Laserfiche Account Conversion Utility
There are various ways that users can be authenticated into the Laserfiche system. Administrators can either configure separate Laserfiche accounts or they can take advantage of existing Windows accounts (domain accounts) already in place in the organization. The Laserfiche Account Conversion Utility, which can be run in a batch, is designed to help administrators transition from using Laserfiche accounts to domain accounts, which, in most cases, is highly recommended.
What makes domain accounts better than Laserfiche accounts?
- Users can log into the repository automatically without needing to remember a separate username and password.
- If a Windows account for a new user has been created on the domain, this account will consequently be added to Laserfiche under the very same Windows group without the administrator having to do anything manually.
- If a user leaves the organization, the administrator can simply disable or remove their domain account. The user will then be automatically removed from Laserfiche.
Note, domain accounts can be added to Laserfiche groups just like Laserfiche accounts.
Why would I need the Laserfiche Account Conversion Utility?
There is no easy, immediate way to configure domain accounts without losing existing security settings and group mappings. Though domain accounts are preferred to Laserfiche accounts, many repositories that were migrated to Laserfiche 8 continue to use or maintain Laserfiche accounts because of the amount of time it would take to manually convert them. This utility offers administrators a quick and easy way to automate the process.
In addition, since domain accounts are especially recommended when using Laserfiche Avante and Laserfiche Rio because they enable users to get maximum use of those named licenses, this utility can help you transition from Team or United to these systems.
How does this utility work?
The Account Conversion Utility copies virtually all of the Laserfiche settings and security currently assigned to a Laserfiche account to a matching domain account.
Matches are made based on the name of a Laserfiche user and one of the following Microsoft Active Directory attributes:
Example: A Laserfiche user named JDoe could be matched with a domain account using the same Display-Name.
Note, if your Laserfiche usernames do not match any of those Microsoft Active Directory attributes, you must rename the Laserfiche accounts before running the utility. Though this may seem like a lot of extra work, renaming accounts and then running the utility will still be much easier than trying to create and configure each domain account one-by-one.
The Laserfiche Account Conversion Utility lets you copy any of the following settings:
What should I keep in mind when using this utility?
- The utility can only be used to copy settings from Laserfiche accounts to domain accounts. It cannot be used to copy settings from Laserfiche groups to domain accounts.
- The utility should be run from an all-access administrator account.
- It is highly recommended that you either run the utility on a copy of the repository’s production database, or perform a complete database backup before running the utility.
- After the utility has finished running, log in to the repository and test out the changes.
Where can I download this utility?
This utility, as well as an accompanying documentation (README.pdf), can be found here.
*A Support Site login is required to download the zip file.*
Read the accompanying documentation first, before attempting to run the utility.
To install the Laserfiche Account Conversion Utility:
- Open the .zip file’s Install folder
- Run Account Conversion Utility.msi
- Follow the prompts
The source code can be found in the Account Conversion Utility.sln file inside the Source folder.
This project was created in VB.NET using Visual Studio 2008.
