Your goal in using the Laserfiche system is long-term document accessibility and preservation. Laserfiche allows you to meet that goal with great flexibility and power, due to the many features, modules, and options in the Laserfiche software. A well-informed plan will help you get the most benefit from Laserfiche’s many administration and security configuration options and keep you prepared for long-term document accessibility and preservation. A thorough knowledge of all of the system’s capabilities will provide the basis for effective, efficient management and allow you to optimize performance for your needs.
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Network architecture
Laserfiche software is structured to be used in a n-tier network architecture, with defined software boundaries between the different tiers. Note that these tiers do not need to be placed on different physical servers.
The two main components of this network architecture are the Server and the client applications. Laserfiche client applications provide an interface for accessing repository files. In order to retrieve those repository files, the client application accesses the Laserfiche Server. The Server, in turn, retrieves the necessary data—images, text, electronic files, annotations, metadata, and so on—from the database and volume files in the repository. The Server also performs necessary security checks to ensure that users do not gain access to restricted information. It then passes the information back to the client application, making it available to the user who requested it. This process happens very quickly; from the point of view of the user, they open a document and, if they are authorized to view that document, it opens immediately. However, because the architecture is distributed, it benefits from increased performance and scalability.
Laserfiche repository components
The three main components of a Laserfiche repository are the DBMS, the volumes, and the search index files. It is important to understand the distinction between these components, as well as how they relate and interact with each other, in order to take advantage of the complexity and power of the complete Laserfiche software solution.
Database
The database stores a wide variety of information about the repository, including folder structure, metadata, security information, annotations, and more. The Laserfiche Server must access the database on behalf of the client application to retrieve necessary information about the repository.
For more information, see the DBMS Database Structure section.
Volumes
Volumes store data in a hierarchical folder structure, specifically images, text, electronic files, thumbnails, and word location data. There are two types of volumes: physical and logical.
A physical volume is where the files that make up the documents in the repository are physically stored, such as on hard drives or removable media. These drives can be located on any computer on the same network as the Laserfiche Server. You can distribute the volumes over several computers to reduce load or to allow the repository to hold more images and text than will fit on a single hard disk. All the image pages, text pages, word location data, electronic files, and thumbnails for a single document must exist in the same physical volume; documents cannot be split among multiple volumes. Documents can be migrated from one physical volume to another. If documents must be readily available, it is a good idea to store them on a hard drive rather than removable media.
A logical volume consists of a set of physical volumes. It also determines the default size limitation of physical volumes. An event called volume rollover occurs when the current physical volume becomes reaches its size limit. In that event, a new physical volume is created and is used for any new documents or electronic documents that are added to the logical volume. This allows users to scan or import into a single logical volume indefinitely, while behind the scenes the Laserfiche Server creates smaller sub-volumes to prevent volumes from becoming unmanageably large.
For more information about volumes, see the Volumes section.
Administration of volumes is especially important, because poor volume management can result in decreased performance and difficulty backing up the repository. For more information, see the Best Practices for Volume Administration section.
Search index files
The search index makes document text searchable in a fast and efficient manner. Search index files are contained in the repository folder, in a folder called SEARCH.
For more information, please see the Indexing section.
Documents
Documents are the building blocks of a Laserfiche repository. Documents contain some combination of images, text files, and electronic files, all of which are stored in a Laserfiche repository.
An imaged document is one that contains images or text, but not an electronic file. Imaged documents open by default in the Laserfiche document viewer.
An electronic document is one that has been associated with an electronic file. Electronic documents open in their own native application — for instance, Microsoft Word documents open in Word, HTML files open in the default Web browser, etc.
Documents that have text associated with them are searchable using the Laserfiche full-text search. Laserfiche can generate searchable text from imaged documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and can extract text from many kinds of electronic documents by using IFilters. Using Snapshot, users can also generate images of their electronic documents and OCR text from those as well.
Note: Documents can be brought into Laserfiche by scanning a paper document or importing it to the repository, if it is already being stored electronically. An imaged document is created if a .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png, .tif, or .txt file is imported to the repository. An electronic file is created if a file with any other extension is imported.
Metadata
Metadata is additional information that can be associated with a document. Laserfiche offers five types of metadata: fields, templates, tags, document relationships, and versions.
Fields
A field contains information about a document or folder. You can use fields to store information to make the document easier to find in a search, or to store information users want at hand when working with the document. For instance, you might create a "Client Name" field to make your documents searchable by client, or a "Phone Number" field so that you can keep the client's phone number connected to the document. You can set field security to specify which users will be able to view or modify which fields.
Templates
A template is a collection of fields. You can create a template to contain information for documents of a particular type—for instance, invoices or order forms—and quickly apply all the relevant fields to the document at once using the template. Templates are also useful for categorizing documents. If you assign the Invoice template to all invoices, for instance, you can search for that template to return all invoices. You can use template security to specify which users can modify which templates.
Tags
Tags contain special handling instructions relating to documents and folders in a Laserfiche repository. There are two types of tags: informational and security. Informational tags provide more information about a particular document and its type of content. Security tags prevent Laserfiche users and groups from accessing documents with security tags that users don't have permission for. Documents with security tags can only be opened by users who are assigned all of the security tags assigned to the document.
Document Relationships
A link can be established between two documents. In addition to tracking related documents, a link provides a description of how the documents are related. An example is an "E-Mail" and its "Attachment."
Versions
Laserfiche can keep track of multiple versions of a document. If a document is added to Laserfiche, then modified, users will be able to save the revised document as a new version. This allows users to retain old versions, but makes it clear which is the current version.
For more information, see the Metadata Administration section.
Security
Laserfiche security encompasses both user authentication and authorization to access protected resources. Laserfiche allows users to authenticate to the repository in two ways: logging in with a username and password or automatically authenticating using their Windows account. Users of both kinds can be assigned to Laserfiche groups.
Authorization (privileges, feature rights, access rights, and security tags) must be configured to allow for appropriate user access to the repository.
- Privileges grant the ability to perform an action (e.g., create users, delete documents, view fields, etc.) in the repository.
- Feature rights control what actions (e.g., printing, scanning, importing and exporting, etc.) the user is allowed to perform.
- Four types of access rights—entry, field, template, and volume—control what actions the user can perform on documents and folders, field or template data, or at the volume level, respectively.
- Security tags on an entry only allows users with all of the security tags assigned to that document to access the document.
For more information, please see the Security section.
Repository backup
Making regular backups is necessary to protect a Laserfiche repository from data loss. It is vital to back up both the volume files and the database files, and to back up both sets of files at the same time to maintain consistency. Backing up index files is optional, but allows you to perform full-text searches immediately after recovering a backed up database, without the need for reindexing. It is also important to back up regularly and to periodically test your backups.
For more information, please see the Repository Backup and Recovery section.
Auditing
Auditing is the process of logging events and viewing reports based on these logged events. These reports allow privileged users to monitor the amount and types of activities being performed in a Laserfiche repository. For example, administrators may want to use auditing to track user progress, determine how the repository is being used, troubleshoot issues and bottlenecks, and comply with standards or regulations.
An administrator can determine the type of Laserfiche activity that will be recorded, and audit events are collected into event classes to allow administrators to more easily determine what they want to log. The edition of Laserfiche Audit Trail (i.e., Starter, Standard, or Advanced) that has been licensed determines the types of activities that can be logged.
For more information, please see the Auditing section.