FieldAgent Desktop - Installation Best Practices And Troubleshooting

FieldAgent Desktop - Installation Best Practices And Troubleshooting

1 FieldAgent Desktop Requirements

Prior to installing FieldAgent Desktop there are some requirements that must be met. For the software prerequisites, FieldAgent™ Desktop will automatically install them if they are not already installed. You will need local administration rights in order to install the software prerequisites. For some enterprise level users, temporary administration rights may need to be granted to the end user in order to install the prerequisites. See your system administrator for more details.

1.1 Software Prerequisites

Software requirements include:

  1. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.8 (x86 and x64). If the PC is current on Windows updates, this version of .Net is already installed. 
  2. SQL Server 2014 Express Local DB 
  3. Visual C ++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x64) 

1.2 Hardware Prerequisites

Hardware requirements include:

  1. 64-Bit version of Windows 8 or later
  2. 8GB of RAM minimum, 16 GB or more of RAM recommended
  3. 4 Core CPU, 8 Processing Threads
  4. 500 GB of disk space minimum, 1 TB or more of disk space recommended
  5. 1280 x 1024 minimum screen resolution

1.3 User Account Requirements

User account requirements include:

  1. User must be able to install applications into their profile. For example, Local Admin Privileges.
  2. User must be able to access http://installs.sentera.com
  3. FieldAgent must be able to make HTTP requests to http://api.sentera.com
  4. User must be able to store data on a local, non-removable disk.
  5. Latest .NET and Windows updates should be applied. This is not necessary except for version 4.8 of the .NET framework.

2 Download and Install FieldAgent Desktop

The installer for FieldAgent Desktop is a hosted application. There isn’t a standalone installer.

1.      Navigate to http://installs.sentera.com/fieldagent/index.html


2.      Validate that the PC meets the system requirements.


3.      Click   at the bottom of the window.


4.      Open the folder where the file was saved, downloads is typically the default location. 

      

5.      Double-click setup.exe to launch the install.

If you lack the software requirements, the installer will ask to install them now.  Skip to step 9 if you already have them installed.

6.      Click Accept to install SQL Server 2014 Express LocalDB, as shown in Figure 1


Figure 1: Click Accept


7.      Click Install to install the Visual C++ 2015-2019 redistributable (x64) application, as shown in Figure 2.

 

Figure 2: Click Install

8.    Two User Account Control dialog boxes display for the SQL Server and Visual C++ installs. Click Yes in both dialog boxes, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Click Yes


9.       Click Install to begin the install of FieldAgent Desktop, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Click Install


10.   The files for FieldAgent Desktop are downloaded and the FieldAgent Desktop installation is autonomous going forward, as shown in Figure 5.

 Figure 5: Installation Dialog Box 


12.   Once the install is complete, the Sign In dialog box for FieldAgent displays.

 

3 Sign into FieldAgent Desktop

Once FieldAgent Desktop is installed, log in by using the following instructions:

1.     Type in the Email (User ID) and Password for heFieldAgent users, as shown in Figure 6.


Figure 6: Log in 

2.      If this is the first time the user is logging into FieldAgent, user details must be updated and force a password change. Click Register, as shown in Figure 7.


 Figure 7: Click Register


3.      Once complete, FieldAgent will finish setup and display the main Map window.


4 Troubleshooting the Install‌

There are a few reasons why the installation may fail. The following section describes the most common ones.

​

4.1 Another User Logged On‌

If another user is already signed into FieldAgent on this PC, an error message displays, as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Error Message

To correct this issue:

1. Download and run Sentera Tool as the local administrator on the PC http://installs.sentera.com/tools/setup.exe

2. Launch the installer. It will automatically open when complete.

3. Select the check boxes shown in the Figure 9 and click Clean.

Figure 9: Click Clean

4. Type Yes in the confirmation box and then click Yes, as shown in Figure 10.



Figure 10: Click Yes

5. Let the process run and when complete, click OK, as shown in Figure 11.



Figure 11: Click OK

6. Close the FieldAgent cleaner window by clicking the x box in the upper right-hand corner of the dialog box, as shown in Figure 12.



Figure 12: Click Close

7. Launch FieldAgent Desktop and login.

8. Uninstall the Sentera Tool from the PC and delete the Installer App.

4.2 Stop Tasks‌

If this process fails, the most likely cause is a background process is preventing from this process completing. To fix this issue:
1. Launch Task Manager.

2. Sort the processes by Name.

3. Scroll through the background processes to SQL Server VSS Writer and SQL Server Windows NT, as shown in Figure 13.














Figure 13: list of Processes 

4. Right-click on the SQL Server VSS Writer and select End Task, as shown in Figure 14.
Figure 7: Select End Task

Figure 14: Select End Task

5. Repeat the same step for the SQL Server Writer NT.

6. Close the Task Manager.

7. Rerun the Sentera Tool. After these processes are complete, the user can successfully login to FieldAgent.

8. Uninstall the Sentera Tool from the PC and delete the Installer App.










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