Fusion Installer has two purposes:
This help page will first explain how to use the main installer window and then briefly go over each of the utilities.
As soon as you launch Fusion Installer, the main Install Window will open. Follow the Quick Installation Instructions or read further for a detailed explanation of each function.
To install an application you first need an install file and there are several places where you can obtain it.
Each application that can be installed is listed here. Typically you will be installing the latest version of an application which is pretty straight forward—just select the application in the list. Inside the listbox you will see the Your Version and Source Version columns. Your Version reflects the actual version installed on your computer. The Source Version column shows the latest version of the install file available at the selected source. Normally this will be the version you want to install, but on occasion you may want to install an older version. If you double-click a version number in the Source Version column, you can choose to install any version that is still available at the selected source.
Sometimes you don't want to actually install a new version just now, but you would like to make sure you have the install files on hand so you don't have to wait for them to download when you are ready to install. This is what the Just Download button is for. When this button is used, the install file for the selected application will be downloaded but not actually installed. Later, when you want to actually install the application, choose the Local source and the install will be very fast.
After you click the Install button the install file will be downloaded if necessary. Fusion Installer will then take a few moments to extract and analyze the install file to make sure it isn't corrupt and then install it. Some of the applications have additional options which you can check before installing:
Click the Release Notes button if you want to read the release notes for Fusion. You will be taken to our website where you can see the most recent changes or look for changes in a specific version. You can also use the Support Website button to be taken to our support page.
Under the Advanced menu are some utilities to help diagnose and solve Fusion related issues. For the most part these should only be used when advised by someone from our support team. Nevertheless, a brief description of each is listed next.
The Serial Port Debugger is also found with Fusion itself and can be used to figure out what settings should be used for an RFID reader, temperature probe, or remote display. When the window is opened you will be asked to choose a port and other connection information (check the user manual for the device if you are unsure about these settings). Once the settings are accepted you will see a window where you can either receive or send to the device.
To begin receiving, click the Open Port button. As the device sends information you will see it appear in the text box. If the device sends a character that cannot be directly displayed, the ASCII equivalent will be shown enclosed in less than/greater than signs like this: <13>. As an example, to set up an RFID reader correctly you must know the termination string. If you use this utility to receive a few tags you will see some hidden characters between each tag. If you saw 124000123456789<13><10>124000564894326<13><10> then you would know that the termination string setting needs to be 13,10.
You can use the sending tab to send characters to a device like a remote display. There are several options which allow you to specify the end of line string, when to send the text, and even the ability to choose a file to send to the device.
Whether you are at a client computer or a truck computer, sometimes you might need to know the server's IP address. This function tries to automatically find the server on the network and will display its IP address, possibly saving you a walk to the server and back. It only works if Fusion Server is running and set up to allow trucks to sync and the network is working correctly.
If your network is not behaving well, you can use this window to perform a very simplistic test called a "ping" test. In most cases you will choose the computer where Fusion Client is having network issues to run this on. Set the Ping Address field to Fusion Server if you can. Otherwise, choose another address. Click Start Pinging to begin the test. It is usually best to let the test run for at least several minutes and sometimes for a few hours to see the results. If you are experiencing very much packet loss, please work with the person who takes care of your network to resolve the issue. Fusion Client works best on a network with nearly 0% packet loss. You should also pay attention to the average latency which, ideally, will be less than 2 ms when close to the server and less than 10 ms even when several miles away.
Please note that the Throughput Test utility was removed from Fusion Installer 4.1. It will return in a future version of Fusion Installer.
If your network is not behaving well, you can use this window to check the throughput between a computer and Fusion Server. We recommend 10 Mbps as the minimum throughput for Fusion to work properly and we recommend 50 Mbps and higher for the best experience, especially with office computers. If your network is too slow, you may experience issues while using Fusion.
To start a test, just click the Begin Test button. Once the test is complete, the results will be shown. You should generally run the test a few times and average the results. It is possible to change the size of the test data that is used during the test. In almost all cases you should leave this at the default setting. However, occasionally support staff may ask you to change this thermometer for specific tests.
If you are experiencing low throughput, please work with the person who takes care of your network to resolve the issue.
Sometimes when troubleshooting it is necessary to send a file to someone on our support team. The file may be too big to email or email may not even be available on the computer being used. This option can be used to automatically FTP the file to us, no matter how large it is. This would normally be done under the direction of someone from our support team and we will notified when the file upload has completed. In most cases you will want to make sure the file is first compressed (zip works well).
