Background generation¶

The background generation environment allows long-running tasks, such as assembling large, complex documents, to be performed on dedicated backroom computers. It also enables client-facing webforms to leverage the full power of the I-Deal Docs document assembly functions.

By design, Microsoft Word does not allow multiple instances to run concurrently on the same computer, with each instance performing different tasks on different documents simultaneously. For example, you cannot run a macro performing a long-running process while also opening the Print dialog on the same machine. As a result, when I-Deal Docs is generating a large, complex document, your computer is effectively tied up until the generation completes – this is simply a limitation of Word.

To address this, I-Deal Docs provides a background processing environment. When set up, dedicated unattended computers process document requests from a central queue. As each request completes, the resulting document is delivered back to the originating user, freeing the local machine from being tied up during the long-running process.

The Server User Jobs window allows you to monitor the status (waiting, running, or completed) of all jobs submitted to the background computers and to retrieve the output once each job has finished processing.