How to Hide the list of applications on the login page? - Endeca Workbench

By default, Workbench shows all available Endeca applications in a drop-down list on the login page. Business users can log in to any application that an administrator has added them to.

In cases where you do not want Workbench users to see all available Workbench applications on the login page, you can hide the drop-down list of applications.

To hide the drop-down list of applications on the login page:

1) Stop the Endeca Tools Service

2) Open the webstudio.properties file located in %ENDECA_TOOLS_CONF%\conf (on
Windows) or $ENDECA_TOOLS_CONF\conf (on UNIX)

3) Locate the com.endeca.webstudio.hide.login.application.dropdown property:

# Hides the dropdown for selecting an application
# on the default login page.
com.endeca.webstudio.hide.login.application.dropdown=false

4. Set the value of the property to true:com.endeca.webstudio.hide.login.application.dropdown=true

5. Save and close the file

6. Start the Endeca Tools Service

Interaction between MDEX Engine and Workbench

Endeca Workbench queries the MDEX Engine for information and publishes configuration to it.

Experience Manager queries the MDEX Engine for record and dimension information that a content administrator can use to configure dynamic content.
Examples:

1. Specifying a navigation state as part of a location trigger
2. Selecting records or a navigation state for content spotlighting
3. Selecting records or dimension values for boost and bury

Workbench publishes configuration to the MDEX Engine, including:

1. Content item configuration from Experience Manager
2. Content collections
3. Thesaurus entries

How to remove Endeca application entry from Workbench when user deleted complete project folder from the Endeca box without following clean removal steps and application entry is still registered with IFCR?

Problem Statement:  How to remove Endeca application entry from Workbench when user deleted complete project folder from the Endeca box without following clean removal steps and application entry is still registered with IFCR?

ERROR Message: 05.26.16 09:16:24] SEVERE: Caught an exception while invoking method 'run' on object 'InitialSetup'. Releasing locks.
Caused by java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl invoke0 - null
Caused by com.endeca.soleng.eac.toolkit.exception.AppControlException
com.endeca.soleng.eac.toolkit.script.Script runBeanShellScript - Error executing valid BeanShell script.
Caused by com.endeca.soleng.eac.toolkit.utility.IFCRUtility$HttpStatusException
com.endeca.soleng.eac.toolkit.utility.IFCRUtility execute - Precondition Failed (412): Cannot copy JcrNodeResource, type=endeca/site, superType=null, path=/prototype/default to /sites/CRSen: destination exists

Solution: 
1) Create the new Endeca application [ex: CRSen] with the same name using deployment template
/opt/app/endeca/ToolsAndFrameworks/3.1.2/deployment_template/bin]$ ./deploy.sh --app ../../reference/discover-data/deploy.xml 

2) Run Application provision command   
/opt/app/endeca/apps/CRSen/control$]./initialize_services.sh

3) Use runcommand.sh|bat to remove app
/opt/app/endeca/apps/CRSen/control$]./runcommand.sh --remove-app

 How to create new application using deployment template?

/opt/app/endeca/ToolsAndFrameworks/3.1.2/deployment_template/bin]$ ./deploy.sh --app ../../reference/discover-data/deploy.xml

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Found version 6.1 of the Endeca IAP installed in directory
   /opt/app/endeca/PlatformServices/6.1.3. If either the version or location are
   incorrect, type 'Q' to quit and adjust your ENDECA_ROOT environment variable.
   Press enter to continue with these settings.

   Continue?
>Hit Enter

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Deployment Template installation script.

     This script creates the directory structure for your
     deployment and installs configuration files and scripts
     into the directory structure.
  
05/26/2016 09:14:19 [deploy.pl] INFO:  Starting deployment template
   installation.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   The following app modules were specified on the command line argument:

   ../../reference/discover-data/deploy.xml
  

   Modules may be deployed standalone or on top of a base deployment type. Do
   you want to install a base deployment with the specified module(s)?

