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. 

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 running Elliott V7, you can 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.