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DriveWorks Pro 21
Copy Group

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Copy Group

This feature allows Group data and files to be selected and then copied to a new or existing Group.

This Group data can include:

  • Security Data
  • Group Tables
  • Projects with or without Rule Revisions
  • Captured Models
  • Released Models
  • Released Emails
  • Specifications

Any Group type can be copied to another Group type (Individual to Individual, Shared to Individual, Individual to Shared and Shared to Shared).

This feature is designed to aid with:

  • Performing backups of Group and Project information.
  • Moving versions of implementations between deployments (e.g. development, staging and production).

This feature works using DriveWork's own API to copy data. As such, any additional (custom) data in the group databases will not be copied.

How To Use Copy Group

Please see the topic How To Use Copy Group for a step by step guide through the Copy Group wizard.

The following describes each step in more detail.

Select Target Group

This step is for selecting or creating the Group that you will copy Group data to.

You will have to login to the Target Group so that DriveWorks can check existing data in the Target Group and be able to add in your new data.

  1. Click Browse to select the Target group (the group the current group will be copied into).
  2. Select Create a new group or Open an existing group.

    Follow the steps through the group wizard to select a target group.

    Selecting different group types for the source and target will upscale or downscale the data accordingly.

    For example:

    • When the source is a Shared Group and the Target is an Individual group, the data will be downscaled.
    • When the source is an Individual Group and the Target is a Shared Group, the data will be upscaled.
  3. Once the target group has been opened and you have returned to the Copy Group wizard, ensure the Group Connection indicator shows a successful connection.

    If connection is not successful click the Retry button.

  4. Once you have successfully connected to the target group click Next.

Use Configuration (Optional)

Configurations are XML files created when previously using the Copy Group Tool. The files contain all the selection data and options used when creating a copied Group.

This step allows you to select one of those Configuration file to use when creating a Copied Group.

Clicking Browse will allow you to select a Configuration file to use using the file explorer.

With the Configuration file uploaded it will use the selections in it to rerun the Copy Group feature.

Please see How To Use A Copy Group Configuration File for more information on this.

Select Projects

This step allows you to select what projects should be marked for copying.

Rule history can be copied for each project individually. This can increase the time it takes to copy the project, depending on the number of times the project's rules have been edited. You should consider not copying rule revision data when using this feature to copy to between environments, as you will not need this information in say a production environment.

Projects will either be created or overwritten in the target group as need be.

In order to save time, DriveWorks checks to see if a project has actually been modified compared to the target group before copying. This is done by checking the project file's modified date. You can see the result of this check on the summary step. This check only happens when copying to a group that already has a matching project (based on a unique ID that each project is created with and its name).

It's possible to have conflicts when copying a project, such as having a project with the same name (but actually a different project). DriveWorks can detect this and will warn you of the issue (on the summary step) and not perform the project copy (though it will not prevent the entire group copy process).

The target group will have the project file location set to be relatively the same as the source group's location. I.e. relative to the source root copy folder and the target's root folder - set in the additional options step.

Permissions for the project will also be copied over if the project is selected and you choose to copy security information. This will only happen for teams that are new to the target group though. I.e. existing team's permissions will not be changed.

Project information such as whether or not it is deployed or hidden is also copied.

Note that it's possible to not select any projects, if you only want to copy other information in the group.

Guide for using this step are as follows:

  1. Check the box next to each project that is to be copied.

    All projects can be selected by checking the box next to the Project Name column heading.

  2. Check the box in the rule history column. Leave unchecked if rule history is not required.

    Rule history for all projects can be selected by checking the box next to the Rule History column heading.

Select Group Tables

This step specifies what group tables should be copied to the target group.

The target group table will be created or overwritten as need be.

The target group table will be overwritten if the name matches the source's name.

Permissions for the group will be copied over for new teams if you choose to copy group security information.

Guide for using this step are as follows:

  1. Check the box next to each group table that is to be copied.

    All group tables can be selected by checking the box next to the Group Table Name column heading.

Component Selection Type

This step allows you to choose the method of component selection.

  • Automatically select all components in the selected Projects.

    All components that have been added to the selected projects will be included in the dataset.

  • Manually select components.

    Components to be included in the dataset will need to be manually selected from the next step.

