Installation

## Package content

This package is available in the download center.

Prerequisites

• Licenses
  • License keys are required to use the Connector, please contact us to get them.
• Spotfire
  • Version 11.4+, 12.0+ or 14.0+ (LTS)
  • Administrator group membership and remote access to the Spotfire server
• LiveDesign
  • Version 2022+, 2023+ or 2024+
  • Administrator role and SSH access to the LiveDesign server

Spotfire

1. Deploy packages

In this step you will deploy the SDN file we provide in the package on your Spotfire server.

1. Log in as an administrator on the Spotfire server web portal
2. Go to the Deployments & Packages area
3. Select the deployment area on which you want to deploy the Discngine Connector extensions
4. Click on the "Add packages" button, then choose the .sdn file into the Discngine Connector package
5. Click on "Validate area", then "Save area"

2. Update Web Player services

Update the corresponding Web Player services to install the Web Player tool.

See Spotfire official documentation for more information.

3. Edit Web Player configuration

To import data from LiveDesign to Spotfire, the Web Player worker service will have to write temporary files on the server's %TEMP% directory. The Web Player configuration must allow this.

Create configuration

1. Open a shell with administrator rights ("run as administrator") from the Spotfire server (not the node manager if they are on different servers)

2. Export the current config directory of your Web Player service area

   %SPOTFIRE_HOME%\tomcat\spotfire-bin> config export-service-config --deployment-area="<Your Area>" --force --capability=WEB_PLAYER
   

   This will create a config directory under the spotfire-bin directory.

3. Retrieve the path of the temporary folder of the Spotfire node manager service

   • If the account used is Local Service, Local System, or Network services, or any service account, the default temporary folder is usually %WINDOWS%\temp
   • If the account used is a generic account, please contact your system administrator to get the information

4. Edit the file config\root\Spotfire.Dxp.Worker.Host.exe.config

   • Open this file with administrator rights
   • Search and modify the following section (AllowedFilePaths) to add a string element containing the path to the temporary folder (<string><Path To Temporary Folder></string>)
     
   • Save the file

5. Import the config with a new name

   %SPOTFIRE_HOME%\tomcat\spotfire-bin> config import-service-config --config-name="<New Configuration Name>"
   

Select configuration

1. Go to the Spotfire administration website in Nodes & Services > Network
2. Select the Web Player service for the corresponding area
3. Click on the "Edit" button
4. Select the newly imported configuration
5. Click on "Save", then Spotfire will restart the Web Player node.

4. Activate licenses

In Spotfire Analyst, go to Tools > Administration Manager, and open the Groups and Licenses tab.
Activate the following licenses for the user groups to which you want to grant access to the LiveDesign Connector tool:

;

5. Set preferences

In Spotfire Analyst, go to Tools > Administration Manager, open the Preferences tab and fill the Discngine LiveDesign Connector preferences for the user groups to which you want to grant access to the LiveDesign Connector tool.

Example of filled preferences :

The LiveDesignServerUrl value is specific to each environment and must be the URL of the LiveDesign server that should be connected with Spotfire.

By default the DefaultLibraryPath value must be "LDConnector" (if you select "Library" in next section point 5), but if you change the location of this folder, it must be its new path.

6. Import library

Importing the provided LDConnector.part0.zip file in the library will create the folder "LDConnector" containing the file "empty.dxp".

To import this folder:

1. Copy the LDConnector.part0.zip file on your Spotfire server shared directory, by default at the location [Spotfire root]\tss\[Spotfire version]\tomcat\application-data\library\.
2. Open the Spotfire Analyst client and log in using an administrator account.
3. Open Tools > Library Administration.
4. Click on "Import" and "Browse" to select the file LDConnector.part0.zip. Select "Include permissions" and "Replace existing item".
5. Choose your "Destination Folder". We recommend to select "Library". Then click on "OK".

Define access rights to the imported library folder according to the following indications:

• All the LiveDesign Connector users need to have at least Browse + Access rights on the LDConnector folder
• Template designers must have Browse + Access + Modify rights on the LDConnector folder (if you wish to be more restrictive, you can apply these rights on specific projects folders)

LiveDesign

As many LiveDesign gadgets, the Spotfire Connector Gadget is a web appplication. The current installation procedure is based on a standard LiveDesign on-premise installation using nginx as application server.

SSH

For the following steps, we assume you have SSH access to your LiveDesign server.

1. Copy the content of the web folder from the LiveDesign Connector package to the server, under seurat/custom_gagdets directory:

scp -r /path/to/web <user>@<ld_server_url>:/home/seurat/custom_gadgets/ldconnector

2. Edit the config file

Use your favourite editor to open the file /home/seurat/custom_gadgets/ldconnector/config/config.json

{
  "authentication": {
    "liveDesignSessionUri": "/livedesign/session"
  },
  "visualizer": {
    "url": "<spotfire-url-host-with-protocol>",
    "entryPointDocumentIdOrPath": "df7b5c3b-935c-4dde-b102-54f44b3b6a6b"
  },
  "data": {
    "liveDesignServerUrl": "<livedesign-url-host-with-protocol>"
  }
}

• Set your Spotfire server url in the > visualizer > url property, e.g. "https://spotfire.mycompany.com"
• Set the id of the entry point document in the > visualizer > entryPointDocumentIdOrPath property (see below for details). The entry point document is the default document that will be used to check the connection to Spotfire. We strongly suggest to use the empty document provided in the LDConnector.part0.zip file.
• Set the LiveDesign url in the > data > liveDesignServerUrl property, e.g. 'https://livedesign.mycompany.com"

To get the id of the default entry point document:

• Go to the Spotfire administration website in Library > Browse
• Open the /LDConnector/Project 0/Default folder and click on Copy link for the empty document
• Take the id of the document from the link and use it as entryPointDocumentIdOrPath

3. Check that the ownership and access rights are correct:

sudo chown seurat:seurat -R /home/seurat/custom_gadgets/ldconnector/
# if required:
sudo chmod 755 -R /home/seurat/custom_gadgets/ldconnector/

4. Create/edit the nginx configuration to expose two locations

Go to the nginx config folder:

cd /etc/nginx/endpoints.d

Create a new config file for the Discngine configuration and open it with your favourite editor:

touch discngine.conf
vi discngine.conf

Then paste the following piece of code:

location = /livedesign/session {
    default_type text/plain;

    if ( $http_cookie ~ "JSESSIONID=(?<token>[^;]*)" ) {
        return 200 $1;
    }
    return 401;
}

location /livedesign/spo {
    alias /home/seurat/custom_gadgets/ldconnector/;
    index index.html;
}

Save your file and restart nginx:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Admin Panel

The last step is the configuration of the gadget in the LiveDesign administration tool.

Go to LiveDesign Admin Panel > Properties > CUSTOM_TOOLS and declare the gadget:

[
  // ... other gadgets
  {
    "categoryName": "Discngine",
    "gadgets": [
        {
            "name": "Spotfire Connector Gadget",
            "location": "/livedesign/spo"
        }
    ]
  }
]