Badger TraCS Guides
Task 4.2: Install TraCS Office
- Geraldine Polster
Task 4.2: Install TraCS Office
Purpose: Installs TraCS on additional office workstations. These workstations will be used to perform office administrative tasks described in the Badger TraCS Office Administrator Guide document and may also be used for data-entry.
This will be obsolete in baseline series 21.01 as all installs will be either server or web client installs.
If your agency is small, you may use your master computer for all administrative tasks and forgo installing TraCS on additional office workstations if you wish.
Office mode is generally used on computers at the agency headquarters that are continuously connected to the TraCS data database.
While most computers running office mode are typically in the agency headquarters, it is possible to run TraCS in office mode in a vehicle. The vehicle must be equipped with broadband connectivity providing 100% uptime with no dead spots. You must also use SQL Server as your TraCS office database. The advantage of running office mode in the vehicle is that the end-shift process is avoided, and forms are written to the database as soon as they are saved.
See also Task 4.3 for instructions on running TraCS in mobile mode in vehicles.
Requirements: PC workstation or laptop connected to the Internet and your Local Area Network (LAN). TraCS software downloaded in task 1.1
Skip this task if your response to question 3 on the architecture worksheet was:
No connectivity for field units and no local area network: We have no or very little ability to connect to a network or Internet from a field unit. USB flash drives are our primary means of transferring data. We don’t have access to a network drive in the office. We plan on having a single standalone workstation running TraCS in office mode. This will also be our master computer which we connect to the Internet so that we can download software updates and transmit data.
Skip this task on in-vehicle computers meant for low or no connectivity vehicles. Perform task 4.3 on these field units instead.
Choose the most appropriate option for your agency from the alternatives listed below.
Alternative A: Perform Task 4.2(a) if your response to questions 1 and 9 on the architecture worksheet was:
No, we do not plan to run TraCS in a para-virtualized environment.
Alternative B: Perform Task 4.2(b) This task is obsolete as no agency has used TraCS 7.3 since 2017
Alternative C: Perform Task 4.2(C) if your response to question 9 on the architecture worksheet was:
We plan to implement TraCS in a para-virtualized environment such as Citrix, Terminal Server, or VMware.
Different types of hardware virtualization include:
Full virtualization – Almost complete simulation of the actual hardware to allow software environments, including a guest operating system and its apps, to run unmodified.
Paravirtualization – The guest apps are executed in their own isolated domains, as if they are running on a separate system, but a hardware environment is not simulated. Guest programs need to be specifically modified to run in this environment.
Warning: although some agencies have chosen to run TraCS as a virtualized application, the vendor for TraCS did not specifically design the application to be run in this manner. TraCS may run more slowly as a virtualized application. Data losses can occur if a session is dropped suddenly.
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