Configuration File

When using a configuration file to create subsequent datasets the following will apply:

  • Automatically select components: Any new component sets added to any of the selected projects or models added to any existing component sets will be included in any dataset produced from the configuration file.
  • Manually select components: When Top Level Components are checked any new models added to any selected component sets will be included in any dataset produced from the configuration file.

Captured Components

Only displayed if "Manually select components" was selected in the previous step.

The Captured Components step allows for selecting what captured components to copy.

Components are matched based on their unique identifier that is created when a component is created.

A component can be copied to a target group and then copied again to the same group (with new capture info etc), so long as the path remains the same from where it was moved last time (or doesn't change when moving).

Components will be copied to directories relative to the target copy folder based on the relative path to the source copy folder.

Information on what will happen when a component is copied can be found on the summary step.

You might find it helpful to filter or order the list by the path column. Using the check all command only checks the items that are currently visible based on the filter.

Guide for using this step are as follows:

  1. Check the box next to each captured component that is to be copied.

    All captured components can be selected by checking the box next to the Component Name column heading.

Additional Options

The Additional Options step allows root folders to be chosen and additional group data to be selected for copying.

Source Root Folder

By default the source root folder will be set to the Group Content Folder of the current group.

When copying a specific project out of the current group this folder may need to be changed to the root location of all files for that project.

If the group being copied contains files that are not located relative to this location, browse to a common root location where all files can be located.

Target Root Folder

This is where all copied files will be placed.

This should be an equivalent location to the target files as the source root folder is for its files.

Copy New Security Users and Teams

Checking this option will copy any new teams and users and their permissions in the source group to the target groups.

Note that if you created a new group then that has an Administrators team and an Admin user. That team and user will not be copied from your source group if it also has them also. As that counts as an already existing security object that DriveWorks will not edit.

Any differences in settings (i.e. Team Leader, Project Permission settings, etc.) applied to Users and Teams will not be copied if they already exist in the target group.

Copy All Specifications

Checking this option will copy all data for each specification stored in the source group.

Specific specification files can be reviewed and deselected in the File Selection step.

Copy All Reports

Checking this option will copy all specification report data stored in the source group.

This can add significant time to your copy process and should only be if explicitly desired.

Copy All Tasks

Checking this option will copy any tasks that only DriveWorks Autopilot can process (i.e. email sending, triggered actions etc.).

Copy All Released Files and Information

Checking this option will copy all released files and information for each model that has been created for a specification..

Copy All Reports

Checking this option will copy all model report data stored in the source group.

File Selection

The File Selection step shows all physical files stored within the source root folder. It allows for you to pick what files will be copied over.

Note that if a file is included but it's information in the group is not then it will just be a file copy. Likewise, you can copy information about a file but then not copy the file. This can be the case with specifications and we leave it to you to decide if you want this or not.

Sometimes file copies are redundant and as such might not be done. You can see the state of this on the summary step.

Some of these may be pre-selected based on the options chosen from the previous steps.

These can include:

  • Project files
  • Models and Drawings created for a specification
  • Whether or not the specification folder will be copied

Folders and Files may be marked with the following indicators:

  • [Included] - Is shown next to a file or parent folder of anything that is explicitly included in the copy.
  • [Excluded] - Is shown next to a file or parent folder of anything that is explicitly excluded from the copy.
  • [Locked] - Is shown next to a file or folder that cannot be changed.

This state can be applied to folders and all sub files and folders will inherit that value until something else explicitly has a different state. This allows for such situations as only copying a child folder and none of the files above it etc.

There are a number of commands to the right side of the file tree:

Show In Explorer - Will open Windows Explorer at the location of the selected file or folder.

Toggle Excluded - Will toggle all selected items between an explicit excluded state.

Toggle Include - Will toggle all selected items between an explicit included state.

Refresh - Will refresh the file tree to show new or deleted items since it was last loaded. Options will be maintained through refreshing.

Hide Excluded - Will hide all excluded files and folders from the file tree.

Summary

The Summary step allows a review of all of the tasks that will be performed from the previous selections made.

This should be reviewed to ensure that it is doing what you expect.

Progress

The wizard will report on each process involved in the copying of the group.

This can be stopped at anytime by clicking the Stop button. Note that it will not reverse anything that has happened during the copy process so far.

There is a 3 second grace period when entering this step before it will start doing anything.

Once complete click the Finish button to close the wizard.