NetResults Tracker Help
Adding a Workgroup

To start using Tracker, create a workgroup. Each workgroup consists of a database and a set of Tracker web pages. You can choose a template for your intended use, which includes a pre-defined project, form, fields and workflow so you have a basic setup that can be used right away.

Topics Covered In This Section

Adding a Workgroup
If you are adding a workgroup using Oracle as your database type, please perform the procedure outlined in the Using Oracle Database Help section. Once you have completed these steps, return to this section and follow the procedure listed below.

Click on the Add button on the Button Bar to add a new workgroup. You will be prompted to fill in the following fields in order to create the new workgroup:

The following fields are Internationalization settings. Please consider the following information when making your selection for these fields. Once you have added records to your Tracker database, you will not be able to change the character set selection. When making your selection, also consider what languages you will need to support in the future.

  1. Character Set - ISO-8859-1, Windows-1252, and UTF-8 are the character sets that are supported by Tracker. UTF-8 is the default and recommended selection for character set since it supports virtually all available languages. UTF-8 is the only option available for workgroups using a MySQL database.

    • UTF-8 includes support for all Western European languages mentioned below for ISO-8859-1 and Windows-1252 as well as other languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Tamil and many others. UTF-8 is an ASCII compatible encoding method for Unicode (ISO 10646).

      Even though UTF-8 supports the widest range of languages, each user must have all of the necessary fonts installed on their desktop (web browser) machine in order to view all characters.

      When selecting the character set for your workgroup, you should also consider the users that will be accessing the workgroup. Each user account has a set of profile information that is displayed within each workgroup. Each user account has a character set, which is based on the characters used in the user account's profile information. The User Character Set must be compatible with the workgroup character set. For example, a user account with UTF-8 characters in its profile can only be given access to a workgroup with UTF-8 configured as the workgroup character set.

      Some basic guidelines related to user / workgroup character set compatibility:

      • If a user account contains only ASCII characters (supported by ISO-8859-1 character set), this user account can be given access to any workgroup because all character sets support ASCII characters.
      • If a user account contains non-ASCII characters supported by the Windows-1252 character set, this user account can be given access to any workgroup that is configured with the Windows-1252 or UTF-8 character set.
      • As mentioned above, if a user account contains non-ASCII characters only supported by the UTF-8 character set, this user account can only be given access to a workgroup configured with the UTF-8 character set.

      To view a user's character set, use the Edit a User operation in the User Management System section.

    • ISO-8859-1 (also known as Latin1) is a standard single-byte character set that supports Western European languages including: English, Basque, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Scottish, Spanish, and Swedish. The ISO-8859-1 character set is a subset of the Windows-1252 character set. The image below displays the set of characters supported by ISO-8859-1.

    • Windows-1252 is a single-byte character set that supports all of the characters in ISO-8859-1, plus some additional European characters including: the Euro sign, tilde, caron, and per mille. The image below displays the additional characters which are in Windows-1252 (but are not in ISO-8859-1). If you require the use of any of these characters, then you can not use the ISO-8859-1 character set.

  2. Email Header Encoding - Email headers must contain only US-ASCII characters. Headers that contain non US-ASCII characters must be encoded so that they contain only US-ASCII characters. This process involves using either B (Base 64) or Q (Quoted-Printable) to encode certain characters. The Q encoding is recommended for use when most of the characters to be encoded are in the ASCII character set; otherwise, the B encoding should be used. If you select Auto, Tracker will automatically select an encoding option.

  3. Add Multipart Email - This option determines whether the emails generated by Tracker will contain text or text and HTML within the messages. Selecting Yes for this option will allow the emails to contain both text and HTML. For example, if you selected UTF-8 as the character set for a workgroup, email generated by Tracker may also contain UTF-8 characters. If your email client cannot display UTF-8 characters, selecting Yes for the Email Add HTML Part option might help. With this option enabled, Tracker will send email with both text and HTML format. If your email client can display HTML format, UTF-8 email can be displayed.

  4. Time Zone - This option determines which time zone will be selected for users by default to view the workgroup data. Irrespective of the setting you choose for the default here, each user can select their own time zone setting in the Preferences section. For a list of available time zones, please refer to Windows Time Zones section.

  5. Adjustment for Daylight Saving Time - This option determines whether the workgroup date is adjusted to observe daylight saving time. If you have selected a time zone that observes daylight saving time, it is recommended that you check the box to enable Tracker to make the appropriate adjustments.

