1 Introduction

1.1 About This Guide

This administration guide provides information required to set up and administer Inbound Refinery version 11gR1 on a computer running either Microsoft Windows or UNIX.

The information contained in this document is subject to change as the product technology evolves and as hardware, operating systems, and third-party software are created and modified.

1.2 What's New

The following product enhancements have been made for Inbound Refinery version 11gR1:

• Flash Video Conversion supported: Inbound Refinery now supports FlipFactory version 6.1, which enables conversion to the Flash video format (.flv).

• Video to Audio Conversion supported: Inbound Refinery now supports conversion of video files to audio only.

• New Version of Outside In Image Export: Inbound Refinery includes Outside In Image Export 8.3.2, which is used for thumbnailing, conversion to multi-page TIFF files, conversion to PDF without third-party applications.

• Concurrent Conversion: Inbound Refinery now supports converting multiple content items simultaneously when using any conversion engine that supports concurrent multiple instances. This helps to prevent one content item from monopolizing the system and speeds the processing of content items through the refinery.

• Microsoft Office 2007 Support: Inbound Refinery now supports Microsoft Office 2007 on win32 platforms, including saving an office document to HTML.

• Adobe Photoshop Scripting Support: Inbound Refinery now supports conversion using Adobe Photoshop scripting.

• EXIF and XMP Data Now Extracted and Available to Inbound Refinery: Inbound Refinery now extracts EXIF data from digital photos and XMP data from native digital asset files and passes them to the refinery. This data is displayed on the rendition information page under the Image Data tab. To enable searching for content items using information in the EXIF or XMP data, Oracle Text Search is required.

• Dynamic Renditions: Inbound Refinery can now construct renditions dynamically, using metadata input when checking in a digital asset. For example, by using custom metadata fields in conjunction with custom rendition sets, text entered on the check in page can be overlaid as a watermark on a digital asset. Similarly, pixel height and width can be entered and used to create specific rendition sizes. When used in conjunction with the new EXIF or XMP data extraction capabilities, any extracted data can be used for watermarking, such as date/time stamps, camera or location data.

1.3 About Inbound Refinery

Inbound Refinery version 11gR1 is a conversion server that manages file conversions for electronic assets such as documents, digital images, and motion video. In addition to conversion, it also provides thumbnailing functionality for documents and images, the ability to extract and use EXIF data from digital images and XMP data from electronic files generated from programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, and storyboarding for video. Inbound Refinery can be used for the following when running on either a Windows or a UNIX server:

• To create thumbnails of files using Outside In Image Export. Thumbnails are small preview images of content.

• To convert files to multi-page TIFF files using Outside In Image Export, enabling users to view the files through standard web browsers with a TIFF viewer plugin.

• To convert videos to multiple formats for streaming and different playback or storage needs. Video conversion requires the third-party conversion software package FlipFactory by Telestream to be purchase and installed on a separate Windows server.

• To convert images and graphics to different formats to meet display or print requirements.

• To convert files to PDF (Portable Document Format), enabling users to view the files through standard web browsers with a PDF reader plugin (such as Adobe Acrobat Reader). Inbound Refinery has the following options for converting files to PDF:

  • Convert to PDF using third-party applications. When running on Windows, Inbound Refinery can use several third-party applications to create PDF files of content items. In most cases, a third-party application that can open and print the file is used to print the file to PostScript, and then the PostScript file is converted to PDF using the configured PostScript distiller engine. In some cases, Inbound Refinery can use a third-party application to convert a file directly to PDF. When using this option, Inbound Refinery requires a PostScript distiller engine, a PostScript printer, and the third-party applications used during the conversion.

  • Convert to PDF using OpenOffice. When running on either Windows or UNIX, Inbound Refinery can use OpenOffice to convert some file types directly to PDF. When using this multi-platform option, only OpenOffice is required.

  • Convert to PDF using Outside In. Inbound Refinery includes Outside In, which can be used with WinNativeConverter on Windows to create PDF files of some content items. Outside In is used to print the files to PostScript, and then the PostScript files are converted to PDF using the configured PostScript distiller engine. When using this option, only a PostScript distiller engine is required.

