We've compiled a list of frequently asked questions about Kivati Studio. Read the answers below or download the FAQ documents in PDF form here:
Want more information? You can listen to an audio interview with John Fallou, Resolute CEO and Jack Nichols, Kivati Product Manager and learn more about the launch of Kivati Studio.
Have a question not answered here? Contact us and we'll be happy to help you find the information that you need.
For Business Decision Makers
What is Kivati Studio?
Kivati Studio is a powerful, flexible, and extensible scripted deployment solution for composite applications built on the Microsoft® Office® SharePoint 2007 platform. Using Kivati Studio can enable your solution delivery team to become more productive—saving time and improving solution quality while reducing costs.
How will Kivati Studio help me to reduce costs?
Kivati Studio helps reduce the costs of application development, deployment, and management by:
- Reducing the time required for the deployment of composite applications
- Reducing the QA effort required to test deployed composite applications
- Automating common, repetitive, and tedious application deployment and management tasks
I'm not a programmer. Will I be able to use Kivati Studio?
The easy-to-use Kivati Studio interface makes building powerful, composite applications possible for anyone. Non-programmers can easily build composite applications without special programming knowledge.
What kind of training is needed for Kivati Studio?
Very little training is needed and Kivati Studio is both easy to learn and easy to use! Kivati Studio includes tutorials, samples, and a wide-range of other help resources that will get your team up and running quickly with a very short learning curve.
What features in SharePoint does Kivati Studio support?
Kivati Studio supports most common features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3. You can view a complete list of the supported features online at http://www.kivati.net/kcom/taskhelp.
Does Kivati Studio support non-SharePoint features?
Yes. Kivati Studio ships with support for a variety of non-SharePoint features including files, folders, the Windows registry, SQL server, spreadsheets, and other data sources.
What if Kivati Studio does not support a feature that I need?
The Kivati Software team is always developing support for new features. We may have your need covered in our next release and invite you to check our product roadmap. Not finding what you need? Visit the Kivati SDK site to learn how you can easily develop support for the features that you need on our platform.
For Technical Decision Makers
What is required to run Kivati Studio?
Running Kivati Studio is easy. You will need a computer running Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, or Server 2008 with 1GB of RAM, 50MB of available hard disk space, and a 2ghz (or faster) processor. The .NET Framework 2.0 is required. Note that network connectivity is required to to activate Kivati Studio and also when using some of the product features.
What versions of SharePoint does Kivati Studio support?
Kivati Studio supports Windows SharePoint Services 3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Can I build projects using Kivati Studio on a computer without SharePoint?
Yes. The Kivati Studio installation wizard will help you install any additional dependencies that you need on computers that do not have SharePoint installed. You can also use use Kivati Server to run projects on remote servers running SharePoint.
Are Kivati projects human-readable?
Yes. All Kivati project files are stored in plain XML format and can be both read and modified either by you or by any of your custom tools.
What output does Kivati produce and what are the dependencies?
The Kivati Studio compiler produces .NET binaries that have no external dependencies other than the .NET Framework 2.0 and SharePoint. You can simply xcopy deploy the output to your target machine or you can run your project using Kivati Server.
Do I need to run my projects on a computer that has SharePoint?
Yes. In the current version of Kivati Studio you do need to have SharePoint on the computer used to run your projects. This is because in the current version of Kivati Studio tasks use the SharePoint object model. Future releases of Kivati Studio will support SharePoint using its web services, which will enable you to run your projects on any computer.
Can I distribute projects I create with Kivati?
Yes. You can distribute your projects and certain portions of the Kivati runtime royalty-free as needed by your project (subject to your license agreement).
Can I extend the Kivati platform?
Yes. You can extend the Kivati platform if you find that it does not yet offer a feature that you need. Download the Kivati SDK for free from our web site.