Introduction and Requirements

HR Manage 3.6's server installation has been greatly simplified and automated.

The installation package consists of one or two files:  HRManage.Server.Setup.exe and HR_DB.rar (if the database isn't installed already).  Before starting with this installation, please ensure that you meet the following requirements:

• Hardware
  • 2GHz or faster processor  (x86 or x64)
  • 2gb RAM
  • 500Mb Disk space available
• Software
  • Windows Server 2003 or 2003 R2 or 2008 or 2008 R2  (x86 or x64)
  • IIS 6 or later must be installed
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008 or SQL Express
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

If the above are all in place before we start with the HR Manage Server Installation, no server restarts will be needed.

Overview of changes on the server

HR Manage is completely isolated from other processes that run on the server and installing or uninstalling HR Manage has no effect on any other programs.  No programs need to be closed before installing HR Manage, no server restarts are needed after installation and no changes are made to the registry, windows or system files.  All files that will be installed on the server will be contained within the HR Manage folder.

HR Manage is typically installed in a sub-folder in the root of a drive.  E.g. C:\HRManage, D:\HRManage, etc. and the directory structure that will be created during setup will look as follows:

• HRManage\
  • Backup\
    • This folder will contain quick backups of the database as well as rollback packages.  Each time when updating HR Manage, a rollback package is automatically created before the installation to enable a complete rollback to a previous version if needed.
  • bin\
    • This folder contains a copy of the program files that will normally be installed on the client computers.  The components are installed here first to test that the server installation was properly done and the folder also contains the HR Manage Server Agent which is required for scheduling automatic imports and backups (for SQL Express users).
    • Server\
      • This folder contains the actual HR Manage Server components and Windows Service that the application on the client computers will connect to.
  • Data\
    • The SQL Server database files for HR Manage (mdf & ldf) will normally be stored in this folder unless dictated otherwise by the company's IT policy.
  • Setup\
    • Client\
      • Contains a copy of the latest version of the client installation files. A virtual directory that links to this folder can be placed under the HRManageWeb site which can be used as a source for the HR Manage Automatic Updates feature.  Alternatively, we can host the automatic updates on our own server.
    • Server\
      • Contains a backup copy of the HR Manage Server installation file as well as a copy of any Server Update installation packages that might have been installed after the initial installation
  • Web\
    • The files for the asp.net web application that is hosted in IIS.  This can be hosted on a separate server.
      

Other than the files above, installing HR Manage will also make the following changes to the server in order to work correctly:

• Restore a new database to SQL Server
  • This will be the database used by HR Manage
• Create a new SQL Server User Account
  • This limited user account is usually called something like "HRManageUser" and it takes ownership of the HR Manage database.  The user account is only used by the HR Manage server components to connect to the database.  This password won't change and won't be known by anyone except HR Manage.
• Create a local Windows User Account   (Not needed in some cases)
  • If all the users that will use HR Manage, connects from a computer / user account that is on the same domain as the server, then this account is not needed as HR Manage will automatically use the standard user account that the user is logged in with for authentication.
  • If however you do not have a domain or have mutliple domains, this account needs to be created
  • This user account is typically called "PeopleResService" and the account is not linked to any groups and has no permissions.  Once the account is created, it is removed from the Users group so that the account has no other purpose other than just authentication between the HR Manage client application and the server.  Like the SQL Server account, this password will be encrypted and only be known to HR Manage.

Installing the server

Execute the HRManage.Server.Setup.exe file.  This installation is very straight-forward.  Just follow the instructions:

On the above screen, simply click Next.

On the screen above, you can change the location where HR Manage must be installed.  We do however highly recommend that you only change the drive letter and leave the \HRManage\bin part as-is.

Finally, you can choose which components to install.  Server Components and Client Components should always be installed.  If the HR_DB.rar file is present in the same folder as the installation package, the "Extract Database to Backup folder" will be enabled.  If this is a new installation and you have not restored the database in SQL Server yet and this option is enabled, you should select it.

Now just click Next and then Install and HR Manage will be installed.  Afterwards you'll be asked if you would like to run the Server Configuration utility.  Choose that option to continue to the next part.  (Server Configuration can also be done by clicking the icon on the desktop or Start menu programs.

New HR Manage Server Configuration

Below is how the Server Configuration screen should look like.  From this screen you will be able to completely configure HR Manage by creating the user accounts, restore the database, install the Windows service and create a configuration for the client computers.

I'll refer back to this screen later on as the main Server Configuration screen.  If the database has already been restored, you can skip the following section.  If not, under Database Connections, click on the "Restore Database" button on the toolbar.

1a. Restoring the database

The following wizard should be easy enough for anyone with limited or no SQL experience to restore the database.  This tool can restore a SQL Server database to any version of SQL Server from 2000 and newer.  Do take note that if your database was hosted in a SQL Server 2005 at one stage, you won't be able to restore it back into SQL Server 2000.  If you would like to restore the database manually using Enterprise Manager or SQL Server Studio Management, you can look at the other documentation on this site for instructions on restoring databases in SQL 2000 and 2005.  If the HR Manage database already exists, please do not use this tool.