    Important:

    Third-party applications used in conversions, a PostScript distiller engine, and a PostScript printer are not provided with Inbound Refinery. You must obtain all third-party applications required for the conversions you want to perform, as well as a PostScript distiller engine and a PostScript printer of your choice.

  • Convert to PDF Using PDF Export. Inbound Refinery can convert directly to PDF using Oracle Outside In technology without the need of a third-party application. This facilitates conversion of some formats to PDF on Linux and UNIX platforms.

• On a Windows platform only, the TIFF Converter option is used to convert TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) files to PDF, including the following options:

  • Creation of a managed PDF file from a single or multiple-page TIFF file.

  • Creation of a managed PDF file from multiple TIFF files that have been compressed into a single ZIP file.

  • OCR (Optical Character Recognition) during TIFF to PDF conversion. This enables indexing of the text within checked-in TIFF files, so that users can perform full-text searches of these files.

  Tiff Converter is supported on Windows only.

  Important:

  Inbound Refinery requires CVISION CVista PdfCompressor to perform TIFF to PDF conversion with OCR. PdfCompressor is not provided with Inbound Refinery. You must obtain PdfCompressor from CVISION.

• To convert files to XML (eXtensible Markup Language) files using Outside In XML Export, Search Export, and either the FlexionDoc or SearchML schema. In addition, the XSLT (eXstensible Style Language Transformation) feature can post-process the resulting XML document, transforming it to a different XML document based on your XSL (eXstensible File Language) file and validated against your DTD (Document Type Definition) or schema. XML Converter is supported on both Windows and UNIX.

• On a Windows platform only, to convert Microsoft Office documents into HTML using Microsoft Office.

1.4 Inbound Refinery Conversion Options and Related Components

Inbound Refinery can be configured with a variety of options by enabling the proper components using Oracle Universal Content Management component technology. Most Inbound Refinery options require components to be enabled on each Inbound Refinery server provider and on the repository Content Server using the Inbound Refinery providers. The following tables list the components necessary for each Inbound Refinery conversion option and identifies on which server each component must be enabled.

1.5 Inbound Refinery Process Overview

Inbound Refinery refinery manages file conversions and provides thumbnailing functionality and serves as a provider to Content Server. When a file is checked into the content server, a copy of the native file is stored in the native file repository either on a file system or in a database. The native file is the format in which the file was originally created, for example, Microsoft Word.

If the file format is not set up to be converted, the content server can be configured to place either a copy of the native file or an HCST file that points to the native vault file in the web-viewable file repository. This means that the file is passed through to the library in its native format. Users must then have an application capable of opening the native file installed on their computer to view the file.

If the file format is set up to be converted, the content server creates a conversion job in its pre-converted queue. The content server then attempts to deliver the conversion job to one of its active refinery providers, which is a refinery that is configured to accept the conversion and is not busy. The content server sends the conversion parameters to an active refinery. If the refinery does not accept the job, the content server tries the next available refinery. When a refinery accepts the job, the content server then uploads a ZIP file, containing the conversion data and the file to be converted, to the refinery. The content server also places an entry in its RefineryJobs table, which it uses to track the conversion job. The refinery places the conversion job in its pre-converted queue.

The refinery then attempts to perform the specified conversion. When the refinery finishes processing the conversion job, it places it in its post-converted queue. The content server polls the refinery periodically to see if conversion jobs in its RefineryJobs table have been completed. When the refinery reports that it has finished processing a conversion job, the content server downloads any converted files (for example, a web-viewable thumbnail file and a PDF file) from the refinery, places the conversion job in its post-converted queue, and kicks off any post-conversion functionality as needed.

If a conversion is successful, the converted files, such as a web-viewable thumbnail file and a PDF file, are available to the content server's users through their web browser. In the case of an videos, images, or graphic files, additional renditions and rendition information are available on the Rendition Information tab of the Content Information page.

If a conversion fails, the content server can be configured to place a copy of the native file in the web-viewable file repository. In this case users must also have an application capable of opening the native file installed on their computer to view the file.