IBM Rational Publishing Engine
RPE 1.2
An introduction
Dragos Cojocari
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: Overview
 Release’s major points
– Usability
– Reuse
– Consumability
 Solutions
– holistic approach, aimed to improve all aspects of RPE
• individual RFEs are subsumed to the release themes
– major shift in how users design, manage and use templates and documents
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: Main Themes
 Workflows Improvements
 Centralized Management
 Query Management
 Web Services Improvements
 Java Script Improvements
 Installer
 Documentation
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: Workflows Improvements
 Themes: reuse, usability, consumability
 Simplify the document generation for all user roles with a focus on end users
 Push "technical oriented info" back to being managed by those that know it
– reduce need for designers and end-users to know and have to interface with this
– move the information in the central library
 Redesigned roles and new features to support them
– Administrator
• Manages global assets ( variables, value sets, templates, JavaScript, styles etc)
– Report Designer
• designs documents
– Report Generator
• Uses assets defined by the Document Designer
• variable prompts and other features assist the user to quickly configure reports. Built on a mechanism provided in
RRDG that can be used by all RRDG consumers
 Support for sharing artifacts
– Relative paths in the document specification
– Zip document specification and related artifacts ( templates, styles etc)
– Remove credentials
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: User Experience Improvements
 Themes: usability
 UI cleanup; UI & UX consistency; improve usability
 Review the overall RPE user experience with the UX team
– Provide more guidance to end user
– Offer actions to user ( ex: start publish wizard as Launcher starts)
 Document Studio
– Multi template editing
• Copy & Paste between templates (not committed)
– Specific Template Element Property Views
• Provides a better editing option for the most common properties
– Search
• Search usage in template of a given schema element, variable, master page or style
• Navigate from template element to the schema for its query
 Launcher
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Hide non mandatory information
Prompt for information
Replace text input with selectors
Improved error display
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: Centralized Management
 Themes: usability, reuse
 Simplify deployment; improve administrators control; support reuse strategies
 Central libraries supporting 'physical' embedding & 'dynamic' referencing
– Templates, JavaScript, Style Sheets, Snippets, Files
– Does not replace source control or storage systems but acts like a catalog of data
 Central definition/maintenance for usage by designers
– Global Variables
– Variable Value Sets to support Variable Prompts
 Central definition/maintenance for usage by administrators
– Web service URL, RPE debug settings, log settings, other runtime settings
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: Query Management
 Themes: usability, reuse
 Improve reuse; encourage modular template design
 Move, copy-and-paste elements with data ( queries, conditions, variables)
– support for copy & paste between templates
– support for multi-template editing
 Re-use of templates/snippets in 'nesting' usage scenarios
– supports building modular documents
– templates are referred vs. their content embedded
 Support Variables in Queries
– Allows to dynamically specify the data to use at runtime ( through a variable) while preserving the
efficiency of statically specifying the data at design time. Applicable to data sources that support field
selection.
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: Web Services Improvements
 Themes: scalability, consumability, performance
 Improve Remote Generation scalability and performance; simplify deployment and
administration
 Separate Process for each document generation
– document generations are not executed in the same process as the web service. For each document
generation request a separate process is spawned
– system admins can control the amount of memory allowed for each process and the maximum
number of concurrent processes
– provides error isolation and scales with physical memory even on 32 bit JREs
 Support for 64 Bit JREs
 Merge RPE Remote Generation with RPE Monitor&Control
– Required for controlling the individual document generation processes
– Simplified deployment
 Redesign Remote Document Generation API
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adds authentication support (default) to the RPE Web Services.
REST-full API
Removed SOAP
Java Client API remains unchanged, customers already using the RPE Web Service
programmatically are not affected
 Client UI – remote results dialog
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: Remote Document Generation Flow
 When the RPE Client ( Launcher/Studio
etc) requests a document generation,
the WebService will:
– Start a new job on the
Monitor&Control
– Start a new doc gen process
providing the ID of the
Monitor&Control job through a file
passed as parameter
 All communication past this point until
the doc gen process is complete is done
through the Monitor&Control service
– Update event information
– Check for commands ( cancel,
pause etc)
 The doc gen process will update the MC
job with progress information and read
control commands
 The RPE client will get process
information and issue control commands
to the MC job
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: JavaScript Improvements
 Themes: reuse, usability
 Enhance reuse and simplify experience for less technical users
 Support using JavaScript from external files
– Central JavaScript library, improving re-use (under Central Management)
 Context Sensitive Editor
 Edit/Create rich text from JavaScript
 Support for complex structures being passed between scripts ( arrays, maps etc)
 New template "element" to include java code within template (Code Block)
 Script review - security
© 2012 IBM Corporation
RPE 1.2: Miscellaneous
 Themes: usability, consumability
 Installer
– Automate installer to deploy RPE services on a new/existing WAS
 Licensing
– Correct inconsistencies in how RPE consumes license
 Public Java API for document generation
– Sample application source code provided with the installer
 Fully translate RPE including Document Studio
– Web Services are not translated ( Web UI & messages)
 Documentation
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Template Elements & Formatting Features
Best Practices, Usage Scenarios & Examples
Java API: Configure & Launch Doc Spec (Make Public)
Serviceability: document error messages
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Key Support Topics
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Installation & Post-installation
 Java
– Java 5 support dropped, Java 6 required ( and bundled)
– Support for 64 bit JREs for the RPE Web Services
– RPE Data Services do not support 64 bit
 Installer
– IM 1.5 required – RPE ships with 1.5.3
– Upgrading an older installation does not change the install path which will continue to show the
previous release number
– Version number removed from the default installation path
 Licensing
– No changes to supported license servers
– License version changed, you need to renew your RPE licenses
 Web Services
– RPE Web Services and RPE Data Services can be automatically deployed in a new profile created on
an existing WAS 7.0.0.11 and newer or WAS 8.0.0.4 (patch required) and newer
• We recommend WAS 8.0.0.5 as it can be used without any additional patch.
