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Connect to an External Reporting Database

  • Updated

To use an external reporting database, confirm that Acrolinx supports your database format. Then you can create a new database and database user for Acrolinx and configure the persistence properties file in your Acrolinx Platform installation. You can also use database backups to migrate any existing data to the new database format.

Supported Database Formats

For an up-to-date list of supported database formats, see the Standard Stack Compatibility Guide.

Prepare Existing Data for Migration to an External Reporting Database

If you’ve used the default database to store your reporting data, you can migrate this data to an external reporting database. You migrate the data by creating a database backup before you switch to the external reporting database. Once the external reporting database is ready, you can restore the backup you created.

To prepare your existing data for migration to an external reporting database, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Analytics > Administration > Backup and Restore.

  2. Click Create New Backup.

    When the backup process completes, the new backup is displayed in the Available Backups table.

    If you prefer to store your backup somewhere other than the server computer, click Download in the Actions column.

    To cancel the backup task, click the Cancel button next to the progress bar.

Prepare the External Reporting Database

To prepare an external reporting database for Acrolinx, follow these steps:

  1. Create a new empty database on your database server with the name of your choice.

    • We recommend selecting UTF-8 encoding for the database as this encoding type guarantees the ability to store terms in any language.

  2. Configure a username and password, which has full write permissions on your new database.

    • If you use an Oracle database to store analytics, reporting and terminology data:

      • Make sure that the username for the terminology database is different to the username for the reporting and Analytics databases. In Oracle databases, usernames are associated with a specific database schema.

      • The user for the terminology database has no permissions on the reporting and Analytics databases and the other way round.

      • You also need the following user permissions for an Oracle database:

        grant create session to <USER>;
grant create table to <USER>;
grant create sequence to <USER>;
grant create view to <USER>;
grant create procedure to <USER>;

Edit the Database Configuration Properties

If you want to configure a connection to an external reporting database, you can create an overlay of the installed persistence properties file. You update the persistence properties overlay with the connection details for your database and restart Acrolinx.

To configure Acrolinx to connect to your external reporting database, follow these steps:

  1. Stop the Acrolinx Platform.

  2. Open your overlay of the following file: persistence.properties.

    If you haven’t yet created an overlay of this file, create a new version of the file at the following location:

    <config directory>/server/bin/

    Don’t edit the installed version of the file. Instead, always edit your overlay copy in the configuration directory.

  3. Add the following properties:

    reporting.dbType=<DATABASE_TYPE_SHORTNAME>
reporting.jdbcUser=<DATABASE_USERNAME>
reporting.jdbcPassword=<DATABASE_PASSWORD> 
reporting.jdbcUrl=<DATABASE_URL>

    Replace the placeholder values with the connection details for your database:

    • Replace the placeholder<DATABASE_TYPE_SHORTNAME> with POSTGRES or Oracle.

    • Replace the placeholder <DATABASE_USERNAME> with the username that you defined in Preparing a Database.

    • Replace the placeholder <DATABASE_PASSWORD> with the password that you defined in Preparing a Database.

    • Replace the placeholder <DATABASE_URL> with the location of your database.

      Note

      The syntax of the jdbcUrl parameter can vary depending on the database format. To help you understand the syntax, you'll find sample values for the jdbcUrl parameter in the installed persistence properties file. The jdbcUrl parameter usually requires the IP address, the port, and the name of the database.

      The following table lists the standard syntax of the jdbcUrl parameter for PostgreSQL and Oracle:

      Database Type

      Syntax of the jdbcUrl Parameter

      Example

      Oracle 19c

      jdbc:oracle:thin:@<IP_ADDRESS>:<DB_PORT>/<DB_NAME>

      jdbc:oracle:thin:@192.168.0.37:1521/TERMS

      PostgreSQL

      jdbc:postgresql:<DB_NAME>

      jdbc:postgresql:terminology

  4. Save your changes and start the Acrolinx Platform.

  5. Check the log files for any errors or warnings.

Restore Existing Data to the External Reporting Database

If you want to migrate your existing data, you can restore a database backup you created from the previous database format.

To migrate existing data to the external reporting database, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Analytics > Administration > Backup and Restore.

  2. Locate the backup in the Available Backups section, and in the Actions column, click Restore.

    To restore a backup that is stored on your computer or at a network location, upload the backup file to your server first.

  3. In the security dialog that appears, enter the word yes and click OK.

    Tip

    This type of dialog is an extra precaution to prevent you from overwriting your reporting database unintentionally. When you restore a database backup, all reporting data is overwritten with the data from the backup.