Creating a Laserfiche Connector Profile

To use the Laserfiche Connector to search, scan, import, assign templates, take screenshots, open websites, run a workflow or Workflow business process, launch another application, or write to another application you need to create a profile. Each of these actions needs a separate profile, even if the action will be performed from the same application.

Creating a Profile

  1. Right-click the Laserfiche Connector icon in the notification section of the taskbar. If the Laserfiche Connector icon is not in your taskbar, open Laserfiche Connector from the Start menu.
  2. Select Add Profile from the taskbar menu. Alternatively, select Configuration, and in the Laserfiche Connector Configuration dialog box, click Add.
  3. Configure the following pages in the wizard.

Create Profile

On the Create Profile page, define the action Laserfiche Connector will take. After configuring this page, click Next.

  1. Profile name: Specify a name that describes the action you want the profile to take. This is the name users will see when they click the Laserfiche Connector button in the target application.
  2. Action: From the drop-down menu chose the action the profile will perform.
  3. Depending on the action you select, you can choose where Laserfiche Connector will perform the action; e.g., in the Laserfiche Windows client, in the Laserfiche web client, in Laserfiche WebLink, in the document that's currently open in the Laserfiche Windows client, or in another application.
  4. Optional: With some actions, you can then choose if you want Laserfiche Connector to start a workflow or business process after the profile runs. You can pass information gathered by the action the profile performs to the workflow or business process.

Get Information

On the Get Information page, specify if Laserfiche Connector will gather information from an application, command line parameters, or the field values of an entry in the Laserfiche Windows client.

An application

  1. Click Add source application, and drag the target to the application you want to use Laserfiche Connector with. The application profile will be automatically filled in.
  2. Next to Analyze using, specify how the information from the application or website will be retrieved.
  3. Under Apply profile to, select if the profile will be available anywhere in the application or website, or if it will be available only on a specific window or web page.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Under the added application, select Preview the token values when running the profile to prompt the user who ran the profile to review the retrieved token values before the values are used to complete the profile action. In this prompt, users can edit the token values directly or drag a target button to capture new values.
  6. Example: A profile takes information from a Human Resources application and assigns that information as field values to documents in Laserfiche. By turning on this option, users can review that the correct information was captured from the Human Resources application, change any values as needed, and then click OK to let Laserfiche Connector assign the values to the documents' fields.

  7. Define the information you want to gather from the application, by creating tokens. Later in the Profile Creation Wizard, you will use these tokens to pass information to Laserfiche or another application. The first token is create for you. Under Token name, give it a descriptive name.
  8. Define the token's value. How you retrieve values, depends on how the page was initially analyzed:
  9. Note: After you analyze the application, do not change its state (e.g., on a web page, do not navigate to another page) until you have defined your tokens. If you change the state of the application before you've selected the controls to use for populating tokens, you can introduce a disparity that makes Laserfiche Connector unable to get the information from the referenced application.

  10. Optional: You can create tokens with values from multiple applications or web pages by clicking Add application.
  11. Note: This option is not compatible with showing the search result count in the target application or showing search results in a docked window. Learn more. To use those search options, you can only retrieve values from one application or website.

    1. In the Add Application dialog box, drag the target to the new application.
    2. Select how you want to analyze the application using the drop-down menu next to Analyze using. Learn more.
    3. Under Apply profile to, specify if you want to get information from the whole website/application or only the current page.
    4. Under Application details, you can specify if Laserfiche Connector will retrieve values from the applications automatically, without any user input, or if the user will need to manually click a Continue button in the applications for Laserfiche Connector to retrieve information. You may want a user to manually advance the process if you need the user to enter or check information in the application before continuing. Even if you select the Immediately, if possible option, Laserfiche Connector may default to having the user manually click the Continue button in the applications in the following situations:
      • The user has closed the target application, web page, or window that Laserfiche Connector needs to get values from.
      • Multiple windows or web pages meet the criteria for being the target page. For example, if multiple windows have the same name or you've used regular expressions to define the target window and multiple windows meet the criteria.
      • The target window or web page has an action running on it making it busy or unavailable to Laserfiche Connector.
      • The target web page is open in an un-selected tab.
    5. Define instructions that will be shown to the user when they need to advance the process manually. Even if you selected to immediately switch between applications, it's a good idea to provide back-up instructions in case Laserfiche Connector cannot automatically identify the applications and needs the user to manually switch between the applications.
    6. You can have Laserfiche Connector automatically launch this application when it's retrieving the control values. Select Launch the application if it is not already started, browse for the application (.exe file) you want Laserfiche Connector to open, and define any parameters you want to pass into the application.
    7. Click Save.
    8. Optional: Click the Edit button to change these settings for the application or website. Click the Delete button to delete an application or website. When you delete an application or website, all its tokens will be delete too. If you delete the source application, the application listed below it will become the source application.
    9. Define tokens for the new application as described above.

