Plan Copy Overview
The Plan Copy utility allows plans to be copied from a source environment to a target environment. An entire plan can be copied or specific rules can be selected to create a new plan. The source and target environments must share the same Internal Versioning System (IVS).
The source environment is where the original plan resides. The target environment is where the new plan will be copied.
A copied plan may be renamed in order to distinguish it from the original plan. The utility creates a copy of a plan and all of its associated records. Selected rules for a plan can be copied leaving others not copied. New GUIDs will also be generated for a plan (if copying to the same environment) and effective and expiration dates can be modified, which is useful when creating a new similar plan. All new copied business rules, transactions and segment names are versioned. These copied items will be version one.
Once the source and target environments are selected, a list of plans that are available to be copied from the source environment is presented to the user. The user selects a plan from the list. The user then selects the level the plan should be copied to in the target: Company, Subsidiary Company or Product. A new level must be the same level as the originating plan. A company level plan must copy as a company level plan. New levels cannot be created at the time of plan copy. Any new levels must be created in the target environment prior to the plan copy. A check will be performed to ensure that the appropriate levels exist before the plan copy executes.
Important: The level of the plan must be the same in the source and target environments. For example, a Primary Company level plan in the source should be copied only to a Primary Company level in the target. A Subsidiary Company level plan should be copied to Subsidiary Company level in the target and a Product level plan should be copied to a Product level in the target.
Products
If Products are turned ON in the source environment, but turned OFF in the target environment (or vice verse), then the plan copy will not go past the first screen and a validation error will display. This occurs because there are no valid Product parents where the plan can be copied. If Products are turned on in both environments, then all plans must be a part of a group based on current functionality.
If a user wants to copy a plan that is part of a Product in the source environment, but the Product doesn't exist in the target environment, then a two-step process must be followed.
- Create the new Product in the target. This can be accomplished through the Plan Copy utility.
- Copy the plan to the newly created Product in the target environment. This will ensure that the Product and plan match in the source and target environments. A plan that exists in one Product in the source may be copied into a different Product in the destination environment.
Additional work must be completed in the target environment after the Plan Copy has completed in order to bring up and process the newly created plan. This work includes updating items such as rules security (transaction security), translations, Administration table updates, global rules missing, screen rules, Segment Calculate General rules, and Sequence table updates.
Preserve GUIDS
This option is only available if the source environment and the target environment are different. If the environments are the same, then the Preserve GUIDs option will be unchecked and disabled.
If preserve GUIDS is selected then the existing Plan name will be preserved. Also the plan name field will populate with the existing plan name and the field will become disabled. The GUIDs for all copied rules (PlanGUID, SegmentGUID, BusinessRuleGUID and TransactionGUID) will also be preserved.
Release Management
Release Management is only available if the functionality is turned on in the target environment. If it is turned on, then the copied plan can be added to a configuration package. When the configuration package is deployed to the target environment it can be copied to numerous environments without having to repeat the plan copy process each time.
Security
Security was added to the Plan Copy tool. The menu option will only be enabled if the user has Utilities-Plan Copy added to his Palette security role.
