances security of reports and greatly reduces disk space requirements.
• Drill Down: Drill-down limitations are removed and capabilities improved.
• eContacts Processor: A more intuitive eContacts Processor (Mass Email) includes the ability to send HTML content.
• SMTP Email: Industry-standard SMTP improves Email capabilities.
• Continuous Notes: Elliott notes that are not Tickers and do not have labels are treated as continuous notes, with word-wrap, traditional cut/copy and paste, and the ability to see the entire content of the note on a single screen.

Requirements

PervasiveÒ PSQL Database

Elliott V8.0 will require the PervasiveÒ PSQL 11 or PSQL 12 database engine to run.  You may obtain a copy of PSQL 11 or 12 from your Elliott reseller, if you do not already own a copy.  For the best performance, we recommend the 64-bit version of PSQL 12.  The 64-bit PSQL 11 and 12 database engines require a 64-bit server (e.g., Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 2012).  Since Elliott itself is a 32-bit application, we will continue to support 32-bit operating systems like Windows XP through Windows 8.

Client Operation Systems Support

Elliott V8.0 will run on the following client operating systems:

            Windows XP (all versions)

            Windows Vista (all versions)

            Windows 7 (all versions)

            Windows 8 (all versions except Windows RT)

            Windows 10

Server Operating Systems Support

Elliott V8.0 will run on the following server operating systems:

            Windows 2003 Server (32- or 64-bit)

            Windows 2008 Server (32- or 64-bit)

            Windows 2012 Server (64-bit)

Microsoft® .NET Framework V3.5

This version of Elliott requires Microsoft.NET Framework V3.5.  If it is not already installed on your computer, you may download it from www.microsoft.com . All new PCs come with Microsoft.NET Framework V4.5 or 4.6 preinstalled.  However, .Net 4.5 or 4.6 is not 100% backward compatible with .Net 3.5. Therefore, if your PC does not have .Net 3.5 installed, we suggest you manually download .Net 3.5 from the Microsoft website.

Platform Requirement Cross Check

To assist you in determining if Elliott 8.0 will work in your environment, we are listing the requirements of .Net & PSQL by operating system as follows:

Setup and Configuration

Planning Elliott 8.0 Installation

Typically, Elliott is installed on a central server shared folder where all users map a remote drive to that shared folder.  If you previously used Elliott 7.x, then chances are you already have a mapped drive and folder like the following:

            M:\Elliott7

You may not be using the same drive letter M: or same \Elliott7 directory.  But all your users in the local area network need to map the same drive letter and path in order to use Elliott.  The same principle stays true for Elliott 8.0.

In Elliott 7.x, some programs are stored in the Elliott root directory (e.g., M:\Elliott7), and some programs are stored in Elliott Programs subdirectory (e.g., M:\Elliott7\Programs). On the other hand, in Elliott 8.0 all executables, DLLs, and program libraries are stored in a central subfolder of the Elliott directory.  By default, this subfolder is the “Bin” folder (e.g., M:\Elliott7\Bin).  This eliminates the need to give users read and execute rights to the Elliott root directory, and makes securing Elliott directories a lot easier to manage.  With Elliott 8.0, only the “Traverse and List Folder” rights are needed for the Elliott root directory.

If you are already running Elliott 7.x and want to upgrade to Elliott 8.0, then you may use the ELLIOTT8.EXE installation package, which will create the BIN subdirectory in your existing Elliott root directory and copy all the program files to that directory.

If you are installing Elliott 8.x from scratch, then you may use the ELLIOTT8.EXE installation package for the installation.  By default, “C:\Elliott8” will be used for installing, but you may install to any network drive and path.  The whole Elliott folder and subfolders like “Bin” and others will be created.

Set Up Elliott Desktop Shortcut

Elliott installation utilities are intended for setting up or updating the shared folder on a remote network drive only. There is no separate Elliott client installation utility to install on each workstation.  In order to run Elliott 8.0 from the workstation, you will need to go to each workstation and make sure you have the remote drive mapped and can access the Elliott 8.0 folder like M:\Elliott7 or M:\Elliott8.