Command line parameter

Select this option if you plan to start the profile from the command line and want to skip retrieving tokens from a source application. Even if you do not select this option, you can still start a profile from the command line.

In general, we recommend passing only token values through command line parameters that Laserfiche Connector cannot retrieve from the target application directly. Note that if you retrieve a token value from a source application using Laserfiche Connector, and then define the same token in the command line parameter, and two token values are available when the profile runs, the token will be recognized as a multi-value token.

In the command line argument, you can identify the profile you want to run based on its ID number, its name, or its path. Then specify each token you want to assign a value to after /tn and the corresponding value after /tv. You can specify the token's type and formatting pattern either in the command line or in an XML file. For profiles that import documents, you can specify a file path to import documents from. This parameter prevents the Import Files dialog box from being shown when running the profile.

Example: Command Line

[Path to Connector EXE]LFC.EXE /rpi [ProfileId]

/rpn [ProfileName]

/rpp [ProfilePath]

/tn [TokenName]

/tv [TokenValue]

/tt [TokenType]

/tp [TokenFormattingPattern]

/tff [TokensFromFilePath]

/importfile "[full file path]"

/importfile "[path1]" /importfile "[path2]" ...

Sample Token XML File

<LFCCustomizeTokens>

<LFCToken Name="DateTimeControl" Type="DateTime" Pattern="yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss">

<Value>2017-09-28 13:07:34</Value>

</LFCToken>

<LFCToken Name="MultivalueTokens">

<Value>a</Value>

<Value>b</Value>

</LFCToken>

</LFCCustomizeTokens>

Laserfiche Windows client

If you select the Write data to an application action, you can retrieve information from an entry the user selects or opens in the Laserfiche Windows client. This action is run from a Laserfiche Connector button on Laserfiche Windows client's folder browser or from an open Laserfiche document. Click Next to retrieve field values from the entry. Learn more.

Expand the Section that Matches the Type of Profile You are Configuring

Note: If you are using Laserfiche Connector with Laserfiche Cloud, many of these profile types will have you specify a Cloud repository URL. Use this URL format: https://app.laserfiche.com/laserfiche/?repo=r-000ab000 when creating a profile that connects to the Laserfiche web client in Laserfiche Cloud. Replace 000ab000 with your repository ID. Use this URL format: https://r-000ab000.laserfiche.com when setting up a Laserfiche Connector profile that uses the Laserfiche Server/Repository option to connect to Laserfiche Cloud. Replace 000ab000 with your repository ID.

Run Process

If you chose to start a workflow or Laserfiche Workflow business process after the profile's initial action completes, you can configure the workflow or business process on the Run Process page. You can also pass parameters to a workflow. Learn more about Workflow.

To run a workflow

  1. Select to Start a workflow.
  2. Enter your Laserfiche Workflow Server's web service/Workflow web application directory URL. Learn more about the Laserfiche Workflow web service.
  3. Tip: Ensure the WCF HTTP Activation feature is enabled so that Laserfiche Connector can access the Laserfiche Workflow web service. In Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016, you can turn the feature on here: .NET Framework 4.7 Advanced Series -> WCF Services -> HTTP Activation.