Once you have entered the relevant information to create the new workgroup, click on the Continue button. The next page displayed depends on the options that were selected:

Authentication Details

If you selected an option other than "NetResults Tracker" for the Authentication field, you will be prompted to provide additional information for the authentication configuration:

Once you have entered the relevant information for the Authentication settings, click on the Continue button. The next page depends on the Database Type selected:

MySQL Database Details

If you selected MySQL as the database type, you will be prompted to provide additional information to connect to MySQL:

Click on the Continue to proceed with creating the workgroup. The next page will be a workgroup confirmation page will be displayed.

SQL Server Database Details

If you selected SQL Server as the database type, you will be prompted to provide additional information to connect to SQL Server:

Click on the Continue button to proceed with creating the workgroup. A confirmation page will be displayed with the following:

Click on the Continue to proceed with creating the workgroup. The next page will be a workgroup confirmation page will be displayed.

Oracle Database Details

If you selected Oracle as the database type, you will be prompted to provide some additional information to connect to Oracle. If you are adding a workgroup using Oracle as your database type, you must first create the database using the procedure outlined in the Using Oracle Database Help section. Once you have completed these steps, return to this section to create a new workgroup using Oracle as the database type.

Click on the Continue button to proceed with creating the workgroup. If the box for the option Create Database User was not checked, a workgroup confirmation page will be displayed. If the box for the option Create Database User was checked, a confirmation before creating the Database User will be displayed with the following:

Click on the Continue to proceed with creating the workgroup.

Confirmation Page

A Component Check will be done to validate the information entered for the new workgroup. If the Component Check is successful, a confirmation of the database information will be shown. If the Component Check is unsuccessful, details about the components that failed will be listed. If you wish to save the settings you entered above to be displayed as the default settings whenever adding future new workgroups, check the box labeled Save as default settings. You can click on the Back button to make any modifications to the database information. Otherwise, click on the Create Workgroup button as the final step to create the workgroup.

If you selected MySQL, SQL Server or Oracle as the database type, click on the Initialize Tables button that appears after the workgroup has been created.

To login to your new workgroup, go back to the Workgroup Management System Home Page, find the name of the workgroup you added, then click on the key icon to the left of the workgroup name. A separate window will be launched with the Login page for your workgroup. Or, you can launch a browser window and enter the following URL to reach your workgroup:

http://servername/workgroupname/

where servername is the TCP/IP host name of the machine where you installed Tracker and workgroupname is the name of the workgroup you created.

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Backing Up Workgroup Data

Note: It is important to make regular backups of your installation especially the database and attachments for each workgroup. If you are using MySQL, SQL Server or Oracle as the database type for your workgroup(s), a simple file copy or a simple file backup to tape is not sufficient for backing up MySQL, SQL Server or Oracle database files because they are not standard files. More information on backing up your Tracker installation can be found in the Database Administration section.

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Active Directory Integration

Tracker workgroups can be configured to authenticate users via Active Directory. When a workgroup is configured to authenticate users via Active Directory, the users do not see the Tracker login page when attempting to login. To configure a new workgroup to use Active Directory for authentication:

  1. Choose a form of Authentication other than "NetResults Tracker" when adding the workgroup
  2. Ensure that each user that needs to access Tracker has a user account created in the User Management System. The User ID for the Tracker user account must match the User ID for their Windows user account in Active Directory that belongs to one of the Windows user groups you selected in the Authentication Details when creating the workgroup. Please note that changes made to the user profile information in the user accounts in Tracker will not be reflected in Active Directory (and vice versa).
To configure an existing workgroup to use Active Directory for authentication:
  1. Edit the workgroup to select a form of Authentication other than "NetResults Tracker"
  2. Ensure that each user that needs to access Tracker has a user account created in the User Management System. The User ID for the Tracker user account must match the User ID for their Windows user account in Active Directory that belongs to one of the Windows user groups you selected in the Authentication Details when editing the workgroup Please note that changes made to the user profile information in the user accounts in Tracker will not be reflected in Active Directory (and vice versa).

User Passwords

For workgroups where a method of authentication other than NetResults Tracker has been selected, the Password entered for a user's Tracker account will be ignored because the password for the user's Windows account will be used for authentication. Entering a password when creating a user account in the User Management System (UMS) is still required in case the Authentication settings for the workgroup is ever changed to use NetResults Tracker.

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Database Mirroring with SQL Server

Tracker supports the use of Database Mirroring on SQL Server. Database Mirroring should only be used if you have an expert SQL Server administrator with detailed knowledge of SQL Server client configuration. Please consult the following references on Microsoft's web site about configuring database mirroring:

In order to use database mirroring, you must set the properties "Use SQL Native Client Provider" and "Fail Over Location (Server)" for the workgroup when adding the workgroup (or edit an existing one). However, simply setting these properties for the workgroup is not sufficient to use database mirroring. If you are not familiar with database mirroring or SQL Server client configuration, please do not attempt to use this feature.

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