Publishing containers

When you create or modify a container (address book, CMDB, knowledge base, service portfolio, or workspace), you must publish or republish to make the most recent version available to your users. Until you publish, the changes are stored in draft form in FootPrints.
You can discard the draft changes and revert to the last published state if you want to start over from the last stable state. To enable the  Discard Unpublished Changes  feature, you must publish the container that were created before the upgrade  at least  once.

FootPrints validates and publishes the modifications at the container level, refreshing field settings, forms, relationships, and so on. If you modify different items within a container, then publishing the container validates and publishes only the updated items and not the entire container. If you modify an item within a container, for which no changes are made directly or indirectly to Business Rules, then Business Rules are excluded from validation and publish. If changes are made directly or indirectly to Business Rules, then the entire item is validated and republished.

The system validates the updated items within the container, and errors are generated for broken rules, missing fields, and so on. A log is also created that includes hyperlinks to the container sections in which the errors occurred.

The following topics are provided:

• • Avoiding save conflicts
  • To publish a container

Avoiding save conflicts

When multiple users have editing permissions for an address book, for example, and attempt to save or publish changes at the same time, the Edit Lock feature prevents save conflicts from occurring. You cannot save your changes (or save and publish) while another user is editing the same address book. A warning appears, advising you of the situation.

You can cancel your Save or Save and Publish request and attempt the request again later, or discard your changes and return later to redo them. If you have the administrator permissions, the warning has an Unlock option to release the lock. Any changes made by the other user are saved.

To publish a container

1. If the container is open for editing:
   1. Click the container link in the breadcrumb trail.
   2. Click Save and Publish. 
2. If the container is not open for editing:
   1. Click the Administration tab.
   2. In the appropriate container section, click Manage.
      For example, to publish a workspace, click Manage in the Workspaces section.
   3. In the container Administration page, select the container that you want to publish, and click Save and Publish.

3. Click Yes.
   The system validates the settings. Depending on the complexity of the container, this action may take a few moments. After a container has been published, a Publication Succeeded message appears, showing the number of errors and warnings (usually zero). In the container's icon, the last line of text shows: "Published: True". If errors do occur, they are listed in the publishing log.

   Important

   If another user is working with the container at the same time, a warning about another administrator locking the container appears. You cannot continue until the editing lock has been deactivated.

4. To view log details, click Publishing Logs on the container details page.
   A list of logs appears.
5. To view a detailed list of the errors, click the link in the Publication Date column next to the log entry that you want to review.
   Each error includes a link to the location where you can make corrections. 

The published container settings are available immediately in the production environment. Remember to assign user roles to new containers (or update assignments if needed) so your users can access them.