Deploying the Coveo Offline Help

The Coveo technical documentation is made available to Coveo users through the Coveo Online Help website and is not distributed with the application. When Coveo users work in secured environments with workstations that do not have Internet access, help links in the Coveo user interfaces will not work.

In such cases, you can rather download and deploy the Coveo offline help packages on your local Coveo server. Two offline help packages are available. They respectively contain the end-user topics (including topics referenced from the .NET search interfaces) and the administrator topics (including topics referenced from the Administration Tool and the .NET Interface Editor). You can deploy one or both of these offline help packages.

The topics referenced by the help links from the .NET search interfaces and the .NET Interface Editor must be accessible on the Front-End server while the topics referenced by the help links from the Administration Tool must be accessible on the Master server. For this reason, you must deploy the offline help packages on both types of servers as described in the following two procedures.

Deployment on a Front-End server

Download ZIP file for the Offline help system(s) that you want to deploy locally:
- Coveo .NET Front-End 12.0 user help
- Coveo Enterprise Search 7.0 administrator help
Using an administrator account, connect to your Coveo Front-End server.

Note: In a one server topology, both the Front-End and Back-End components are installed on the same server.
Deploy the user offline help:
1. Unzip the content of the user help ZIP file in the [.Net_Front-End_Path]\Web folder.
  
  Example: The default path is C:\Program Files\Coveo .NET Front-End 12\Web.
2. Ensure that the ZIP file extraction created the \Web\OfflineUserHelp120 folder.
3. Double-click the \Web\OfflineUserHelp120\Default.htm file to open the user help and validate that it is correctly deployed.
Deploy the administrator offline help so that the .NET Interface Editor help links work:
1. Unzip the content of the administrator help ZIP file in the [.Net_Front-End_Path]\Web folder.
2. Ensure that the ZIP file extraction created the \Web\OfflineAdminHelp70 folder.
3. Double-click the \Web\OfflineAdminHelp70\Default.htm file to open the administrator help and validate that it is correctly deployed.
You now must redirect Coveo help links to the offline help packages deployed on your Front-End server.
Using a text editor:
1. Create a backup copy of the [.Net_Front-End_Path]\Web\Web.config file.
2. Open the original [.Net_Front-End_Path]\Web\Web.config file.
3. In the <coveoEnterpriseSearch> section, add the following line:
```
<locations searchHelpUri="http://[Search_Interface_URI]/OfflineUserHelp120/Default.htm#cshid=" 
           adminHelpUri="http://[Search_Interface_URI]/OfflineAdminHelp70/Default.htm#cshid="/>
```
  where you replace [Search_Interface_URI] by the URI of your Coveo Front-End server in the hostname:port form. When you omit the port, the default port value (8080) is used.
  
  Note: Include the searchHelpUri attribute only when you deployed the user help on your server. Similarly, include the adminHelpUri attribute only when you deployed the administrator help on your server.
  Example: When the Coveo Front-End server name is MyCoveoServer, the <coveoEnterpriseSearch> section, looks like this:
```
<coveoEnterpriseSearch>
  <server hostname="localhost" port="52800" servicesPort="52810" instance="Default" mirrorName="Default" sslCertificatePath="C:\Program Files\Coveo .NET Front-End 12\Web\certificate.p12" />
  <database enabled="false" connectionString="mongodb://localhost/databaseName" />
  <analytics enabled="false" connectionString="Data Source=yourServerName;Initial Catalog=CoveoAnalytics;Integrated Security=SSPI;" />
  <locations searchHelpUri="http://MyCoveoServer:8080/OfflineUserHelp120/Default.htm#cshid=" 
    adminHelpUri="http://MyCoveoServer:8080/OfflineAdminHelp70/Default.htm#cshid="/>
</coveoEnterpriseSearch>      
```
  Note: To revert to the default behavior, simply remove the line added in the web.config file.
4. Save the file.
Note: In the case of a SharePoint integration, perform the same modification in the web.config files at the root of each SharePoint virtual servers (usually located in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\PortNumber). The URI specified must be the one where the standard Coveo .NET search interfaces are installed, not the one used in SharePoint.
Test the availability of the offline help packages. Using a browser:
1. Open or reload the .NET search interface from the Coveo Front-End server where you performed the previous steps, click the Help link above the search box, and then validate that the offline user help appears.
2. Open or reload the .NET Interface Editor from the Coveo Front-End server where you performed the previous steps, click the Help link on the right of the tabs, and then validate that the offline user help appears.
When your Coveo server topology includes several Front-End servers, repeat this procedure for each Front-End server.

Deployment on the Master server

Contact Coveo Support to get the ZIP file for the offline Coveo Enterprise Search 7.0 administrator help package.

Note: You do not need to deploy the offline user help package on a Master server.
Using an administrator account, connect to your Coveo Master server.

Note: In a one server topology, both the Front-End and Master server components are installed on the same machine. You must however perform this procedure when you want Administration Tool help links to be redirected to the offline help.
Deploy the administrator offline help so that the Administration Tool help links work:
1. Unzip the content of the administrator help ZIP file in the [CES_Path]\Web\Admin folder.
  
  Example: The default path is C:\Program Files\Coveo Enterprise Search 7\Web\Admin.
2. Ensure that the ZIP file extraction created the \Web\Admin\OfflineAdminHelp70 folder.
3. Double-click the \Web\Admin\OfflineAdminHelp70\Default.htm file to open the administrator help and validate that it is correctly deployed.
You now must redirect Administration Tool help links to the offline help package deployed on your Master server.
Using a text editor:
1. Create a backup copy of the [CES_Path]\Web\Admin\Web.config file.
2. Open the original [CES_Path]\Web\Admin\Web.config file.
3. Before the </configuration> closing line of the file, add the following <coveoEnterpriseSearch> section:
```
<coveoEnterpriseSearch>
  <locations adminHelpUri="http://[Master_Server_URI]/OfflineAdminHelp70/Default.htm#cshid="/>
</coveoEnterpriseSearch>
```
  where you replace [Master_Server_URI] by the URI of your Coveo Master server in the hostname:port form. When you omit the port, the default port value (8081) is used.
  Example: When the Coveo Front-End server name is MyCoveoServer, the <coveoEnterpriseSearch> section, looks like this:
```
<coveoEnterpriseSearch>
  <locations adminHelpUri="http://MyCoveoServer:8081/OfflineAdminHelp70/Default.htm#cshid="/>
</coveoEnterpriseSearch>      
```
  Note: To revert to the default behavior, simply remove the <coveoEnterpriseSearch> section.
4. Save the file.
Test the availability of the offline help package. Using a browser, open or reload the Administration Tool from the Coveo Master server, click the Help link at the top-right corner, and then validate that the offline user help appears.

Ask your questions on connect.coveo.com.

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