Working with Change Assistant Templates and Jobs

Whether you are performing an update or an upgrade, you work with Change Assistant templates and jobs. The templates are composites of all possible steps that apply to an update or upgrade, whether they apply to your environment or not.

The source of the template is dependant on the action you are performing in Change Assistant. This table lists the template source for each Change Assistant action.

Change Assistant Action

Template

Apply Update

Change Assistant template comes in the change package downloaded from MOS.

For change packages created in Application Designer, the template is generated when you select Generate New Template.

Update Manager

Change Assistant template is either generated from the custom change package when you select to apply the change package or delivered from PeopleSoft if you are applying a PeopleSoft Release Patchset (PRP).

For PeopleTools patches and PeopleTools upgrades, the change package is downloaded from MOS.

Upgrade

Change Assistant template for your upgrade path is downloaded from MOS.

After you specify the required settings in Change Assistant regarding your environment, you use Change Assistant to build a job tailored to your environment. When building the job, Change Assistant filters the steps so that the job contains only the steps applicable to your implementation. For example, the resulting Change Assistant job will have only steps that apply to your database type, your installed applications, your languages, and so on.

When you apply updates or run an upgrade, Change Assistant automatically loads the template into the Change Assistant internal storage system. You can add additional chapters, tasks, and steps to the template, if needed. To edit a template, you must be in the Create or Modify Templates mode, specified on the Change Assistant Options dialog box.

Examples of custom steps that might be added include, dropping indexes, adding indexes, backing up a database, adding PTF steps, and so on.

Note: In most cases, it is not necessary (or recommended) to modify a delivered template. Any changes that you make to the imported template won't affect the original template that you downloaded. However, if you choose to edit a template, keep a backup of the original.

You can add chapters, tasks and steps to an existing template.

To insert a template element:

  1. Highlight the location where you want to add the element.

    If you want to add a chapter above the existing first chapter in the template, highlight the template root node (template name) at the top of the template tree.

  2. From the Edit menu (or toolbar) select the appropriate option: Insert Chapter, Insert Task, Insert Step.

  3. Enter a unique name for your new element.

    Note: Each chapter in the update template must have a unique name, each task within a chapter must have a unique name, and each step within a task must have a unique name.

  4. Click OK.

    When creating new steps, Change Assistant displays the Step Properties dialog box for specifying step options.

To delete a chapter, task, or step:

  1. Highlight the chapter, task, or step that you want to delete.

    Note: Press and hold the CTRL key to select multiple steps for deletion.

    Warning! If you delete a chapter, Change Assistant deletes all the tasks and steps within the chapter. If you delete a task, Change Assistant deletes all the steps within the task.

  2. Select from the following:

    1. If you want to delete a chapter, select Edit, Delete Chapter.

    2. If you want to delete a task, select Edit, Delete Task.

    3. If you want to delete a step, select Edit, Delete Step.

  3. Change Assistant deletes the chapter, task, or step and updates the template.

  4. Save the template.

In order for others to use the template that you create or modify, you need to export it from Change Assistant. If you want to overwrite an existing template file, enter the name of the original template.

To export a template:

  1. Open the template in Change Assistant by selecting File, Open Template.

  2. Select File, Export Template.

    The Export Template dialog box appears.

  3. Navigate to the folder in which you want to save the template.

  4. Enter the name of the template.

    Note: If you want to overwrite the original template that you downloaded, enter the original name of the template.

  5. Click Save.

Change Assistant allows you to export jobs to XML, HTML, or Microsoft Excel file formats.

To export a job:

  1. Select File, Export Job.

  2. Enter the desired exported filename and the select the desired file type format.

You can use this option to enable other implementation team members, who do not have access to the machine on which Change Assistant is running, to view the job. Exporting the job to Microsoft Excel enables you to view the timings in a spreadsheet format.

Note: You can not export a Change Assistant job and either import it or open it on another machine with Change Assistant installed and then run or modify the job on that other machine.