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17 Exporting and Importing Customizations

This chapter contains the following:

Exporting and Importing Customizations : Overview

Exporting and Importing Customizations : Explained

Supported CRM Application Composer Customizations and Best Practices : Explained

Moving Customizations Using Customization Sets : Highlights

FAQs for Exporting and Importing Customizations

Exporting and Importing Customizations : Overview

Read this chapter to learn about how to export and import customizations across Oracle Fusion application instances on the same release. In this chapter, you will learn about:

How to use Extensions Manager in Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer to export and import customizations
How to use customization sets to move customizations from one environment to another, for example from test to production

Note

You can also import and export custom object data (as opposed to customization metadata). In Oracle Fusion, two processes exist to enable the importing and exporting of object data: file-based import and bulk export. After you create custom objects in Application Composer, you must then manually generate the object artifacts required for both file-based import and bulk export. This process, which is unrelated to the exporting and importing of customizations, is described in a separate topic, "Importing and Exporting Custom Objects: Explained."

To access Extensions Manager, click the Metadata Manager link in the Common Setup pane, which appears in the regional area of Application Composer's home page.

To create or upload customization sets, use the Customization Migration page by selecting Customization Migration from the Navigator, under the Tools category.

Exporting and Importing Customizations : Explained

Once you have completed creating customizations in Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer, you can export and import these customizations across Oracle Fusion application instances on the same release. Use the Extensions Manager option in Application Composer to export and import customizations.

Some of the supported customizations that you can export and import include object UI extensions, object server scripts, saved searches, workflows, global functions and so on. Do not create these supported customizations manually in the target application instance. Import these supported customizations from the source instance only.

Note

In the target application instance, you must create only unsupported customizations.

In order to view the customizations in the target application instance, you must first export your customizations from the source instance as compressed files in either .jar or .zip format. You can then import these compressed files in the target instance.

The following sections provide an overview of exporting and importing customizations.

Exporting Customizations

Application Composer allows you to export customizations as compressed files in either .jar or .zip format.

When exporting, keep in mind the following points:

Do not modify the compressed files.
Do not move customizations from the target application instance back to the source application instance.

To export customizations, do the following:

Click the Metadata Manager link in the Common Setup navigation tree in the Application Composer.
The Metadata Manager page opens.
Under Import or Export Metadata, click Export.
The Export Customizations page opens.
Click Actions, New.
A message opens, asking if you want to export the customizations.
Click Export.
When you are asked to open or save the compressed file, click Save.

Importing Customizations

Once you have successfully exported the customizations to a compressed file format, you can import this compressed file into the target application instance.

Before you import customizations into the target application instance, ensure that you publish or delete any existing sandboxes generated by Extensions Manager. Use the Manage Sandboxes option within the Administration link in the global region to publish or delete sandboxes.

Tip

The name of the sandbox created by Extensions Manager includes the term "metadataMgmt" and the date that it was imported. For example, ApplCoreLongSB_MetadataMgrnt-2013-May-21-05-20-58-710. You can use this as a tip to search for sandboxes generated by Extensions Manager.

During import, the Extensions Manager automatically generates a sandbox and then moves the customizations to this sandbox. After import, you can login to the sandbox and set it to active to review the imported customizations. All the customizations are visible and accessible in this sandbox and you can verify the changes and choose to publish the sandbox.

To import customizations, use the following steps:

In the target application instance, click the Metadata Manager link in the Common Setup navigation tree in the Application Composer.
The Metadata Manager page opens.
Under Import or Export Metadata, click Import.
The Import Customizations page opens.
Click Actions, New.
In the Import Customizations box, click Browse, select the compressed file of customizations, and then click Import.
To view the changes in the sandbox that was generated automatically during import, click Administration, Manage Sandboxes, and Set as Active the Extensions Manager generated sandbox.

If you encounter any errors during the import process, (for example, the connection to the database is lost or certain process issues occur during migrating security policies), then all changes roll back automatically, reverting the target application instance to its version before the import.

If you have made any security changes in the source instance outside of CRM Application Composer, ensure that you manually re-key these security changes in the target instance prior to using Extensions Manager for importing. For example: If you have set up a custom security role in the source instance, ensure that you manually add this security role in the target instance, prior to using Extensions Manager.

Note

Importing earlier versions of compressed files does not roll back changes in the target instance to an earlier version of customization.