  4. Click Load Workflows.
  5. Select the workflow you want to run from the drop-down menu.
  6. Optional: Click Preview to see the workflow in Laserfiche Workflow Web.
  7. Select if you want to use the entries the profile interacted with as the starting entries or if the workflow doesn't require a starting entry. If you select to use entries in previous steps as starting entries, the workflow will run once per entry.
  8. Example: If your profile searches the repository, select Use entries in previous steps as starting entries to run the workflow on each search result. Alternatively, if your profile imports a document into the repository, select this option to run the workflow on the imported entry.

  9. Under Input parameters, provide any input parameter values or tokens to pass to the workflow.
  10. Click Next.

To run a Laserfiche Workflow business process

  1. Select to start Laserfiche Workflow business process.
  2. Provide your repository credentials to access the list of business processes.
  3. Select a process from the list.
  4. Click Next.

Running the Profile

  1. On the Running the Profile page, select one of the following options for the button users will click to launch the profile.
  2. If you have multiple profiles for the same target application or website, you can position the buttons for those profiles in different spots on the page.

  3. Under Keyboard Shortcut, specify the key combination that will run this profile.

Test

On the Test page, click Test to run the profile on the window, application, or browser you used to configure the profile. If the test does not run correctly, see Troubleshooting.

Note: If you test a profile configured to update templates and fields, a dialog box will appear showing you the first 25 search results (including their templates and their paths). If you click Yes in this dialog box, the metadata on all search results will be updated with the test values. Note that this action may apply new templates to entries and overwrite existing field values. Click No if you don't want to make changes to the search results.

Working with Profiles

The Laserfiche Connector Configuration dialog box lets you see and interact with all the profiles available to the currently signed in user. From this dialog, you can add a profile, change the keyboard shortcuts associated with a profile, edit the profile's settings, delete a profile, or clear the current user's saved sign in information for the Laserfiche Windows client.

Changing the keyboard shortcut for a profile

  1. Right-click the Laserfiche Connector icon in the notification section of the taskbar. If the Laserfiche Connector icon is not in your taskbar, open Laserfiche Connector from the Start menu.
  2. Select Configuration.
  3. Select the profile you want to change the keyboard shortcut for.
  4. Click Shortcut.
  5. Define a new keyboard shortcut by select a combination of keys in the Assign Keyboard Shortcut dialog box.
  6. Click OK.

Edit a profile

  1. Select the profile you want to edit.
  2. Click Edit to open the Profile Creation wizard.
  3. Note: If the Profile Creation wizard doesn't recognize the profile, it will open the XML directly in Notepad. The wizard may not recognize the profile if its XML has already been edited to include advanced features not included in the wizard. Learn more.

  4. Work through the Profile Creation Wizard, making any changes as needed. You may need to re-select applications and tokens as you make your changes.
  5. Optional: To edit advanced options in a profile's XML directly, see Editing a Profile.

Deleting a profile

  1. Right-click the Laserfiche Connector icon in the notification section of the taskbar. If the Laserfiche Connector icon is not in your taskbar, open Laserfiche Connector from the Start menu.
  2. Select Configuration.
  3. Select the profile you want to delete, and click Delete.

Enabling or Disabling a Profile

By default, newly created profiles are immediately enabled and ready to run. You can enable or disable profiles on a per-user basis.

To enable or disable a profile

  1. Right-click the Laserfiche Connector icon in the notification section of the taskbar. If the Laserfiche Connector icon is not in your taskbar, open Laserfiche Connector from the Start menu.
  2. Select Configuration.
  3. In the Laserfiche Connector Configuration dialog box, right-click the profile you want to enable/disable and select either Enable or Disable. To enable/disable multiple profiles at once, multi-select the profiles, right-click and select either Enable or Disable.

Clearing saved sign in information

If a user has selected the "Remember me" option when signing in to run a profile that connects to the Laserfiche Windows client, and then wants to sign in as a different user, the authentication information will need to be cleared from the Laserfiche Connector Configuration dialog box.

  1. Right-click the Laserfiche Connector icon in the notification section of the taskbar. If the Laserfiche Connector icon is not in your taskbar, open Laserfiche Connector from the Start menu.
  2. Select Configuration.
  3. Select Clear saved sign ins. The "Remember me" setting will be cleared for the current user in all profiles.