• Step 1
  • Restore from Allows you to browse for a SQL Server backup file to restore the database from.  If the database was extracted with the HR Manage installation, the backup file will be in \HRManage\Backup.
  • Store Data files Indicates where the database and log file that will be hosted in SQL Server should be stored.  Default is \HRManage\Data and can be changed if your company's IT policies require it to.
• Step 2
  • Connect to SQL Server Click on the button within the block to open a user friendly interface to connect to any SQL Server.  You must connect to the SQL Server using an Administrator account in order to have the correct permissions to restore the database.  It doesn't matter to which database you choose to connect to as that field will be ignored since you won't connect to any specific database right now
• Step 3
  • Database name We recommend that the database name starts with "HR_" and followed by short name for your company.  In our case, it is "HR_PeopleRes".  Please ensure that the database name does not exist already.
  • SQL User account You can choose if you would like to create a new SQL user account or if you want HR Manage to connect via an existing one.  If you choose to create a new account, the new user account will have the username and password that you specify here and it will have owner access to the HR Manage database.  If you choose to use an existing one, you must make sure that it has the correct permissions and make it the owner of the HR Manage database.  The utility is not going to make changes to existing structures.  You cannot use a Windows user account for this purpose.  It must be a SQL account.
• Click Execute
  • The Configuration utility will now restore the database, create the SQL User Account and will then close and return you to the main screen.  The newly restored database will now be linked under your Database Connections section automatically

1b. Connecting to the Database

If your database is already restored or if you restored it manually and your list of Database Connections is still blank, you will need to set up the connection to the database.  In the Database Connections panel, click New and on the easy-to-use connection builder, specify your SQL Instance name  (e.g. 127.0.0.1,  myServer\SQLEXPRESS, etc.)

Under "Log in using", choose "SQL Username and Password" and type the SQL username and password with owner access of the HR Manage database.

Finally type the name of the database in the box at the bottom or click Browse and choose it from the list.

2. Installing the Windows Service

In the bottom panel called "Windows Service Setup", you can customize the details of the service before installing it.  The service name should never need changing unless multiple versions of the application or multiple databases are hosted on one server.

HR Manage connects to the server application through specific TCP ports.  These ports can be changed as well, but it cannot be changed to ports that are already in use by any other services (e.g. 80, 8080, etc.).  These must be dedicated ports.  HR Manage typically use two ports per instance:  One Singleton port (usually 1981) which is accessed by the HR Manage client applications and one SingleCall port (usually 1982) which is accessed by the HR Manage Web application.  The Singleton port needs to be allowed through the firewall and if the web components are hosted on a different server, the SingleCall port will also need to be allowed through.  Should you need to change the port numbers, add more ports and change the name of the service being hosted, click on the "Configure" button.  The screen that will come up is very straight forward.  Just one thing... if you would like to change the Service name, you must change the Service Name and Service Text so that it won't conflict with any existing items.

Once you are happy with the port numbers and everything, you can simply click the "Install Service" button  (the button appears gray, but it is enabled).  After that, click on the "Start Service" button to start HR Manage.

3. Client Configuration

In the Client Configuration panel, you need to specify the information the client computers will need to connect to HR Manage on the server.  You can specify the server's IP address or Server name.  For the channel, choose the tcpChannel.

If all the users that will access the system are on the same domain as the server, you can leave the username and password textboxes blank.  Otherwise you must enter a username and password.  If you already have a user account for services, you can use that.  Otherwise type a username like "PeopleResService" and just any random password and click "Create Local User" to create a user account with no permissions.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen to Save your configuration.

Click the "Export Client Configuration" and save the file to "\HRManage\bin\Client.config".  Click the button again and save the file to "\HRManage\Setup\Client\Client.config".  Finally, if you are going to use the web application, from the Channel dropdown, choose the SingleCall item and click "Export Client Configuration again and save the file to "\HRManage\Web".

To test the local client application, you can run HR Manage from the desktop or from \HRManage\bin\HRManage.exe.  If you get to the login screen, everything is working fine.  Your installation files should now be in the \HRManage\Setup\Client folder and ready for loading the client computers.

Web Installation

The web application is very straight forward to install.  Simply run the executable and install it to \HRManage\Web.  If you're installing the web application on a different server, simply copy the client.config file that you saved in the \HRManage\Web folder to the HRManageWeb virtual folder on that server.

Upgrading HR Manage

When upgrading HR Manage, you should open the ServerConfig utility, stop the HR Manage Server Components service and close the ServerConfig utility again.  Then install the HRManage.Server.Update.exe file.  This update wizard will create the following folder and files:

• \HRManage\Backup\Update yyyy-MM-dd  (date format)
  • bin.rar contains a backup of all the contents of the bin, bin\server and other sub-folders before the update started
  • setup.rar contains a backup of the \HRManage\Setup folder and all sub-folders before the update was started

Now make a backup of the SQL Server database and copy that file to this newly created Backup Update folder.  With the contents of this folder it is possible to do a complete version rollback.

Once the database backup is done, you will be able to execute the database update scripts on it.  This will include information to the Automatic Update feature on the client computers on where to download the latest version of HR Manage when they try to use it again.

Finally

Please ensure that you have backups in place to make daily backups of the database.  If you're using SQL Server Express edition, you can use HR Manage Server Agent to schedule daily backups.