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 7.0 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

The below table outlines the systems compatible with Please Review:

Important: Flight mode will only operate if you connect to Please Review over https.
Please Review supports the client operating systems, browsers, and Microsoft Office versions listed above. It may not function as expected on untested or unlisted versions.

4. 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 with no synchronisation, via user management or the client, you can use the bulk uploader via the administration module.
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. 2-Way SSL (Client Certificate Authentication) complements Active Directory/LDAP authentication on Windows server.

5. 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.

6. Load Balanced/High Availability compatibility

7. Further Reading

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