You are viewing limited content. For full access, please sign in.

Question

Question

Transferring Forms Instance Data Only

Forms Version 10
Updated June 13, 2019
asked on June 11, 2019

I am switching a forms server over to a new server, I have taken a copy of the old forms database to remaster some of the forms and make various upgrades to the system. When the server is ready the plan is then to restore the old database over the new one and make some changes to the overwritten objects (layout, access rights, users, lookups etc) as alot of the upgrades are in external JS and CSS files anyway. This is fine but wastes a lot of time re configuring forms and things are easily missed. 

Is there a way to only copy instance data only and leave the forms layout, access rights, lookups etc on the new copied forms server the same? As all that's really required from the old server is the open tasks...The old forms server is running Forms 10.1 and the new server is up to date 10.4.1, Thanks in advance! 

0 0

Answer

SELECTED ANSWER
replied on June 11, 2019

That is not (easily) possible. To copy the active instances over to your new server, you need to bring the database over and upgrade it to 10.4. This will bring over the old processes with it too. I think your best bet is to download the processes you've modified in 10.4, backup then move the database over to your 10.4 server, then re-apply the changes you made to the processes with active instances on them. 

Although I don't recommend it, there is a way you could try and get what you're after. Forms 10.4 has the ability to overwrite processes with updated versions, but that relies on the process and each process element having the same GUID as the currently uploaded process. To try and take advantage of this, you could

  1. Download the updated processes you made in 10.4 (Process List A)
  2. Backup then migrate the 10.1 database with active instances to the 10.4 server (Process List B)
  3. Download those newly migrated processes and open up the process XML (Process List B)
  4. For EACH ELEMENT, copy the GUID from the Process List B process to the corresponding Process List A XML
  5. Now you should have updated your Process List A processes so that the GUIDs match what's currently in your Forms server
  6. When you try to upload a process from Process List A, it should ask if you want to overwrite the existing process
  7. Since you updated the GUIDs, the Process List A updates will overwrite the Process List B processes with active instances

If you do this all correctly, you can get your 10.4 changes to apply to the processes with active instances. Please back everything up though, because there are lots of GUIDs to copy and this would be rather error-prone. 

1 0

Replies

replied on June 11, 2019

I'm not sure I completely understand what you are after, but if you want to migrate active instances from one Forms server to another, you have to migrate the processes with them as well. You cannot take the active instances from your 10.1 server and drop them into the processes configured on 10.4.

0 0
replied on June 11, 2019

I have already migrated the processes and made styling changes etc to the forms on my new server. I would like to copy across the instances on the old system still being used to the new one that has exactly the same processes just updated versions. Thank you!

0 0
SELECTED ANSWER
replied on June 11, 2019

That is not (easily) possible. To copy the active instances over to your new server, you need to bring the database over and upgrade it to 10.4. This will bring over the old processes with it too. I think your best bet is to download the processes you've modified in 10.4, backup then move the database over to your 10.4 server, then re-apply the changes you made to the processes with active instances on them. 

Although I don't recommend it, there is a way you could try and get what you're after. Forms 10.4 has the ability to overwrite processes with updated versions, but that relies on the process and each process element having the same GUID as the currently uploaded process. To try and take advantage of this, you could

  1. Download the updated processes you made in 10.4 (Process List A)
  2. Backup then migrate the 10.1 database with active instances to the 10.4 server (Process List B)
  3. Download those newly migrated processes and open up the process XML (Process List B)
  4. For EACH ELEMENT, copy the GUID from the Process List B process to the corresponding Process List A XML
  5. Now you should have updated your Process List A processes so that the GUIDs match what's currently in your Forms server
  6. When you try to upload a process from Process List A, it should ask if you want to overwrite the existing process
  7. Since you updated the GUIDs, the Process List A updates will overwrite the Process List B processes with active instances

If you do this all correctly, you can get your 10.4 changes to apply to the processes with active instances. Please back everything up though, because there are lots of GUIDs to copy and this would be rather error-prone. 

1 0
replied on June 13, 2019

Thank you i think the best option is just to replace the changes made in the forms layout etc. As any change to the layout and variables just adds new GUID elements and makes the replacing of them accross XML incredibly difficult! When the number of GUIDs matched between XML docs A and B it is very simple to swap them although this wont be the case after editing/upgrading the forms unfortunately and it would be some task to manually change the value as there is over 500 in some forms... unless there is a way to automate this it isn't really an option. Thanks for your help!

0 0
You are not allowed to follow up in this post.

Sign in to reply to this post.

Details
Related Posts
Loading ...