Performing AR reconciliation

Perform reconciliation on your development system. The following types of object properties are required for reconciliation:

  • Old Definition —  Describes the definition of the base application objects before upgrading the server (This definition comes from the current production server.)
  • New Definition — Describes the definition of the application objects after upgrading the server and includes the changes introduced in the upgrade process
  • Overlay Definition —  Describes the definition of the overlay application objects before upgrading the server

In this topic

Three-way reconciliation

When you review an object to reconcile during the reconciliation process, you will see a comparison of the three definitions. The following example shows the differences for a workflow object.

Workflows execution options reconciliation.png

For reconciling AR customizations, you can copy and merge the changes from a new definition to your overlay definition that you created in the previous version. The reconciliation process allows you to reconcile changes that you made in your overlays with changes introduced by BMC during an upgrade. You can compare the changes by viewing all three definitions at once and replicate changes made during an upgrade into your overlays or modify or remove changes already present in your overlays.

Only the Overwrite type of overlay is used for comparison. Additive overlay changes are included in the upgrade, and objects with no overlay have no changes that need to be merged.

Best practice
You can reconcile your customizations using a single instance of BMC Remedy Developer Studio. If multiple administrators are performing a reconciliation, enable Object reservation on the server to ensure that the object cannot be modified until one administrator completes the modification and releases the object. 

You can also divide the list of items for reconciliation to eliminate overlap among the objects.

To help you distinguish each server during the reconciliation process, consider giving an alias name to each server (source, development, and so on). For more information, see Setting platform options in the BMC Remedy AR System online documentation.


To reconcile objects

  1. Compare the snapshot and generate the Objects to Reconcile list.
    1. Open BMC Remedy Developer Studio.
    2. Log in to your AR System upgraded server (development) as well as the current production server.
    3. On the AR System Navigator, right-click the server name and click Compare with Snapshot.
    4. Select the snapshot source by selecting the snapshot XML file that you captured from the server before the upgrade. If you are reconciling objects by using more than one instance of Developer Studio, use the same snapshot for all Developer Studio instances.
    5. Select the comparison list that you want to generate.
      The list contains only the objects that are of Overwrite Overlay type. The following options are provided: 
      • Report objects to reconcile — This option lists all of the objects that need to be reconciled. These are objects that BMC changed and that were also changed through overlays in a way that masks the BMC changes.

      • Report objects changed in base — This option lists all of the objects that are modified during an upgrade. The old base definition is compared with the new base definition.

        You might want to choose this second option to see what changed between releases. If logic in an application changed, simply reconciling overlays might not provide all of the information you need. For example, suppose you are working with an application that has a form. You created an archive of the form by creating a custom form and attaching workflow to the original BMC form. The BMC form moves records to your custom form. In an upgraded version of the application, BMC added a field to the form, and enabled archiving on it. You might not clearly see how your customizations were affected, but they no longer work. When your workflow copies records to the form now, they are now missing a field. In this case, you would want to see what changed in the application.

        Note

        When you select the Report objects changed in base option, follow the procedure described in the Viewing-and-reconciling-objects-changed-in-the-new-base.

    6. (Optional) Select the Additional html/csv report output for viewing the comparison results in a CSV or HTML format output.

      You can save this file for comparison after reconciliation as well.

      Note

      You can also generate a report file later from the Snapshot Results menu on AR System Navigator. Right-click Objects to reconcile and select Create Report.

    7. Click Finish.
      The Objects list is generated in the Snapshot Results directory in your new server in AR System Navigator. See Reviewing-the-Objects-to-Reconcile-list. 

  2. Create a new packing list.

    All of the changes that you make as you reconcile will be added to the packing list. Later in the upgrade process, you will export this packing list to migrate your reconciled customizations. For more information, see Migrating-customizations.

    Note

    If you rename a packing list, it will be added as a new list.

    1. View the Objects to Reconcile list that opens in AR System Navigator when you complete step 1.
    2. Open the Settings panel.
      SettingsPanel.jpg
    3. From the Old Definition Source for Reconciliation drop-down list, select the current production server name.
    4. Select the Add Reconciled Objects to Packing list option. 
    5. Enter the packing list name.
    1. Click Apply.
  3. Review the Differences List.
    1. Right-click the object and click View Differences.
      ViewDifferencesOption.png
      The Differences List for the object is displayed. See Reviewing-the-changes-using-the-Differences-List.
    2. Double-click the difference node.
      A Difference Editor for the object is displayed. For more information, see Reviewing-the-object-definitions-using-the-Difference-Editor.
      DifferenceEditor.png
  4. Perform the reconciliation as described in the following procedures:


Best practice
BMC recommends that you reconcile the customizations in the following order:

  1. Regular forms
  2. View forms
  3. Display-only forms
  4. Join forms
  5. Archive forms
  6. Audit forms
  7. Fields
  8. Other items

 

Where to go from here

Next task

Up to process
 

When you have finished reconciling BMC Remedy AR customizations, return to the appropriate stage in the upgrade process:

 

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