Important Resources
See Laurel's Supported Systems & Requirements.
Please use Installing Laurel articles to setup and maintain services.
If you maintain Laurel or serve as a customer admin, please also ask questions into our Intercom where we field support and enrichment requests.
Laurel Assistants
Laurel Desktop and Cloud Assistants are critical in delivering our time technology and automation. It's important these assistants are well maintained and up-to-date for timekeepers for the best overall experience.
Laurel Desktop and Cloud Assistants are critical in delivering our time technology and automation. It's important these assistants are well maintained and up-to-date for timekeepers for the best overall experience.
What Laurel Assistants Exist?
Installed Assistants
Laurel Windows Desktop Assistant
Laurel Mac Desktop Assistant (⚠️ Private Beta)
Cloud Assistants
Laurel Zoom Cloud Assistant
Laurel MS Teams Cloud Assistant
Laurel O365 Cloud Assistant (Required Permissions)
Laurel Azure App O365 Cloud Assistant (Integration Approach)
Assistant Environment Impact
Folks want to know the impact of having our assistants.
Assistants auto-login at system start; if the network is unavailable at that point the user will need to interact with the assistant to login when the network becomes available. Users will not receive local collection during this time.
Our assistants cache events before sending to the backend so minor network disruptions do not affect the reliability of our tracking data.
Our cloud address access requirement list has the same requirement for all environments. google.com for network availability, launch darkly, segment, laurel aws endpoints, SSO endpoints. If these aren't open and generally available the application won't be able to function correctly.
Assistant Distribution
The Laurel Windows Desktop Assistant is an executable .msix, Microsoft's most up to date and supported installation protocol.
Laurel does not support Windows Server based distributions (and .msix installers only support Windows Server 2019 and above).
We recommend using a distribution mechanism such as Microsoft Configuration Manager to ensure the latest builds from Laurel are provided to your users.
Otherwise, ensure users have high enough permissions to install Laurel Desktop installers from download.laurel.ai and direct users there for the latest stable builds.
Assistant Updates
Laurel Installed Assistants are updated by the customer firm and can be set to automatically update themselves if wanted. The following channels will be made available for updating:
Emergency Release:
requiredIf a critical bug is addressed, target customers will be asked to make an immediate update to their assistant deployment.Quarterly Release:
requiredAssistants will be required to upgrade at least once a quarter with the latest stable monthly build available to all customer firms.Monthly Release:
suggestedAssistants upgraded monthly, with automatic updating allowed, will provide an excellent experience for timekeepers and customer firms in terms of bug fixes and enhancements.Bi-Weekly Release:
highly suggestedAssistants can upgrade at a bi-weekly cadence experiencing the best experience for timekeepers and customer firms in terms of bug fixes and enhancements. We require automatic updating to lower the distribution efforts related to this release channel.
Laurel Cloud Assistants are updated on server side and require little intervention once successfully configured by customer firms.
Laurel requires application level permissions to function — users can be limited by using groups assigned to application. Please see Microsoft instructions here:
Assistant Authentication
Our assistants require SSO to login and therefore all customer firms require and IdP to use Laurel. We support:
SAML 2.0
OneLogin Integration
Assistant Network Usage
Our assistants require and use internet access. The network usage on a per user basis is approximately:
4,000 (idle) to 7,000 bytes per second
Approximately 20% of the traffic of using Google Chrome
Laurel Security
We use best in-class products and service approaches to handle data (we are timekeepers internally, too).
Laurel Authentication
Laurel only supports SSO authentication for users to ensure you control user access via:
Okta
Azure AD
SAML
Laurel Telemetry
Laurel uses these services to observe and manage our products:
Mixpanel: Used to collect observability information, including: user action telemetry (ie. clicks) and metrics.
Sumologic: Used to collect observability information, including: logs from our services, network traces, and metrics.
Launch Darkly: Used to manage feature flags for turning functionality on and off for user and customer groups.
These services use identification information including User ID and Email to function and need to be put on allowlists for access (see Allowlist URLs and IPs).
Allowlist URLs and IPs
⚠️ If you choose to Allowlist URLs and IPs you must include all or the Laurel application will not be able to function.
If your firm is interested in setting up additional security, we ask the following URLs and IP Addresses are allowlisted for Laurel to function:
URLs
*.laurel.ai*.timeautomation.com*.launchdarkly.com*.sumologic.com*.mixpanel.com*.mixpanel.comcdn.segment.comapi.segment.io
IP Addresses (by Region)
Region: SYD
3.104.1177.61/3252.63.15.70/3252.63.65.178/32
Region: IAD
34.193.28.111/3254.157.157.55/3254.90.169.166/32
Region: LHR
13.42.88.218/3218.132.208.7/3235.178.73.106/32
Region: YUL
3.96.235.152/323.96.95.62/323.98.219.79/32
Boomi Atom Guide:
Additionally, if you require outbound network restrictions on the atom server, please follow the whitelisting steps here
Data Collection & Retention
Do you support DNS CNAMES vs SQL Server names in your connection strings?
When connecting through the atom, we should be able to support DNS CNAMES as long as they're accessible within the environment the atom is installed.
Are the connection strings encrypted?
All sensitive data is encrypted at rest within our databases and in Boomi with AES-256.
Laurel Atom Install
For Aderant and 3E customers, we require an atom to be installed on your server to facilitate communication with your billing system. The atom also installs Java OpenJDK which does not require a fee for enterprise customers.