One custom view... Many Places....

Recently, I worked on a issue with custom view which caused a bit of pain to fix. I would like to share it with you guys...

A custom view was applied to a project template and all the project created from it had the same custom view copy in it. Now I wanted to fix a html section in this custom view which is easy. But what about all the project created from the project template which contains the copy of the old html file. I need to find them and add a version to the custom view.....not cool at all...

Anyways, to avoid such scenario in future a simple solution can be put into place.

1. Create a Folder and create the custom view here.
2. Give Public Access over the custom view (So that no permission issue)
3. Create shortcut in the project template pointing to the custom view.
4. Rename the customview shortcut in the project template as customview.html (This is important) and it good to hide the shortcut.

Now all the project created from the template will have the shortcut instead of new copy of custom view (we just saved a small amount of space too by avoiding creation of new copies). Also, any change to the custom view can be easily done by doing changes in just one place.

So, what do you think.....A neat solution in place right???

Moving Livelink Workflows map from one environment to another

Moving workflow from DEV to QA and from QA to PROD can be easily achieved and is quite fast too.

Usually, you can export the map and import it to another environment but if your workflow has form then it becomes a bit tricky, right? Yes, because you can export and import your form. And if you are creating the form again then you need to maintain the attribute ID and name of each attribute so that when you add the form to the workflow map the data is filled in all the step and if you have customization nothing breaks.

Here is how I like things to be done.

1. Create a project from the source environment

2. Move your workflow, form(s), category(ies) to the project.

3. Click on the function menu and create select "Make Template". Provide the target location and the new project is done.

4. Click on the template function menu and export the template as XML.

5. In target environment, go to Administrator pages -> Item Template Volume

6. Add Project Template and select the XML file created in Step (4)

7. Create project using the project template.

All your form, workflow and category are now in your next environment in that project. A few more steps and we are ready to do.

1. If your form has table, click on Manage Relational Table and create the table. If there were any HTML\PDF\WR Power view you can add the views to the form template.

2. Go to Workflow map enable Attachment and Form word packages (same as your last environment)

3. If you have form then go to Map-> Form and add the form template with the same name as in the previous environment. Voila!!! all you form step now will have the filled data. 

4. If you have any Item Handler step then go to those step and add the category back.

And its done...Go ahead and test...

Happy workflow development