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 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, the change package is located in PSHOME\PTP directory for the new PeopleTools patch. For PeopleTools upgrades, the change package is located in the PSHOME\PTU directory for the new PeopleTools release. For Upgrade to a New Application Release, the change package is generated in the PUM Image.

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 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, the change package is located in PSHOME\PTP directory for the new PeopleTools patch.

For PeopleTools upgrades, the change package is located in the PSHOME\PTU directory for the new PeopleTools release.

For Upgrade to a New Application Release, the change package is generated in the PUM Image.

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 products, 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. In the job, you can not modify steps that have been filtered, however you can modify non-filtered steps, delete or add new steps.

Templates can also be modified from the Create or Modify Templates mode, specified on the Change Assistant Options dialog box. If you modify templates using this option, you must import the template from the change package zip file, open and modify the template, then export the template back to the change package zip file.

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. Any changes made to the template in the initial pass or subsequent pass are exported and added to the updated change package at the end of the apply process and will be used in future applies. However, if you choose to edit a template, keep a backup of the original.