NyQuest Consulting, LLC

Setting Up Banner® Online Help

Setting up the Banner Online help has become a fairly complicated procedure since the help file is built depending on the modules for each site.

Before we get into that procedure, let's look at the contents of the Banner® Online Help file.

A Banner HELP file (typically named bannerOH.war) is basically a WAR (Web Archive) file which contains ZIPPED HTML files.
When these files are extracted, it contains module subdirectories. Under each subdirectory are the actual HTML help files.
There is generally one html file for each Banner Form
There are also some additional directories used to setup the web application
Graphically, this would look like the following:

The ZIPPED war file is deployed onto a Weblogic or Tomcat server.
The URL for the Banner Online HELP is defined in a Form GUAUPRF.

Within each Banner form, an online help page can be called.

Each time there is a Banner module upgrade (e.g. general, student, arsys...), updated help files will be delivered.

These help files need to be updated in the web archive, and the archive needs to be redeployed.

The procedures for setting building the help is as follows:

Under $BANNER_HOME, locate the starter bannerOH.war file. This is usually found under $BANNER_LINKS
Create a temporary directory (in this example, let's use /tmp/help) and extract this file using the following command:

$ cd /tmp/help
$ jar -xfv $BANNER_LINKS/bannerOH.war

Now you need to add in the actual help files. These file almost always located in the upgrade/doc directory (example: for general 8.9, they would be found under gen80900u/doc/Banner_General_Online_Help_8.9.zip

While you are still in the temporary directory setup up above, unzip the ZIP file in the upgrade directory, (i.e. unzip gen80900u/doc/Banner_General_Online_Help_8.9.zip).

Overwrite any files that already exist

Repeat this process for all over modules.

Once you are done migrating all help files into your temporary directory, rebuild your WAR file:

$ jar -cfv ../bannerOH.war *

Deploy the war file /tmp/bannerOH.war to your Tomcat/Weblogic server. Make sure the HELP in the Form GUAUPRF point to the correct location.