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You can use the transfer manager form to synchronise projects, to create an autonomous version of a project to be used in the field or to return new data from a remote project to a central linked repository version. Synchronisation may take place across projects which use all or only some common spheres: sphere name, rather than number, is used to make the necessary connections.

Basic Use of Transfer

To transfer data between projects, click the Transfer Wizard button or the Perform Transfer button of the facilities page of the main menu. These call the Transfer Wizard or Transfer Manager forms respectively. We refer to the project from which you wish to transfer data the source or, simply, as the from project. Similarly, the project into which data is to be transferred is the target or to project. First determine which projects are to be the subject of the transfer and what are the objectives of the manoeuvre. Do you want to:

Common Actions

Determine which of the spheres you intend to transfer. Note the following:

The answers to these questions indicate if you need to copy schema data first or only the detail of sphere items and their relations.

This description continues with the procedure for using the Transfer Manager. Click for the Transfer Wizard which operates a little differently.

Ensure that you are located in the required to project. The code for the current project is shown at the top right of the form.

Choose a from project by clicking any field which refers to it in the From Project box. If the project which you need is not visible, use the scroll bar of the projects table. If the project is not included in the table then it has not yet been recorded as a project in the home environment in which you are working and you must return to the start form and enter it in the projects list. Selecting a from project will show you the set of spheres which it contains in the table in the Available Spheres page of the tabbed notebook at the bottom of the form.

Choose the spheres which you want to transfer by clicking the Selected field of the spheres table for each in turn or by clicking the All button to select all spheres. You can deselect a sphere by clicking the Selected field of a sphere which has already been included. Relations which will be transferred are those for which both ends of the relationship, that is the from and to spheres are transferable and have been selected. If you use the all spheres button, you will be warned individually of each of the spheres which cannot be transferred. These spheres will not be flagged for transfer. Relations transfers are selected automatically based on the selected spheres. Any relations table which links a selected pair of spheres will be included.

You can review the selected sphere or relations files in the notebook. The Available Spheres page shows the set of spheres in the currently selected from project and their corresponding sphere numbers in the to project, whether or not they can be transferred to the to project and whether or not they have been selected. The Available Relations page displays the list of relationship files in the currently selected from project and their corresponding tables in the to project with flags to show whether they are transferable and selected.

Review your selections as a whole, if you wish, by clicking the View button. This will display the transfer schema viewer form on which you can see the linked sets of spheres in the from and to projects. Spheres which have been selected are shown blinking from black to red as are any relationship connectors between selected spheres. Note that, if the to project has not yet been defined, either via transfer of the schema or by manual setup, it will show no sphere information.

Defining a New Project or Version of a Project

This uses the schema transfer facility. After selecting the required projects and spheres as explained above, click the Copy Schema button. No further action is required to create the necessary tables in the to project.

Note that if you intend to make a transfer between a main project and an autonomous sub-project version of it, you must first create the sub-project in its own directory by using the start form and then use transfer to copy the main project to it. It is not necessary to copy the whole of a main project and, if required, a sub-project may be constructed which contains elements of two or more main projects. (This requires several runs of the schema transfer using different current projects as the from project.)

Note also that the schema transfer facility will completely empty any existing table in the to project if a new version is copied from the from project.

Transferring Data between Projects

Data transfers can only take place between sphere or relation tables which have identical formats. You may not make transfers between tables for which the schema customiser has been used to alter only one side of the transfer.

After selecting the required projects and spheres as explained above, click the Copy Data button. It is not necessary to avoid spheres which have been amended in the to project as the transfer process includes review facilities and you may choose which version to adopt at sphere item or even field level.

Possible anomalies may cause the system to display dialogue boxes and require your answers. If you have deleted a sphere item from the from project or added a new item in the to project, you will be prompted to keep or to delete the extra item. The system's default is to make the to project sphere a complete and accurate copy of the from project sphere without unmatched items from the to project sphere. It assumes that any to item which is not found in the from sphere is extra.

Possible Conflicts

Similarly, if a to item carries a later update date than the from item, the system will prompt you to choose the from item or the to item or will display a field by field review form which allows you to choose a whole set of values from one or the other or to choose individual values from either.

The transfer review form shows the fields which differ between the two versions by highlighting the field names in red. To choose the complete set of values in the from project version, you need only click the Done button. To choose the complete set of values in the to project, click the Switch All button or to select individually from the values displayed, click the appropriate Switch buttons for the fields in the to project which you want used. Note that the Switch buttons are all activated by the Switch All button and can then be used to deselect individual field values.