When importing, if you upload a file in a format other than *.zip or *.jar, then no warning message appears, but the import job is processed and fails with an error status.

Migrating FND Lookups

Use the Functional Setup Manager (FSM) tasks to migrate FND Lookups each time an import occurs.

Supported CRM Application Composer Customizations and Best Practices : Explained

You can export and import supported customizations across Oracle Fusion applications that are on the same release and same patch level. Use the Extensions Manager feature in Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer to export and import the supported customizations. You can access the Extensions Manager from the Metadata Manager link in the CRM Application Composer.

This topic explains the following:

Supported customizations
Unsupported customizations
Best practices while using Extensions Manager

Supported Customizations

The supported customizations for the Application Composer include:

Object UI extensions
Object server scripts
Saved searches
Workflows
Global functions
Object model extensions
Relationships
Role security privileges to access objects.

Unsupported Customizations

Customizations that are not supported for the Application Composer include:

E-mail templates: Recreate manually in the target Oracle Fusion application.
Custom subject areas: Republish all custom subject areas in the target Oracle Fusion application. See the "Publishing Custom Subject Areas: Explained" section in the Oracle Fusion Applications CRM Extensibility Guide.
Import and export artifacts generated for custom objects and fields: Regenerate manually using the Import and Export menu option in the Application Composer.

Customizations made outside the Application Composer and not supported include:

FND lookups
Migrate using FSM tasks: Manage Standard Lookups, Manage Custom Lookups, and Manage Set-Enabled Lookups.
Sales Prediction Engine (SPE) business rules: Recreate manually in the target Oracle Fusion application.
Security job roles and duty roles: Recreate manually in the target Oracle Fusion application.
All reports, analyses, and dashboards: Recreate manually in the target Oracle Fusion application.

Note

Application Composer supports Page Composer customizations.

You must create unsupported customizations manually in the target application.

Best Practices for Using Extensions Manager

Some of the best practices for using Extensions Manager are:

Do not manually create supported customizations in target.
Manually create customizations which are partially supported or not supported by Extensions Manager (See list above).
Use FSM tasks to migrate FND Lookups.
Commit or Delete Extensions Manager generated sandboxes prior to import.
Do not modify metadata extract.
Migrate metadata from one instance to another.
Import the most recent extract.
Manually re-key security changes made in Authorization Policy Manager (APM) from source to target prior to using Extensions Manager.
During an export or import, it is recommended that you do not make customization changes in the source or target instance.

Moving Customizations Using Customization Sets : Highlights

Use customization sets to move customizations from one environment to another, for example from test to production. You create a customization set in the source environment, to capture customizations from there, and upload the set in the target environment. Use the Customization Migration page (Navigator - Tools - Customization Migration) to create or upload customization sets.

Customization sets are fully described in the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide for Business Analysts.

Using Customization Sets

Only certain types of customizations are included in customization sets. You cannot change this selection.
See: Using Customization Set Migration to Move Customizations

FAQs for Exporting and Importing Customizations

What's the difference between Extensions Manager and Customization Set Migration?

Extensions Manager is a self-service tool which migrates only CRM customizations that are created in the Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer. Extensions Manager is specific to CRM and migrates only CRM Application Composer customizations, from one Oracle Fusion instance to another on the same release, such as from a source development environment to a target production environment. Customization Set Migration (CSM) is a centralized framework for migrating all customizations. This includes customizations across all Oracle Fusion Applications product families, such as Oracle Fusion Financials, Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management CRM), and Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM). For more details on CSM, see the section "Using Customization Set Migration to Move Customizations" in the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide for Business Analysts. The CSM framework migrates all customizations including CRM and HCM extensions and all security changes. The CRM customizations include all Application Composer changes, Page Composer changes, and CRM security changes.

To access Extensions Manager, navigate to the Metadata Manager link in the Application Composer.

To access CSM, select Customization Migration from the Tools section in the Navigator menu in the source environment. Customization Set Migration (CSM) is accessible as a link called Customization Migration under the Tools menu item.

In order to access Extensions Manager, ensure that you have access to the following roles:

CRM Extensibility Administration Duty
CRM Metadata Management duty

To access CSM, ensure that you have been granted access to an administrative job role that includes the FND_CUSTOMIZATION_SET_MANAGEMENT_DUTY duty.

Extensions Manager and Customization Set Migration are self service tools which migrate (export and import) customizations from a source instance to a target application instance in the same release.