Dashboard Technical Specifications

Contents

Introduction

The Dolcera Dashboard is a web application for managing and organizing patents, product information, and scientific literature. This application is used for a variety of purposes including patent review/clearance, and by different enterprise users including attorneys, licensing professionals, engineers, and executives.

Use Cases

The typical use cases for the Dolcera Dashboard are as follows:

  1. Freedom-to-practice or clearance search
  2. Patent portfolio analysis
  3. Competitive intelligence
  4. Patent landscaping
  5. Patent-to-product mapping
  6. Patent-to-standard mapping

User Communities

The typical users of the Dolcera Dashboard include:

  1. Patent attorneys
  2. Patent managers
  3. Patent searchers
  4. Engineers, scientists and inventors
  5. Licensing and business development professionals
  6. Senior executives

What is the Dolcera Dashboard?

The Dolcera Dashboard is an interactive web application used to:

  1. Organize large quantities of patent, scientific and product literature
  2. Manage patent review workflows
  3. Assist in collaboration with colleagues and partners around the world
  4. Help technology teams, patent counsels, and key decision makers in monitoring the competitive landscaping and finding key partners

Workflow

A typical workflow is described below:

  1. Log into the system
    Login screen
  2. Select the dashboard (workfile)
    Select dashboard
  3. Create categories (taxonomy)
    Add taxonomy categories
  4. Add patents
    Add patents
  5. Review charts
    Review charts
  6. Review patents
    Review patents
  7. Search patents
    Search patents
  8. Tag patents
    Tag patents
  9. Add review notes for patents
    Patent notes
  10. Export patents and analysis
    Export patents

Deployment Architecture

Dolcera Dashboard Deployment Architecture

Hardware Requirements

As seen in the deployment architecture diagram, the typical deployment environment for the Dolcera Dashboard application consists of two main servers:

  1. Server running the Dolcera Dashboard web application
  2. Database server running PostgreSQL or Oracle database running the dashboard database

Web Application Server

The Dolcera Dashboard requires the following application server configuration:

Database Server

Network

Client Device

Software Requirements

The Dolcera Dashboard application is a PHP web application that runs on the Apache web server with PHP5, and connects to a PostgreSQL or Oracle database. The client application is a Flash application running inside the web browser.

Web Application Server

The web application server typically runs inside a vmware Virtual Machine running on any host operating system supported by vmware.

Database Server

Client

Installation and Setup

The server hardware and software installation steps are described below:

Hardware Installation

The server landscape can be configured with the database and web application running on the same server; alternately, the two can run on different servers.

  1. Set up a server with the specifications described above
  2. Ensure the operating system has the latest updates applied to it
  3. Ensure that both the web server and the database server (if separate) are connected to the network

Software Installation

Database Server

The following steps should be performed by a database administrator:

  1. Configure the database server with the appropriate database version (specified in the Software Requirements section)
  2. Download the Dolcera Dashboard database setup files (Dolcera_Dashboard_Database_vxxx.zip) to the database server from the location provided by the Dolcera representative
  3. Unzip the files in a folder of your choice (e.g. /tmp folder)
  4. Create a new database named dolcera
  5. Run the file dolcera_dashboard_setup.sql to create the tables and other database objects: the setup script will also populate the master data for the database, and create a dolcerauser with privileges to change the data in the database, but not to alter the database; this user account will be used by the web application

Web Application Server

  1. Download the Dolcera Dashboard installation package (Dolcera_Dashboard_vxxx.zip) to the web application server from the location provided by the Dolcera representative
  2. Unzip the folder in any directory (e.g. /tmp)
  3. Move the dolcera_dashboard_vm folder to the virtual machines folder on the web application server (e.g. /var/lib/vmware)
  4. Create a new vmware virtual machine instance for the Dolcera Dashboard
  5. Point the new vmware virtual machine instance to the dolcera_dashboard_vm folder
  6. Set the network preferences for the virtual machine to bridged networking
  7. Launch the new virtual machine
  8. Log in with the root password supplied by the Dolcera representative
  9. Change the database IP address setting as appropriate in the /srv/httpd/htdocs/dashboard/config/config.ini file
  10. Assign a fixed IP address for the vmware instance and note this IP address
  11. Once the software installation is complete, log into the application:

Setting up the Environment

Best Practices

Server Setup

  1. The vmware virtual machine based installation of the web application server is designed for ease of installation and management
  2. If vmware is not preferred, a different installer will be provided to run the web application directly on the server operating system
  3. Apply the latest database and operating system patches on the servers
  4. Change the admin password at regular intervals
  5. Set up the database for backup on a nightly basis

User Management

  1. Remove users once they leave the company
  2. Assign access to dashboard workfiles to users individually
  3. Limit the access for the administrator role