Role Deployment

Note that this page is only relevant for versions 9.1.x and below. For Profile Management in 9.2.x and above, see Profile Management.

The purpose of this feature is to provide a way to deploy files needed by Clay clients onto the client machines as soon as the user logs in for the first time. The users receive the appropriate files based on their role. The files that are deployed are:

• Profile files. See Profile Management for details.
• Document Templates and all support files such as images and style sheets needed by the Templates.

If a user already has a saved profile at ClayCentral, the Role profile and Document Template files will only be deployed to that user if the specific files are missing. I.e. Role Deployment files never overwrite existing ClayCentral User profile files, but they will overwrite local client profile files. The order of priority is:

1. ClayCentral User profile
2. ClayCentral Role profile
3. Local client profile

These files must be located on the client machine for two reasons:

• They are needed also while the client is working offline.
• Performance.

The Role Deployment feature may be used for the following purposes:

• New users are constantly being added and the administrator wants them to start with specific default profiles and/or templates automatically.
• A Digital-Clay module has been developed that may be sold to and deployed in many companies. In this case, only the Roles are known in advance and not the users.

Role profiles and Document Template files may be copied either using the Profile Management tool (in version 9.0 and up) by selecting the 'Roles' radio button, or, in the case of a Digital-Clay module being developed, the files may also be copied manually into the Roles folder before building an installation.

If you wish to create a Digital-Clay package with predefined role profiles and templates for deploying to multiple companies, you can achieve this in the following way:

1. Create an installer for your database and role directory structure. Install them in the C:\DigitalClay folder.
2. Call the Digital-Clay installer from your installer using command-line parameters. See Installation Tips.

The root folder for Role Deployment is, on the ClayCentral machine, in C:\DigitalClay\Roles\ .

The folder structure is as follows:

C:\DigitalClay\Roles\
 |-->[RoleName]
     |-->Profile
     |-->Templates

An example:

C:\DigitalClay\Roles\
 |-->Manager
     |-->Profile
         |-->Toolbar.xml
     |-->Templates
         |-->report.html
         |-->images
             |-->logo.jpg
 |-->User
     |-->Profile
         |-->Toolbar.xml
         |-->Layouts.xml

In the above example:

• All users with the role Manager will receive a default toolbar in their profile, and a template with an embedded image (in a sub-folder).
• All users with the role User will receive default toolbars and layouts.

The files are only copied once for each user. Once a user has been synchronized, his ID is stored in the “.UserIDs” file in his role folder.

To force a re-synchronization, his ID can be deleted from the .UserIDs file, or the file itself may be deleted to re-synchronize all users for that role.

See above regarding the order of priority in case of profile conflicts.

When using the Profile Management tool, the role folder may also contain a “.Locks” file. This contains instructions for locking and unlocking a user's profile when his profile his retrieved from the role folder. See Locking.