Importing/exporting HelpServer objects can be a delicate operation that can be error prone. Perform this process with care and only if it is really necessary, for example if you have switched to another type of database or to transfer work from a trial version to your commercial-quality HelpServer installation. We disencourage the usage of this working principle on a regular bases. Perhaps other CMS advise you to use a 'playground' or 'test' installation and then to transfer finished work to a 'real live' or 'production' installation. In most cases HelpServer's publishing concept is a much better alternative.
Should you want to transfer objects between multiple HelpServer installations then take the following considerations into account
| 1. | First of all make sure all installations are upgraded to the same level. |
| 2. | Then perform the export. |
| • | If you want to transfer content objects (files and folders under the main 'Content' root item) it is better to export the underlying projects one by one instead of exporting the entire 'Content' root. |
| • | If you want to transfer non-content objects you can export the individual objects (i.e a specific scheme, a specific user group, etc). Just make sure you do not miss one. |
| • | If you export container objects (folders, user groups, etc...) the underlying objects are all included in the export. |
| • | If you export non-container objects (topics, security rule, etc. the embedded objects are not (all) included. For example |
| • | For topics, the hyperlinks are NOT included, but the embedded media files (images, files, etc.) are included. |
| • | For security rules, the embedded user accounts are NOT included. |
| 3. | Then perform the import. We recommend to respect the following sequence. |
| 1. | User accounts. |
| 2. | Security. |
| 3. | Look & feel: schemes (will also synchronize the classes for structured authoring), print lay-outs, editor style sets. |
| 4. | Smartcontent, meta data objects, workflow objects, auditing rules, lexicons. |
| 5. | Finally, your content projects. |
Container objects (folders, user groups, etc) are merged upon import. Non-container objects (a topic, a security rule, etc.) are always overwritten. Also, you can engage the import process on any point in the Workbench tree, but this has no influence on the import location. In other words, you cannot choose the import location, the location path is embedded in the export file and will be recreated if required.
Imported objects are switched to the 'Work instance'. You should publish the objects and; if you use the versioning feature, create a new version.
