I am very pleased to announce our new and enhanced version of our RapidiConnector Service Controller. This is the Services plugin program (CPL) that help you install, control and uninstall the RapidiConnector's as Windows Services on your server.
The new version is a huge update and is basically a redesign of the program to work much more dedicated for the sole task of managing the RapidiConnector's on a server. The new version is available in both 32bit and 64bit versions (Rapidi.CPL and Rapidi64.CPL) and is supporting all later versions of the Windows operating system (from Windows7, Server2008, Server2012 and later).
Installing multiple RapidiConnector Services on the same machine
When installing multiple RapidiConnectors on the same machine (which is needed if you have more NAV/AX/SQL instances or companies to connect to), we previously manually created subdirectories and copied the Rapidi files into these, so that we had a unique exe file to run the service on. We have now built in our best practices for the installation of multiple RapidiConnectors into the program. As part of the installation of a new service, the program will create a sub-directory for this service and copy the needed files into this new sub-directory. This makes the installation process much easier.
Simpler entering of needed parameters
Before you had to install the new service and then go into the Parameters (Properties) window to enter the serviceid, userid and password to connect to the central RapidiOnline service. This is also much simpler now, as you enter these few parameters right in the Install New Service window. Now its a one step process to install a new service.
Service name and description
We now use a unique Service name for the new services that you create so that you always know where to find the RapidiConnector services in your Services list. The Service name is now composed like "RapidiConnector (123_NAV001_R)" - where 123 is the Rapidi ServiceId and NAV001_R is the Rapidi UserID that you enter during the installation of the new service. We also propose a Description for the new Service and we let you edit the description so that you can add you specific data/naming to the description - for example the country that this NAV system is running for.
Windows User Id for running the service
In general, you still need to be an Administrator to install new RapidiConnector services. We also very much prefer if you can run the RapidiConnectors under an account that has Administrator rights. This will make all our tools for helping you resolve problems, and work without problems. For example, we can upgrade the RapidiConnector remotely (this requires that the windows user running the program is allowed to stop and start the windows service).
Before it was difficult to switch the windows user used to run the RapidiConnector and all connectors had to run under the same Windows user account as we stored some encryption key information in that user key storage on the computer (and if switching user, this key information was not available to the new user).
Now we have found a way to move the key information to the new windows user key storage, so you are free to switch windows users on the RapidiConnector services. You can now also run the services under the local machine account.
Running a RapidiConnector under a specific windows user account enables you to use Windows Authentication towards e.g. MS Dynamics NAV and MS-SQL Server. This is very convenient as you then do not need to enter any credentials for access to these servers/database on the RapidiOnline side.
The new version is available for download as part of the new RapidiConnector.msi installer available under Connections in MyRapidi.
Before upgrading your existing RapidiConnectors, please contact our support to check if there is any particular things with your configuration that need to be tested etc.
Read more here about installing the new RapidiConnector.
Please let us know if you have comments or questions.
Thanks
Michael
