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Export and Promotion

Move BusinessObjects content from one environment to another, for example from development to test to production, with its dependencies, and check the result.

Goal

A team finishes a set of Web Intelligence reports and their universe in development. You need to move exactly that content to test and later to production, see what already exists in the target, keep CUIDs stable, and prove that the target matches the source.

Who

BI administrators and release managers who move content between environments.

Before you begin

  • Both environments are connected to MetaMiner. See Add an Environment.
  • You have the MMC permission Export on the source environment and Import on the target. See Permissions Reference.
  • The target runs the same or a higher BusinessObjects major version than the source. MetaMiner refuses to export to a lower major version.
  • Back up the target folders you will overwrite. See Disaster Recovery.

Steps

1. Select the content

  1. In the CMS Explorer, expand the source environment and select the folders, documents, universes and connections to move.
  2. Right-click and choose Export to.... In the Export to CMS wizard, pick the target environment. See Export to CMS and LCM.

Image of the first page of the Export to CMS wizard with the target environment selected here

../images/use-cases/promotion-export-to-menu.png

2. Review dependencies and differences

  1. On the next page, select Show dependencies to add the universes, connections and other objects your selection depends on.
  2. Review the status of each object in the target: new, present in the target, newer in the source or newer in the target.
  3. Use the smart selector to pick, for example, Select new items only or Newer in source.

Image of the Export to CMS wizard listing objects with their status in the target environment here

../images/use-cases/promotion-export-wizard-status.png

3. Choose how to promote

Option Effect
Use promotion Runs the export as a Promotion Management (LCM) job, which you can also follow in CMC > Promotion Management. MetaMiner selects it automatically when the selection contains a UNX universe, a publication or a QaaWS.
Include security Copies the object security with the content.
Include Application Security Copies application security with the content.
Fail on Any Error Controls whether one error stops the whole batch.
Auto refresh Status Refreshes the target status in the wizard.

Promote universes and connections separately

Promote connections, universes, publications and QaaWS in a separate run from BI content such as Web Intelligence and Crystal documents, instances, folders, users and groups.

TODO: confirm the exact behaviour of Fail on Any Error

The check box label and its tooltip describe opposite behaviours on the current build. Confirm which one is correct before documenting it.

4. Run and check the result

  1. Click Finish. For large exports, click Run in background and follow the task in the status bar.
  2. Read the result dialog: each object is listed as succeeded or failed with the reason.
  3. Press F5 in the MMC to reload both environments.

5. Prove the target matches

  1. In the Visual Diff tab, compare a promoted universe or document between source and target. See Visual Diff.
  2. For report output, create a two-sided Report Validation report set with CUID matching between source and target and run it.

Expected result

The selected content and its dependencies exist in the target with the same CUIDs, the result dialog shows no failures, and Visual Diff and Report Validation show no unexpected differences.

Variations

Next steps