Administering Publishing Document Builder

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You can monitor the state of Publishing Document Builder. Pay attention to system health, job details, runtime variables, and email notifications of document-style report generation.

Important: You must have the admin privileges to administer Publishing Document Builder and the pub_admin role be assigned to you.
  1. To administer the application, click Administration icon in the product banner.
  2. Select Administer from the menu.
  3. You can now monitor system health, see the document-style report generation jobs in progress, and assign environment variables.

System Health

On this tab you can see information about memory usage, database that is used, the total number of generated document-style reports, the document-style report generation node URLs, and whether the system is up and running. You can click the links in the Total jobs or Failed jobs column to see the job details.

Job Details

On this tab, you can view the document-style report generation jobs that are currently in progress and the duration of the generation. See Managing document-style report generation jobs.

Runtime Variables

On this tab, you can set runtime and environment variables. Variables are categorized into following groups:
  • Permission and sharing
  • Authentication switching
  • Configure base URL
  • Monitor and control
  • Map JTS roles
  • Mail
  • Document generation

You can expand and collapse the groups to see the default values of the variables.

For example,
  • Administrators can set the Resource default privacy for the resources that are generated. Resources are private by default and can be set to public if required.
  • Select the Resource migration enabled checkbox to enable migration of resources from the 1.x Remote services to Publishing Document Builder. After you enable this setting, the Migrate resources button appears in the product banner for administrators.
  • Deselect the Results sharing enabled checkbox to disable the report result sharing.
  • In the Publishing Document Builder base URL field, you can set the address of the rpeng server, for example http://<server>:<port>/rpeng. This field is required for scheduling document-style report generation jobs and for email notifications.
  • In the Document generation URL field, you can set the URL for the document-style report generation node. If this field is empty, Publishing Document Builder tries to use the document-style report generation service from http(s)://<server>:<port>/rpeng, using the same server and port as the rpeng application.
  • In the Job details refresh threshold field, specify how often to refresh the job status on both tabs of the Running jobs page. To disable the auto-refresh, enter a value of 0 or leave it blank.
  • In the Release license idle time field, specify the time after which the license will be released. The release license idle time value must be set to 1800 seconds or greater.
  • In the Long running jobs threshold field, specify how long a job can run before it appears in the Long running jobs tab of the Running jobs page.
  • In the Maximum resource size allowed field, specify the maximum size of resources for example templates, scripts, or style sheets, that report designers or admins can upload.
  • You can configure settings for email notifications. Users must still enable email notification from the User > Settings menu.
  • In the PUB document life limit field, you can set how long you want the generated document-style reports to be available. The default setting is 100 days. Any document-style report older than this limit will be deleted.
To return to the main menu, click the Publishing Document Builder link in the product banner.
Note: The settings that are defined on this tab override any Java or system properties that are already defined. The order of precedence is:
  1. Runtime variables admin tab in the Publishing Document Builder
  2. Java properties
  3. System properties

Load balancing

In the Document generation URL field, you can specify a semicolon-separated (;) list of document-style report generation node URLs. In the Load balancing algorithm field, select a load-balancing algorithm:
  • Weighted round robin (default): If you select this algorithm, you can also specify weights for the node URLs, for example, http://myMachine1:8080/dgaas=1;http://myMachine2:8080/dgaas=2;http://myMachine3:8080/dgaas=3. A node with no specified weight is assigned a default weight of 1. Nodes with higher weights receive more requests than the nodes with lesser weights. However, the nodes continue to receive requests in a round-robin sequence. For example, consider three servers that are named A, B, and C with assigned weights of 1, 2, and 3. The sequence in which the servers handle every 6 (1+2+3) incoming document-style report generation requests is ABCBCC. The nodes with weight 2 and 3 end up getting more requests.
  • Least jobs : If you select this algorithm, the node in the list that handles the least number of document-style report generation requests, handles the new document-style report generation request.
  • Dynamic weights : If you select this algorithm, each document-style report generation node is assigned a score based on the node attributes such as available memory, CPU usage, concurrent document-style report generation limit, or availability. When there is an incoming document-style report generation request, the node with the highest score is selected to generate the document-style report. The values of these node attributes are updated at regular intervals and the assigned scores.
In the View job details window, the document generation URL is listed for each job so that you can see which node the job used.

For more information, see the video Improved workload distribution for load balancing.

Defining email notification settings for document-style report generation results

On the Runtime variables tab, define the following settings in the Mail section:

  1. Send test mail: To test whether email notification settings are working correctly, administrators can send a test email. Click the Send test mail buttont. In the Send test mail window, enter a recipient email address, and click Send test mail . A test email is sent immediately. You can send only one email at a time.
  2. Mail from: The email address of the account that you are using to send the email.
  3. Mail password
  4. Mail SMTP port: The SMTP port used to send and receive email messages, for example 587.
  5. Mail SMTP server: The SMTP mail server, for example smtp.gmail.com.
  6. Mail template body: The body of the mail. This template uses the following escape strings:
    • {DOCUMENT_LIST}: replaced with the Mail template result
    • {RPE_URL}: the URL of the service
    • {REPORT_NAME}: the name of the report
    • {JOB_STATUS}: the status of the job
    • {TEMPLATE_VARIABLES_LIST}: to include template variable details in email
  7. Mail template result: The results of the document-style report generation. This template uses the following escape strings:
    • {DOCUMENT_TYPE}: the type of the output
    • {DOCUMENT_HREF}: the link to the document-style report
  8. Mail username
  9. Debug mail API: Enables Java mail API debug log printing to help investigate issues with email notification. Logs are available at the following locations:
    • WebSphere Liberty: IBM\PUB\server\logs\console.log
  10. Include template variable details in email notification: Select the Include template variable details in email notification checkbox to include template variable details in email notification.
    A PUB designer can exclude the selected variable details from email notifications. To exclude variable details:
    • For a new report, go to Resources tab> Create Report. Enter the required information. Select Save and configure. In the Variables tab, select the variable, and then deselect the Include in email notification check box.
    • For an existing report, go to Reports. Click Edit advanced configuration in the Edit column. In the Variables tab, select the variable, and then deselect the Include in email notification check box.
  11. Use STARTTLS: Enables Transport Layer Security (TLS) so Publishing Document Builder can use TLS to communicate with a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server.

The escape strings are replaced with the appropriate content. You can edit the HTML templates that are provided in the Mail template body and Mail template result.