– The RPE installer can also deploy a patched WAS 8.0.0.4 instance (provided on the physical media
and as an optional download) and deploy the RPE Web Services and RPE Data Services
– RPE Web Services URL can be set at install time
• Locks the preferences page for RPE Web Services
 New supported platforms
– See Linux System Requirements and Windows System Requirements for more details
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Licensing Changes
 RPE Launcher now consumes a license while running like Document Studio does
– For remote document generation this means that 2 RPE licenses are used. To reduce this to a single
license the user can close the launcher as soon as the remote job is started and chose to keep the
remote job running.
 Ensure the job is indeed started before closing launcher. Look for the message in the console view
 Once restarted the job progress & results are visible in the remote results dialog
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Migration & Upgrade Procedures
 No explicit migration required
 All templates & document specifications created with older RPE versions are supported
 New capabilities in Document Studio for better supporting compatibility between RPE and
RRDG consuming products
– Template version 2 introduced
– Templates created with version 2 cannot be loaded by RPE 1.1.2.2 and older or by any of the current
RRDG consuming products ( DOORS 9.4, CLM 4.0 etc).
– When editing/creating templates for older RPE/RRDG versions you must select Version 1
 When upgrading old templates to version 2
– Templates upgraded to version 2 cannot be downgraded to version 1
– Containers with “do while” conditions on them are transformed to iteration elements
 Existing Monitor & Control databases are not upgraded/used by 1.2, a new database with a
modified structure is created
 the RPE Document Generation Java API has been redesigned. Custom solutions based on
this API need to upgraded.
– a sample application is provided to help use the new API
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Removed from 1.2
 Java 5 support
– WAS 6 is no longer supported either as it is running on Java 5
 Snippet Organization in Studio – superseded by Central Library
 Template Library in Launcher and Studio – superseded by Central Library
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Troubleshooting Procedures
 enable core debug mode from the preferences
 examine rpe.log as it has more information than the console view
 use the new “Preview data” function to inspect the data as returned by the provider
 ensure RPE runs on a supported JRE and gather version details
 cleanup the RPE workspace created for the thick clients. The workspaces are located in
%APPDATA%\IBM\Rational\RPE_
– note that this also deletes any preferences defined by the user
 remote document generation specific
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verify that the Remote Services URL is correct and the server is accessible from the client machine.
verify credentials
verify that the remote services is up and running. Quick way: use the Web UI
define com.ibm.rational.rpe.remote.debug to true in the application container
check the rpe.log using the “Remote Results” dialog from the thick client or the Web UI (requires
administrator privileges)
– check the application server’s logs
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Common Problems
 Citrix installations won’t start – reduce max memory allowed for Launcher/Studio
 RPE Launcher/Studio is slow to start and operate
– If RPE Web Services URLs are defined verify they are accessible and responsive as RPE connects to
them for many of the UI operations
 Web Service is not running on Tomcat
– ensure Tomcat runs on a Java 6 JRE
 Web Service is not running on WAS
– ensure a supported version is installed ( WAS 7 or WAS 8)
– ensure users & roles are correctly assigned
– WAS 7 specific - check class loading options
 Word output
– Macro is not executed – ensure a macro enabled format is used ( doc, docm). Docx does not allow
macros
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Recommendations
 All existing pre-1.2 recommendations still apply
 We strongly encourage users to adopt Central Library for their RPE deployment.
 The new Document Generation Wizard will provide the best user experience when used in
conjunction with the Central Library
 Perform a clean install – uninstall previous RPE version, delete the RPE workspace in
APPDATA than install RPE 1.2
 Specify authentication for both UI operations and for runtime as it can greatly increase
performance
– document specifications created with RPE 1.1.1.x do not have the authentication property for data
sources, you need to rebuild the document specification
 When sharing documents use the “Save document specification without credentials” and
“Export document specification”
 Unless explicitly needed users should disable command execution on the web service for
enhanced security
 For enhanced security define individual users for remote document generation
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Thanks
© 2012 IBM Corporation