P4 Plan client does not require administration rights to run. The client does require write access to the user's home directory.
Client deployment
There are four ways in which the P4 Plan client can be deployed to users:
- Standard installation: The client can be installed on a user's machine the same as any other software
- Network installation: The client can be installed on a network share accessible to all users
- VM installation: The client can be installed on a virtual machine on a user's machine
- Remote: The client can be used over terminal services or similar
The most common deployment method is a standard installation (#1). In this situation the P4 Plan client on the user's machine will automatically upgrade or downgrade to match the version of the server the client is connecting to. P4 Plan is capable of connecting to servers running different versions from a single client installation.
A network installation (#2) can be used in situations where you want to have one common installation for all users. The P4 Plan client fully supports running from a shared folder - the automatic upgrade and downgrade mechanism fully handles this situation. If the shared network location is read only for users P4 Plan will download any alternate versions required to a user local directory to allow the user to connect to servers running versions other than the version of the client installed on the network share.
The P4 Plan client works well in VMs such as Parallels and VMWare (#3). Ensure that the VM is setup to meet the system requirements of the P4 Plan client (see System requirements in the P4 Plan user manual).
P4 Plan also works over services such as Terminal Services, although performance will not be ideal.
Document management local storage
The default location of the local storage for document management is as follows:
| Operating system | Location |
|---|---|
| Windows | The folder "My Documents\P4 Plan" in the user's home directory. |
| Mac | The folder "Documents/P4 Plan" in the user's home directory. |
| Linux | The folder "Documents/P4 Plan" in the user's home directory. |
When users are going to be offline and unable to contact the server and still want to be able to read documents they can copy the documents to the local storage. Users can also check documents out before going offline to be able to edit them while offline.
P4 Plan will never delete files that are in the document management system from the local storage so it might grow large with time. It is safe to delete these files as long as none of them are checked out. Check from the user's client if it has any files are checked out before deleting this folder.