Buffer Sites

The Buffer Sites feature creates a defined number of temporary sites. The temporary sites are used when new entities are created.

The result of using the Buffer Sites feature is that sites get created much faster than without the feature.

A use case for when this feature could be useful is if a company regularly creates new projects with associated sites on their solution. They can enable the Buffer Sites feature in order to quickly be able to create projects with sites, which helps quickly start work on a new entity.

There are currently no requirements associated with the use of this feature.

Configuration and setup of the Buffer Sites feature can be done from the WorkPoint Administration:

1. Click the "Home" button of the solution
2. Click the cog icon in the side panel to access the WorkPoint Administration

3. Click the header of the business module for which Buffer Sites should be set up.
4. Click the "Buffer Sites" menu item

5. Check the "Buffer sites enabled?" checker on to enable the feature.
6. Check the "Handle ContentType Visibility" if you have more than one content type in libraries on the buffer sites where not all of them are set to visible. This setting sets all content types to visible.
7. In the "Job Processing Mode" selector, you can select if you want buffer site creation to happen synchronously or in parallel.
   • Synchronous: When Buffer sites are enabled, one web job which creates all requested buffer sites will be started and processed as a single job. This job can be inspected and followed in the Job Queue Manager, but once it starts processing, it cannot be cancelled.
   • Parallel: When Buffer sites are enabled, WorkPoint will start one job for the creation of each buffer site. These jobs can be inspected, followed, and cancelled in the Job Queue Manager.
8. Define how many buffer sites there should be created e.g. 10 (Note that whenever a Buffer Site is used to create e.g. a Project site, a new buffer site is immediately created to maintain the maximum number of available Buffer Sites.). If you expect that there will be created a lot of entity items you can increase the initial number of buffer sites or increase the number at a later time.
9. Click the "Save" button to finalize the configuration. This will also make the system start creating buffer sites.
10. Once buffer sites have been enabled, you can use the "Refresh" button to refresh the list to view the status of the buffer sites.
11. If you have previously created buffer sites but for some reason need to recreate them, you can click "Recreate Buffer Sites" to do so.

When Buffer Sites are enabled, the page refreshed and a green bar displays the message "Success: The buffer sites settings for Projects was updated.":

12. In the "Job list" you can inspect currently running jobs related to buffer site creation.
13. You can click the "Refresh" button to refresh the lists to view the progress and status of buffer sites and creation jobs:

In the images above, an example is shown where the Buffer Site creation job was started using the Synchronous mode.

The following image shows an example of the same job started using the Parallel mode on the Companies business module:

Note that in the Parallel mode exemplified in the image above, there are 5 jobs queued, one for each buffer site requested (and one completed job, which is the job that queues the 5 subsequent jobs).

Please note that whenever a Buffer Site is used to create e.g. a Project site, a new buffer site is immediately created to maintain the maximum number of available Buffer Sites.

Please also note that the maximum allowed length of the title of the sites created is 200 characters.

On WorkPoint 365 version 3, the maximum number of buffer sites per business module is 50. On WorkPoint 365 version 4, the maximum number of buffer sites per business module is 3000.