Who is this article for?

IT Personnel looking to understand the technical footprint of the Please Review system.

No specific access is required.

This article outlines the hardware and software requirements for Please Review 8.0.0 The requirements are defined for each hardware component that you will require.

Important: This article is only relevant if your Please Review system is self-hosted. Any systems hosted by Ideagen are excluded from the below requirements.

1. Please Review configuration

There are several different options available for your Please Review configuration.  These depend on many factors, such as server availability and overall network performance within your organisation. The most common configurations are defined below:

• Dedicated Single Tier: Microsoft SQL Server is installed on the same server as the Please Review application server. No other software products use this server (i.e. the server is for Please Review only).
• Dedicated Split Tier: Microsoft SQL Server and the Please Review application server are installed on separate servers. No other software products or databases are installed on these servers (i.e. these servers are for Please Review only).
• Shared Single Tier: Microsoft SQL Server is installed on the same server as the Please Review application server. Other software products are installed on this server (i.e. Please Review shares the server with other software products or Microsoft SQL databases).
• Shared Split Tier: Microsoft SQL Server and the Please Review application server are installed on separate servers. Other software or databases are installed on one or both of these servers (i.e. Please Review shares one or both of these servers with other software products or Microsoft SQL databases).

Regardless of how you chose to configure Please Review, it is strongly recommended that your server(s) meet the requirements outlined below based on what components are installed.

2. Please Review hardware requirements

The hardware requirements for Please Review will vary depending on your use case. Factors which can affect the hardware requirements include:

• Anticipated database size: The overall size of your database will impact how well your SQL server performs, as well as the speed of searching.
• Number of users: Users will utilise the processor on the application server, therefore the more active users you have, the higher the processor spec should be.
• General end user search behaviour: Searching uses the IIS worker process and so searches will increase the size of this process and also the CPU usage.

As a result of the above factors, the Please Review Hardware requirements are outlined in a series of tiers:

2.1. Tier 1

This tier is the minimum recommended specification for a test environment only. A tier 1 system is a dedicated single tier (i.e. Microsoft SQL Server is installed on the same server as the Please Review application server) with no other software products use this server (i.e. the server is for Please Review only). 

2.2. Tier 2

This tier is the minimum recommended specification for a small production system. A tier 2 dedicated single tier (i.e. Microsoft SQL Server is installed on the same server as the Please Review application server) with no other software products use this server (i.e. the server is for Please Review only).

2.3. Tier 3

This tier is the minimum recommended specification for a medium production system. A tier 3 system is a dedicated split tier system. with Microsoft SQL Server and the Please Review application server installed on separate servers. No other software products or databases are installed on these servers (i.e. these servers are for Please Review only).

Important:

• Due to the nature of the database, the RAM available should be increased by at least 4Gb as the number of databases or the individual database size increases to ensure optimal performance.  Routine analysis of database performance is strongly recommended if you have multiple Microsoft SQL databases on the same SQL server.

• If your Please Review system is hosted by Ideagen then the initial hardware may be lower than the minimum requirements. This is because the virtualised environment is monitored and scaled up proportionately with usage, performance and requirements.

• Please Review also supports Active Directory for authentication of users. If Active Directory is to
  be used with Please Review the following is required:

  • Domain functional level of Windows 2003 or above.
  • The Please Review server must be a member of the Windows domain (but does not need to be a domain controller).
  • If anonymous access to the directory is not supported, a Windows account will be required for Please Review to log in to the directory.

2.4. Sample server hardware configurations

The below table outlines the server hardware required for Please Review.

Important: When running Please Review on a virtualised environment then the above hardware requirements should be used to calculate suitable VM guest configurations.

3. Minimum client requirements

3.1. Please Review

As Please Review is a web-based system there are no specific client requirements other than a modern web browser.

3.2. Offline Client

The Offline Client (OLC) is a Windows-only tool. The table below outlines the minimum requirements.

3.3. Client compatibility matrix

Please Review supports the operating systems, browsers and Microsoft Office versions listed. While not every version is explicitly tested, the latest available versions are routinely validated to ensure compatibility.

The below table outlines the systems compatible with Please Review:

Important: Flight mode will only operate if you connect to Please Review over https.

While Please Review is compatible with the environments listed above, operating systems and browsers marked with an asterisk (*) are supported but not explicitly tested in every release. Testing is focused on the latest or most widely used browsers and operating systems at the time of release.

Please Review follows Microsoft’s official End of Life (EOL) policy. Operating systems and Office versions that have reached EOL are not supported or tested.

3.4. Server Compatibility

Important: Only applicable for on-premises installations.
Please Review supports a range of server operating systems, databases and Microsoft Office versions as outlined above. Testing is focused on the latest or most widely used versions at the time of release.

Office 2024 is not supported in Windows Server 2016 and 2019.

Please Review rarely uses new database features hence existing features will be compatible in newer database version (e.g., the database will work in Oracle 19c when it is upgraded from Oracle 12c).

Please Review follows Microsoft’s official End of Life (EOL) policy. Operating systems, Office and database versions that have reached EOL are not supported or tested.

4. End of Life (EOL) Reference

Important: Please Review following the official End of Life (EOL) policies for all listed platforms. Versions that have reached their EOL are not tested and are not supported in our environment. Customers are strongly encouraged to upgrade to supported versions to ensure optimal performance and security.

5. Integration and authentication compatibility matrix

Important:

1. Authentication can be achieved by setting up native Please Review accounts alongside users single sign on. This only uses one single license.
2. Windows integrated authentication using NTLM or Kerberos.
3. Available with SCIM. For ADFS, import only (no synchronization), via user management or the client can use the bulk loader via the web admin. For Microsoft Entra ID and Okta - automatic provisioning (synchronization) of users and workgroup roles to Please Review.
4. This is workflow driven. A workflow includes a series of steps configured in Vault to align with specific business processes. The different types of steps offer a flexible way to organise a wide variety of processes for a document including assigning tasks to users, sending notifications and changing document status.
5. This includes a reduced subset, for example the Please Review groups admin only, monitor only, reviewer-delegator and contributor-delegator should not be assigned to Vault users.
6. Two-Way SSL (Client Certificate Authentication) complements Active Directory/LDAP authentication on Windows server.

7. For SAML2 SSO authentication via Mircrosoft Entra ID and Ping Identity, Please Review can be configured to support either Signed Response Validation or Signed Assertion Validation but not both.
   For SAML2 SSO authentication via Okta, Please Review can be configured to support Signed Response Validation, Signed Assertion Validation, or both.

8. Only support standard third-party system login but not together with external IdP SSO.

9. Provision via Active Directory/LDAP.

6. SQL server requirements

Your database can either be installed to a full version of SQL Server or to a SQL Express Edition.

If the database is installed to full SQL Server then there are in theory no limitations on your database size. 

If the database is installed to SQL Express edition then there is a 10Gb limit to your database storage. However, it is possible to migrate a Please Review database from Express to Full edition should you reach the limit.

7. Load Balanced/High Availability compatibility

Important:

1. Please Review Word Plugin and the Offline Client is not supported in the Load Balanced environment.
2. If Please Review is integrated into the user interface of an external system (i.e., Veeva) except the InteliNotion integration, an “Active-Active” mode configuration is not currently supported. If you are in any doubt about what this means to your specific configuration, please contact Ideagen support for advice.

8. OpenSpace

Important: Availability information on request.

9. Further Reading

• Preparing for a Please Review 8.0.0 Installation
• How to Install the Offline Client (OLC)
• How to Upgrade the Minimum Software Requirements