Various Settings

On this tab, you can configure important directories, the server URL, the handling of item numbers, and the REST web service interface, among other things.

Directories

Allegra stores all data except for attachments to items in a database. The attachments, the indexes for the full-text search, and the backup files are kept directly in the filesystem. For each of these file groups, you must set up a directory that can be read and written by the servlet container. The directories must be entered as absolute path names.

ALLEGRA_HOME

This is where Allegra stores attachments and report templates, among other things. Make sure that enough storage space is available and enter the directory as an absolute path.

Backup directory

Allegra can regularly create backups of its database and all other data. Such backups are stored in this directory.

Full-text search index

Allegra stores the indexes for the full-text search in the filesystem in specially formatted files and directories. The indexes can become very large. Therefore, you should provide enough storage space for this purpose. Also remember that this index must be updated with each search and each save of an item. Therefore, it is advantageous if the Allegra server has direct broadband access to this directory and it is not on a network drive.

The Server URL

Allegra can be operated behind a proxy where the externally visible address differs from the internal address. Usually, Allegra extracts its base URL from the first access to the system after the server start.

Warning

WARNING: If you access the system with a web browser on the same machine after the initial installation, Allegra will enter “localhost” as the base URL. This is usually not desired and therefore it is recommended to enter the URL manually. The automatic base URL detection works well if there are no proxy servers between the application server and the user clients. If a proxy server hides the application server, the correct server URL must be configured.

You must not specify the context name as part of the URL, Allegra determines this itself. Example of the Allegra Server URL:

https://gandalf

This allows you to reach Allegra at

https://gandalf/allegra

Self-registration

It is possible to allow users to register themselves. Registration is always limited to certain email domain patterns, which are configured under “Allowed Email Pattern” in the configuration section for incoming emails.

You can define groups in which new users, including those who register themselves, are automatically included will be. This way, you can automatically grant permissions in the system to newly registered users through their group. Otherwise, these permissions must be granted manually through role assignments.

Automatic Login as Guest User

If this feature is turned on and an unknown user wants to go to any page of the system, he will be logged in as a guest user “guest” beforehand. This is practical, for example, if you want to make documents in the wiki or queries publicly accessible without users needing to have an account.

Item Numbers

For each item, Allegra generates a unique and global identification number like 4789 or 6789. If you enable project-specific item numbering, Allegra instead generates item numbers from a project-specific prefix and a project-specific integer, like TRA-1, TRA-2, and so on.

Bulk Item Behavior

This enables the automated calculation of start date, end date, and planned value for parent bulk items from the values of their subordinate items. This should be the default setting. If this switch is not set, the parent values remain independent of the values of subordinate items. This is probably not what you want in most cases.

Top-Down Behavior

This enables support for top-down planning of budgets and schedules. The top-down values are compared with the bottom-up values and conflicts are marked. For example, if the budget was 100 euros and the planned value entered by the responsible was 130 euros, this point would be marked in a conflict state.

Demo Site

This is a switch to make the installation of a demo site easy. In a demo site, it is not possible to save changes to the guest user account. Normally, this should be disabled.

Notice of new program version

This displays a message when a newer program version is available than the one you are running. The message is only shown to system administrators.

Web service interface

Here you can activate the REST web service interface, which is used by external software like the service desk application. The address at which you can reach the web service is the URL of your instance, supplemented by rest, for example, https://www.trackplus.net/rest/v1/people/auth/login.

Advanced Settings

Here you can edit the file “GeneralSettings.properties”, in which you can make further, partly system-critical settings.