Sometimes the need to copy a Screen, Data Source, Doc or Folder to another organisation will arise in the course of building apps for your clients.

It may be that you have created a package of content that meets the need of a specific industry or piece of legislation, and thus provides the potential to be resold to multiple clients as an "off the shelf" app.


Fortunately our platform provides a way to copy content from one company 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.



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 platform administrator 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 a client 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 in the target accounts, be sure to tick the "Lock Target Copy" checkbox
  6. Click the "Install" button to schedule the installation.
    The system will now execute the copy and installation process in the background; this can take up to several minutes to occur.
  7. 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 first add content to your Repository, the system registers the current Published version of any Screen or Doc involved.

This allows you to create new versions of a registered Screen/Doc in your master copy account, test changes and publish these new versions within your master account, all without any impact on installed accounts.

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


We designed the Repository this way to prevent you from breaking or otherwise affecting 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 update/install the latest Published version to other accounts.


Once you are ready to update existing installations with your latest Published version, simply repeat the "Installing Content" instructions above.


The system will automatically ensure that the current Published version of any Screens & Docs are installed during this action, whether those items be directly installed or indirectly via a Folder installation.


Tips and Tricks


1. Use 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 client 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 clients, then head to the Repository and install the Folder to the target client accounts again.



2. Use Global settings in your connector addresses
Avoid needing to update connectors on the Screens or Data Sources that you install into client accounts 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 clients, 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 client, 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