   Install base deployment? [Y/N]:
Y
05/26/2016 09:14:22 [AppDescriptorReader] INFO:  Parsing application descriptor
   file ../../reference/discover-data/deploy.xml.
05/26/2016 09:14:22 [AppDescriptorReader] INFO:  Parsing application descriptor
   file
   /opt/app/endeca/ToolsAndFrameworks/3.1.2/deployment_template/lib/../app-templates/base_descriptor.xml.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Enter a short name for your application.

   Note: The name must conform to this regular expression: ^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$
    [default: Discover]

   Choosing a different application name may require additional configuration on
   your web application.

   Application name:
CRSen

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Specify the path into which the application will be deployed. The specified
   directory must exist and cannot contain spaces.

   For example, to deploy into /localdisk/apps/CRSen, specify the path as
   /localdisk/apps.

   Deployment directory:
/opt/app/endeca/apps

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Specify the port on which the Endeca Application Controller is running. This
   is configured in the server.xml file in the workspace of the Endeca software
   install and should be the same for all applications deployed in this
   environment. Ports must be in the range 1024-65535 [default: 8888].

   EAC port:
8888
05/26/2016 09:14:40 [deploy.pl] INFO:  Deploying application into
   /opt/app/endeca/apps/CRSen

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   What port is the Workbench running? [Default: 8006]
8006

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   What port should be used for the Live Dgraph? [Default: 15000]
15000

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   What port should be used for the Authoring Dgraph? [Default: 15002]
15002

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   What port should be used for LogServer? [Default: 15010]
15010
05/26/2016 09:14:54 [AppDescriptorReader] INFO:  Parsing application descriptor
   file
   /opt/app/endeca/ToolsAndFrameworks/3.1.2/deployment_template/lib/../app-templates/base_descriptor.xml.
05/26/2016 09:14:54 [deploy.pl] INFO:  Processing install with id 'Dgraph'
05/26/2016 09:14:54 [AppDescriptorReader] INFO:  Parsing application descriptor
   file ../../reference/discover-data/deploy.xml.
05/26/2016 09:14:54 [deploy.pl] INFO:  Processing install with id
   'DefaultTemplateManagerApp'
05/26/2016 09:14:54 [deploy.pl] INFO:  Application successfully deployed.

How to configure inactive user is logged out of Oracle Endeca? - Endeca Workbench

1. Stop the Endeca Tools Service.

2. Navigate to %ENDECA_TOOLS_CONF%\conf (on Windows) or  $ENDECA_TOOLS_CONF/conf (on UNIX).

3. Open the webstudio.properties file, and locate the 
com.endeca.webstudio.timeout.warning property

# The warning for impending auto-logout 
com.endeca.webstudio.timeout.warning=3300

4. Change the value to the number of seconds of inactivity that you want to elapse before an impending automatic logout warning appears to an inactive user.

5. Locate the com.endeca.webstudio.timeout.logout property. 

# The time where a user will be automatically logged out due to inactivity com.endeca.webstudio.timeout.logout=3600

6. Change the value to the number of seconds of inactivity that you want to elapse before an inactive user is logged out of Workbench.

7. Save and close the file.

8. Start the Endeca Tools Service.

Managing users in the Workbench - Best practices

Oracle recommends the following best practices for managing users in the Workbench -

• Consider adding all users to groups to make managing permissions simpler

• Do not share the predefined admin user account. This makes it difficult to track who has made changes to Workbench. Create an account for each user or group that administers Workbench

• Do not let business users share accounts. Again, this makes it difficult to track changes in Workbench

• Create administrators in addition to the predefined admin. If one administrator loses a password, another administrator needs to reset it

• If you use LDAP, consider creating an LDAP group of administrators to add to the Administrators group in Workbench

About configuring Workbench resource caching in a Web browser - Endeca Workbench

If users are connecting to Workbench over a high-latency network, setting certain cache settings in the Web browser may improve performance. 

Workbench pages reference a number of assets such as images, CSS files, and JavaScript files. These assets are relatively static and are typically cached by the browser. They are served with HTTP headers that instruct the browser not to check for new versions of these files for a period of six hours. This results in better page load performance for users who connect to Workbench over a high-latency network. 

Oracle recommends setting your browser to check for new versions of pages automatically, and allocating 256MB or more of disk space to temporary files.