When using the Enterprise Toolkit to separate business units or functions into separate Environments, you may need to copy Screens, Data Sources, Docs or Folders to another Environment.


It may be that you have created a common package of content which addresses a company wide need, or maybe you just need to copy across the "production" version of a Screen for editing and testing within a testing Environment.


Fortunately our platform provides a simple way to copy content from one account to another.

You can even set copied content to be kept in sync with the original version, thus enabling you to maintain a single "master copy" which you can one-click update into the various accounts that installed copies.


All this functionality is available through our Repository area.


NOTE: This document assumes you are familiar with Environment and Master account concepts.  If not, please review the other documentation found in the section as this article.



Adding Content To Your Repository

  1. Find the "Your Repository" page
    Each organisation account under your control has it's own Repository, accessible from the Menu drop down by Enterprise Admin level users.
    If you are logged into your Master account context, then you will enter the "Your Repository" page on clicking the Repository link off the Menu.
    If you are in an Environment account context, the Repository link first takes you to the "Your Installs" page, which shows the currently installed content in that account.  Follow the "Your Repository" navigation link off this page.

  2. Add Content into your Repository
    Click the "Add Content" button which will take you to the "Add Content to Repository" page.
    Fill out the fields to register your chosen Screen/Doc/Data Source/Folder, starting with choosing the "Item to List in the Repository".
    If you have multiple content items to add, the quickest way is to first setup a Folder which groups all the content together.
    Then you can simply add the Folder to your Repository, the system will automatically add all the content in that Folder to the Repository for you.
    The Keywords, Visibility and Category fields are not in use currently and can be safely ignored.
    Click the "Add Item" button to complete the registration of your content into the Repository.



Installing Content To Other Accounts


Once you have added content, installation of the content is simple:

  1. Return to the Your Repository page
  2. Use the checkboxes on the left of the listed content items to select the content you want to copy/install to other accounts
  3. Click the "Manage Installs" button, which will open a dialog window
  4. Select the accounts that you wish to install to
  5. If you want to make these copies read-only and synchronised with your master copy, be sure to tick the "Keep In Sync" checkbox
  6. Click the "Install" button to schedule the installation.
  7. The system will now run the copy and installation process in the background; this can take up to 5 minutes to occur.
    Any errors will show in the Notifications area (under the little "bell" icon off your main menu)
  8. When the installation is complete, you will see the content has appeared in the target installation accounts.



Updating/Synchronising Content To Other Accounts


When you add content to your Repository, the system registers the exact version of any Screen or Doc involved.

So you can make a new Test version of a registered Screen/Doc in your master copy account, make changes and publish this new version without any impact on installed accounts.

The system does not automatically synchronise content when you publish a new version in the master copy account.


We designed the Repository this way to prevent you from breaking or otherwise affecting the installed copies in other accounts.

This enables you to fully test and iterate new versions in your master copy account until you are ready to synchronise or otherwise make available to other accounts.


When you have a new master copy version that you want to make available to other accounts, simply update the content listing in the Repository.
Note: The new master copy version must be in Published status.

  1. Return to the Your Repository page
  2. Hover over the content listing of your target item to update, and click "edit"
  3. On the Edit Content page, you will see that the system has detected the new version available.
    This is evident from the "Update To Latest" button that appears.
  4. Click the "Update To Latest" button, which will update the master copy listing and also schedule a synchronisation to any installed accounts that were marked to "keep in sync" during step 5 of the "Installing Content" section above.



Tips and Tricks


1. Save time by using Folders to deploy groups of Screens instead of one by one.
Simply add your Screens to a Folder in your master copy account, then register the Folder into the Repository.

This way you can install the Folder into your Environment accounts, and this action will copy across all contents of the Folder.

Note that any Folders you register into the Repository should not enforce user security, since these rules are not transferable between accounts.


If you make updates to Folder contents and wish to copy these across to Environments, then head to the Repository and install the Folder to the target accounts again.



2. Use Global settings in your connector setups
Avoid needing to update connectors on the Screens or Data Sources that you install into Environments by using a common set of folder paths or Global values.


For file based connectors - e.g. FTP, Dropbox etc - the file name and folder path to the file will be copied as part of the Repository install.  As such you should aim to use the same, generic folder structure and file names for each of your Environments, using the Connection login details as a means of setting different roots for each client.
e.g. set up a separate Dropbox account for each Environment, and then create the exact same folder and file name paths in each Dropbox account.  Similarly with FTP etc. 


For REST or URL based connectors, make use of the various Global options found on the Organisation Setup page to set up a unique global URL per client account.  Then in relevant connectors - e.g. Forms REST connector or Data Source Hosted GET - use our {{GLOBAL}} syntax option to substitute some or all of the connector's target URL.
e.g. {{GLOBAL}}/api/endpoint