Administration & Distribution
Overview
All categories of following settings can be administrated remotely:
- Quote general settings (functional)
- Quote services
- Quote models (Jasper reports, Quote models).
The Administration tool is designed as a deployment tool that follows these stages:
- Download settings, themes, reports or model file(s) from CPQ server
- Edit the file or use any appropriate application such as iReports for reports models or Quote Designer for quote models to make the changes locally
- Upload the new settings files or models:
- Automatic backup of the existing files which are overridden by the upload (a maximum of 5 backup - dates - are stored)
- Upload the file(s) on CPQ server
- Deploy and activate the new settings
- Give the possibility to restore to previous state (restore saved files).
Design overview
The Administration tool is accessible from the “Distribution” option in the top-level menu of the Quote Designer application.
The left menu shows the main categories of settings or modeling functions of Quote, each being mapped to a file or a set of files on CPQ server:
- Services & Default data: cartServices.properties (services + default data such as lists of values, currencies, exchange rates…)
- Cart Models: .xml & bin files associated to a quote model
- Cart Exports: data contained in the quotes
- Cart Themes: Resources files associated with a quote UI theme (CSS, image files), including image files referenced in quote models (action buttons, background images, etc.)
- Reports Models: .jrxml files associated to a report and its sub-reports + any resource file used by the reports (images)
The upper menu shows the functions available for each category of settings listed in the left menu:
- Download: To download the file(s) associated to a category of settings
- Upload: To upload the file(s) associated to a category of settings (a backup of current settings file or model is done)
- Restore: Restore the backup of files saved before upload.
The top level menu shows the global functions:
- Back to models design: To go back to Quote Designer main menu.
- Deploy: To activate all changes since last deployment - clear the cache of all categories with cache management (Quote models, quote general settings, quote layout, Services & Default data
...).
CONFIGURATION SETTINGS
This category is associated with the cartSettings.properties file. Available functions:
- Download: Get the file full path and save the file on the client (the download action displays a
popup window to choose the local directory where the file will be saved)
- Upload: Upload the chosen file on CPQ server
Restore:
- Display a list of dates/times at which a backup of cartSettings.properties has been performed
- Let the user choose a specific date
- Restore the corresponding cartSettings.properties file.
SERVICES & DEFAULT DATA
This category is associated with the cartServices.properties file. Available functions:
- Download: Get the file full path and save the file on the client (the download action displays a popup window to choose the local directory where the file will be saved)
- Upload: Upload the chosen file on CPQ server
Restore:
- The list of dates/times at which a backup of services.properties has been performed, is displayed
- Let the user choose a specific date
- Restore the corresponding cartServices.properties file.
QUOTE MODELS
This category is associated with quote models files. Available functions:
Download:
- The list of quote models, located in the specific model directory, is displayed
- Click on one or more quote model names, the .bin and .xml files are zipped and the zip file is saved on client (name = model-release.zip).
Upload:
- Select ZIP file. Several quote models can be included in this file. The zip file must be consistent:
.xml + .bin file for each model.
- Click on the Ok button: the .zip file is uploaded on CPQ server in the specific model directory, the .xml and .bin files are extracted.
Restore:
- The list of dates/times at which a backup of the quote models has been performed, is displayed,
along with the names of the models
- Choose a specific date (select all models saved at this date ) or specific model name
- The corresponding quote models file is restored (.xml and .bin files).
QUOTE DATA / QUOTE EXPORTS
This category is associated with the extract of quote data. Available functions:
Download:
- Quote data can be extracted: When user selects this function, a form is displayed with two dates of modification (begin and end dates), two buttons (download and cancel) and a flag of active release.
- This flag is used because it is possible to extract several release of a quote. In fact, when a quote has several release, currently, the user can use only the active release and here, he can download all the release of the quote. By default, this flag is selected.
- After dates chosen and flag selected or not, user clicks on download, a table with followings information is displayed: File Name, Status, Download, Export Begin Date chosen, Export End Date chosen.
- This table contains only one line which represents current data export.
- At the end of download, the status is updated and a link is created in column "download", the user can click on, so a brother popup is displayed
QUOTE THEMES
This category is associated with theme files. Available functions:
Download:
- The list of themes located in the specific theme directory, is displayed
- Click on one or more theme names: the whole content of these theme directories are zipped and the zip file is saved on client (name = ceqUI_theme.zip).
Upload:
- Select ZIP file. Any ZIP file can be uploaded. (The name of the file can be different from the name of the theme. Files contained in the ZIP file are extracted under the arborescence defined by the ZIP file.)
- Click on the Ok button: the .zip file is uploaded on CPQ server in the specific theme directory (or directories if several themes are uploaded).
Restore:
- The list of dates/times at which a backup of the themes has been performed, is displayed, along with the names of the themes
- Choose a specific date (select all themes saved at this date) or specific theme name.
- The corresponding theme file is restored.
REPORTS MODELS
This category is associated with Jasper report files. Available functions:
Download:
- The list of all files and directories present in the directory dedicated to Jasper report models, is displayed.
- Click on one report: the .jrxml file is saved on client.
- Warning: the list of dependencies between a report and its sub-reports is not established. Only one .jrxml file can be downloaded at a time.
Upload:
- Select files which names match the Jasper report models filename specification (.jrxml) or zipped files (.zip).
- Zipped files are used to upload a group of files associated to a report (Main report model file and its sub-reports + media/images files), to be able to deploy a report model and all its dependencies.
- Click on the Ok button: the .jrxml or .zip files are uploaded on CPQ server in the specific report directory, the zip content is extracted.
Restore:
- The list of dates/times at which a backup of the reports has been performed, is displayed
- Choose a specific date
- The corresponding report file is restored.