Throughout this document, when we mention <root>, it means the root directory for your Elliott installation.  This can be, for example, “M:\Elliott7” or “F:\Elliott8.” Whenever, we mention the <root>, replace it with the actual drive letter and path where your Elliott is installed.

To allow a workstation to run Elliott 8.0, go to the <root>\Bin directory and run CreateElliott8Shortcuts.exe.

This program will allow you to choose which desktop icons you would like to create. There are several options available. The program will pre-select the Elliott 8 shortcut. At your discretion, there are several other EXEs in the same <root>\Bin folder you can set up on user’s workstation as well:

            EL800CF.EXE           Elliott V8 Configuration Utility

            EL800DP.EXE           Elliott V8 Defer Processing

            EL800GE.EXE           Elliott V8 eContacts

            EL800ME.EXE          Elliott V8 Mass Email

            EL800ME.EXE –E     Elliott V8 Export Processor

            EL800TK.EXE           Elliott V8 Tickler

If a workstation has never run Elliott before, then chances are you will need to install Pervasive PSQL Client V11 or V12.

Configuring Elliott V8.0

After installing Elliott V8.0, you need to make some configuration changes.  If this is the first time you have started Elliott, the system will detect that the EL800.CFG file does not exist in your startup <root>\Bin directory (e.g., M:\Elliott7\Bin).  Therefore, the ElliottV8.0 System Configuration utility will start up automatically.  You can also use EL800CF.EXE in the Bin folder (<root>\Bin) to set up Elliott Configuration first.

The following form will be displayed:

Descriptions of the configuration entries follow:

Default Printer Port

This is to specify the default LPT port for the “Raw Data Pass Through” feature.  You should leave it at “LPT1” unless you have a special reason to change it.

Country

The Canadian version is different from the US version.  Make sure you are using the right version for your country.

Options

• Use Elliott Deferred Processing:  Check this box to indicate that you intend to run Elliott Deferred Processor on the server console, and preferably on a 24x7 basis to serve as a report engine. If this box is not checked, you will not be able to use Deferred Processing or the new Run Now reporting feature in the printing option window.
• Share Configuration Info with NETcellent (recommended): Checking this box allows Elliott to occasionally send configuration (setup) information to NETcellent. Because NETcellent wants to focus on improving features that our users actually use, this will help us with development of future improvements.

Email Settings

These email settings describe the primary way in which your installation will be sending email.  These settings can be individually overridden by any user by using the Misc. tab in the Setup process on the Control Center Toolbar.

• SMTP (recommended):  Select this option to indicate that your installation primarily will be using SMTP for sending email.  When you select this option, more fields will be available for specification.
• MAPI:  Select this option to indicate your installation primarily will be using MAPI for sending email.  You might choose this option if your email service provider does not support SMTP, even if authentication information can be provided. Sometimes, your ISP may disable SMTP traffic. You may need to discuss this with your ISP to enable SMTP support, or use MAPI.

If you specify SMTP, you will have the following options in the SMTP Settings group:

• Server:  Enter your email server name.  If the port number is not 25, enter the server name, followed by a colon, followed by the port number.
• Use Authentication:  Check this box if your server requires authentication, and enter the following parameters as well:
• Ignore Certificate Errors:  Check this box if your server has a self-signed certificate and you wish to ignore certificate errors.
• User Name:  Enter the user login name.
• Password:  Enter the user’s password.
• Enable SSL:  Check this box if your server requires SSL encoding.

Because no legitimate SMTP server can be an open relay server due to spamming issues, chances are that you will need to provide authentication information if your mail server is hosted outside of your company.  If you have an internal SMTP server (like Exchange), you could skip the verification since you can configure your internal mail server to relay emails from the internal IP addresses in your company.

