Cloning a Work Area

You can use the cloning operation together with the Usage Intent Work Area attribute and object validation statuses (Development, Quality Control, Production, and Retired) to create clean, controlled, distinct environments for application development, testing, and production. See Application Life Cycle.

The cloning operation is similar to the copy operation except that it is possible to clone a Work Area over an existing Work Area, so that the clone overwrites the existing Work Area. For example, if you already have a Quality Control usage intent Work Area, and several objects fail quality control testing, you can update the objects in the Development Work Area and then clone the whole Development Work Area onto the QC Work Area, creating a new version of the QC Work Area.

Object instances in the Work Area clone point to the same source definitions in the same location that the instances in the original (source) Work Area did.

Note:

If you clone onto a Work Area that contains objects, the cloning operation replaces only those objects that have a different version number from the same object in the source Work Area.

When you clone a Work Area, you specify a label that the system applies to the source and target Work Area version. The label is proof that the source and target Work Area versions are identical. All the object instances in the two Work Areas are identical, and corresponding objects' validation status is the same. If you clone the same version of the same Work Area more than once, the system uses the same label each time.

To clone a Work Area, do the following:

1. You can begin a cloning operation in two different places:

   • In the original Work Area's Properties screen, click Clone.

   • In the main Application Development screen, click the icon in the Clone column for the original Work Area.

   The system opens the Step 1 Clone Work Area screen.

2. In the Clone Label field, enter the text for the label. This text will be displayed in the relevant version of the source and target Work Areas.

3. From the Usage Intent drop-down, select the Usage Intent you want to set for the target Work Area.

4. In the Clone Destination area, click the button in the Select column to specify the target.

   If you select an Application Area, the cloning operation creates a new Work Area in that Application Area. The new Work Area's name is the same as the source Work Area with "_1" appended.

   If you select an existing Work Area, the cloning operation overwrites that Work Area.

5. Click Review. The system displays information about the source (original) and target Work Areas, including all object instances in the source, for you to review. For each object, the system displays the action to be taken in the target Work Area:

   • Create. If the object does not exist in the target Work Area, the system creates it.

   • Replace. If the object exists in the target Work Area and has been modified in the source Work Area since the last clone, the system replaces the target object with the source object.

   • Remove. If the object exists in the target Work Area but not in the source Work Area, the system removes the object in the target Work Area.

   • No Action. If the object exists in the target Work Area and has not been modified in the source since the last clone, the system does not modify the target object.

   If you see a problem, click Cancel to cancel the cloning operation and return to the Work Area.

6. To run the cloning operation, click Finish. The system performs the cloning operation and opens the Properties screen of the target Work Area, displaying a confirmation message that the clone was successful.