Using the Data Packing and Unpacking Wizards

Aptify provides data packing and unpacking wizards that facilitate the migration of record data from a development server to an organization's production server. For example, to deploy a newly developed process flow on the production server, the Process Flow data records are packed on the development server and then unpacked on the production server. By default, a user can launch the Data Packer and Un-Packer wizards from the view toolbar of the following services:

• Base Fields
• Configuration Manifests
• Dashboards
• Form Templates
• Message Parts
• Message Templates
• Process Components (Data Packer only)
• Process Flows
• Scheduled Tasks
• Views
• Wizards

Note that to successfully pack and unpack data, the user running these wizards should be a member of the computer's local Administrators group.

Aptify has a UniqueID field. The Data Packer and Unpacker processes will use the UniqueID field as the unique identifier for the record. During installation, Aptify will attempt to match existing records with records initially included with Aptify in order to set the UniqueID to a value that matches Aptify's record. This allows Aptify to identify core records and update them accordingly. When no definitive match is found, a new unique identifier will be generated and used to populate the UniqueID field for that record.

This topic covers the following sub-topics:

• Packing Data
• About the Packing Attributes
• Unpacking Data

Packing Data

Follow these steps to pack the data that you want to move to another server:

1. Launch the Data Packer from a view of one of the services listed above.  
   
    
2. On the wizard's Welcome screen, click Next to continue.
3. Select one or more entities whose records you want to pack and click Next.
   
   • The wizard displays all of the entities that have the SupportsPacking attribute. See About the Packing Attributes for details.
   • By default, the check box is selected in the Selected column for the entity that you launched the wizard from.
   • Use the Check All button to select all of the available services.
   • Use the Uncheck All button to clear the check boxes in the Selected column for all entities. 
      
      
4. Select the records in the selected Entities that you want to pack and click Next.
   
   • A separate tab appears for each entity that you selected in the previous steps. All of the records in that entity appear on this tab.
   • The fields are listed in the order in which they appear in the entity. However, the Filter Rule functionality has been modified to sort the Field last alphabetically when adding or modifying Filter Rule statements. A user can sort by the Field or Description fields. The direction of the sort (ascending or descending) is determined by the direction of the arrow in the right-hand corner of the column heading.
   • By default, if one of the selected Entities is the entity you launched the data packing process, the records that are included in the view in which you launched the wizard are selected.
     
      
5. Specify a name for the data package and specify the network location where the files should be copied. Click Next to continue.
   
   • You do not need to add an extension for the package name; the system will automatically add the .RECPAK extension. 
6. If you want the wizard to include any Object Repository Objects referenced by a packed record, leave the Pack Repository Objects option selected. If you do not want the objects packed, clear this option.
   
   • In general, you should clear the Pack Repository Objects option if you are only packing Views records. Views records do not generally have associated Repository Objects so removing this option reduces the complexity of the packing operation. 
      
      
7. Review the packing summary and click Finish to begin the packing process.
   
   • You can also click the Back button if you want to make changes based on your review of the packing summary. 
8. When prompted, click OK to confirm the packing operation.
9. Click OK when the packing process is finished.
10. Review and then close the processing log.
    
    • The records you selected were added to a Recpak folder in the location you specified. The name of the folder is the package name you specified (with a .Recpak extension).
    • The system packs the records you selected and their dependent records.
    • If you checked the Pack Repository Objects option, the wizard adds any related Repository objects to an _aptify_objects folder.
    • Each entity that has packed records has its own sub-folder in the data pack.
    • The _aptify_entitymap.txt file stores a mapping of Entity IDs to the Entity Names for the Entities that are referenced in the packed records.
    • The _aptify_unpack_steps.txt file determines the order in which records should be unpacked on the target server to ensure that a record is unpacked before its dependent records.  
      
      

About the Packing Attributes

There are three Entity Attributes (configured in an Entity record's Configuration > Attributes tab) that determine packing behavior:

• SupportsPacking: When set to 1, the entity appears in the Data Packer. When not specified, an entity does not support data packing.
• PackingUniqueKeyList: Comma-delimited string of entity fields. During an unpacking operation, all values for the listed fields must be identical for two records in order for these records to be considered a match. If not specified, record matching is based on record name only.
  • A record's name corresponds to the entity field that has the Is Name Field option checked.
  • For example, two Process Flow records that have the same Name and the same Category are considered a match by the data unpacking process. 
• PackingEntityRelations: Name of related entity whose records should also be packed when the selected entity's records are packed.
  • For example, the Process Flows entity has Process Flow Steps as the packing Entity Relation. Therefore, when a Process Flow is packed, the corresponding Process Flow Steps associated with the Process Flow are also packed. This relation is needed since only the first step in a process flow is actually linked to the Process Flows record (subsequent steps are linked to its preceding step). 
    
     

Unpacking Data

Follow these steps to unpack a data pack on an Aptify system:

1. Copy the Recpak file to the destination server.
2. Launch the Data Unpacker wizard from the view toolbar of a service (such as the Form Templates, Views, Dashboards, or Process Flows service).
   
   
3. Click Next to continue.
4. Specify the directory that contains the Recpak file and click Next.
5. Specify the Recpak files to unpack (if there are multiple Recpak files in the specified directory) and click Next. 
   
   
6. Clear the Upgrade Existing Records option if you do not want to update existing records.
   • When this option is selected, the system updates matching records. Matching is based on the fields specified in the entity's PackingUniqueKeyList attribute (or the record name if a PackingUniqueKeyList is not specified for a particular entity).
   • When this option is cleared, the system checks for matching records and if a match already exists on the target server, the record in the data pack is not unpacked on the target server. 
7. Clear the Unpack Repository Objects option if you do not want to unpack any Object Repository Objects stored in the data pack.
   • Typically, you do not want to unpack objects if new versions of the objects in the data pack already exist on the target server.  
     
     
8. Click Finish to begin the unpacking process.
9. When prompted, click OK to confirm the unpacking operation.
10. Click OK when the unpacking process is finished.
11. Review and then close the processing log.

A data pack may contain references to one or more entities. All entities referenced in that data pack must exist on the target server in order for the unpack process to complete successfully. If an entity referenced in the data pack does not exist on the target server, the unpacking process fails and reports the name of the entities that need to be installed on the target server using the Entity Packer/Unpacker before the data can be unpacked successfully. See Using the Entity Packing and Unpacking Wizards for information on packing and installing entities.