• Admin Email:  Enter the email address and name for the default From name and address.  In Elliott, any outgoing Elliott-generated SMTP email will get its From name and address from User Setup in the Password Setup function.  In the event that the From name and email are not specified or not valid in User Setup, this default Admin name and email will be used.

Additional Options

• Amigos…:  Amigos is a term in Elliott referring to Notes, eContacts, Attributes, Events and Links. Pressing this button will display the following dialog:

Here you specify how your users, by default, will interact with the Notes, eContacts and Attributes lists.  When you check an option here, whenever you select a Note from the list of Notes, etc., it will appear in a separate process, independent of the process you are on.  This allows you to view multiple Notes at the same time.

However, it takes longer to launch a separate process than to simply display the screen in the same process, and it takes more memory.  If the majority of your users have workstations that are slow or have minimum memory, you should not check these options.  Each user can override these system-wide defaults in the User Preferences screen.

• Reports…:  Pressing this button will display the following dialog:

Check any of these options to alter the appearance of printed reports in Elliott.

• More…:  Pressing this button will display the following dialog:

• Display Screen Updates:  This is for changing the screen update interval.  By default, the Elliott legacy screen updates for every 50 display actions or when there is an input field or condition that is waiting for a keystroke.  For example, in customer file maintenance, Elliott displays all literals at one time instead of individually.  This is for performance purposes.  Sometimes, from a developer’s standpoint, when you animate a program and do not see updates as the action is taking place, it can be confusing.  This is one reason you may wish to change the default setting from 50 to 1, for example.

• DDF Options:

·         Require DDFs to create non-work files:  Checking this box will cause a message box to be displayed whenever any non-work file is created without a matching DDF definition. This alerts the user that a file has been created that may not be SQL compliant and ODBC compatible and may prevent you from using tools like Crystal Reports to access the file.

When such a message box is displayed, make note of the file name.  If  SQL compliance is desired for that file, you need to obtain a DDF for it and run DDF2BTR.Exe against that file to bring its SQL definition up-to-date.  SQL compliance is often desirable if you need to access the table through Report Writer or if another application depends on ODBC or ADO.NET integration.

·         Use V7 DDFs for backward compatibility:  If you are still running Elliott V7, you should select this option.  It will make sure that any newly-created non-work files will use V7 DDFs.  V8 DDFs have some structural differences, including single-column account numbers, which could conflict with Crystal Reports programs that use V7 DDFs.

When you no longer are running Elliott V7, you need to unselect this option and run DDF2BTR.Exe on all your database files.  That will make sure your database files match the V8 DDFs.  You should also test and correct any external code (e.g., programs developed in Crystal Reports) -- there could be mismatched column names for account numbers.

Manual Configuration Settings

There are a few additional configuration options that most users will not need.  If you want to specify any of the following options, use a text editor to modify EL800.CFG in the <root>\Bin directory.  In the [Configuration] section, you can add the following options:

• HideCCToolbar=Yes:  Specify Yes if you do not want your users to have access to the toolbar functions of the Elliott Control Center (main menu).  We suggest that you not check this option since it will limit your users’ Elliott V8 experience.
• HideCCFreq=Yes: Specify Yes if you do not want your users to see the Frequency columns for tasks in the Control Center.
• HideCCProgram=Yes:  This will hide the Program column in the Control Center.
• HideCCSeq=Yes:  This will hide the Sequence column in the Control Center.
• HideCCLastRunByMe=Yes: This will hide the Last Run By Me column in the Control Center.
• DisableHelp=Yes:  Specify Yes if you do not wish give your users access to Elliott Help on the Internet.

User Email Settings

The Email Settings you specified previously will be used as the system default email settings. However, at each individual desktop level, you may override the default Email Settings.  To override the settings, go to Setup/Preference -> Misc. tab -> Email Settings button.  See sample screen below.

Whenever you change the entries in this section, you can press the Test email… button to verify your new settings.