Transporting Portal Development Objects

This Document talks about SAP Enterprise Portal Objects Transport Process from One landscape system to other system.

Assumptions and Scope

The Enhanced Change & Transport system (CTS+) is used for transport of non-ABAP objects in portal landscape; this should be already configured as per following link: How to Set Up and Use the CTS+ in a Portal Environment for SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS 13

This document covers Transport method for Portal Custom object development including PCD objects , its permissions and its Translations.

It does not cover Transport method for custom objects created using NWDI, i.e. par files and other DCs.

Brief on Portal Objects Transport

Custom content in the SAP NetWeaver Portal can be migrated through the landscape by three mechanisms.

1. Portal Content Catalog objects can be transported by the SAP Enhanced Change and Transport System (CTS+).
2. Some objects can only be migrated using a file system based import/export process.

  3.     Some objects are not transportable and need to be configured manually in each landscape systems. 

Below is the summary of different objects and their migration methodology.

Objects Transported using CTS+

• PCD Objects ( iViews , Roles , Pages , WorkSets , Layouts , Desktops )
• Portal PCD permissions

• Portal PCD object Translations

  Objects Transported using file system based import/export 

• Portal Themes

Objects which are not transportable, and are to be configured manually in each landscape systems

• KM Folder permissions
• Security Zones permissions
• Portal master rule modification 

Transporting Different Portal Objects

PCD Objects

Once the development is done for PCD objects in Content Admin–>Portal Content folder for iViews /roles / Worksets /pages / Layouts / Desktop, these objects should be added to a transport Package

The procedure to create a transport package and add the objects is:

1. Choose System Administration –> Transport–> Export.

2. Go to the folder where you want to create a transport package: for e.g.

   Portal Content –>Customer–>Transports Packages–> New –> Transport Package with following details 

3. After creation of transport package, keep the package open and right click on PCD objects and choose ‘Add object to Transport Package’.

4. To include dependent objects in the export (for example, all objects in a role, including source objects), go to the package Property Editor and set the value of the Resolve References property, under the category Export Settings, to “Yes”
5. Go to the package Property Editor, under the category Export Settings; configure the Transport Mode property to Content / Content with permissions as per the requirement as either “data” or “data_and_acl”.

·         ( “data” option will send PCD contents only , “data_and_acl” option will send PCD conents with its permissions. )

6. Select the Transport package and Click on Export–> Select The objects –> Start Export
7. Select Transport method as CTS

8. Select “Transport Requests” hyperlink if you wish to create a new Transport request, else you can select the existing transport order and go to Next step
9. Click on Start Export.

10. These objects are now added in a Transport request and can be moved to next landscape systems.

PCD Object Translations

  This method will be used to transport PCD objects translation to target portal system 

Assumptions:

1)     Before Transporting languages of the PCD objects from one environment to another, these PCD objects should exist in the target system.

2)     Before creating transport packages for worklist, the worklist should already be created containing translations in desired language and should have status “Published”.

The transport package will contain all the PCD objects which are already translated in the worklist.

1) Go to System Admin –>Transport –> Transport packages –> Export

2) Go to the folder where you want to create a transport package: for 

e.g. Portal Content–>Customer–>Transport folder.

3) Keep the transport package open and Locate the PCD objects which are translated i.e. the Folders , Roles , Worksets , Pages , iViews etc.

Right click on it and select “Add Object to transport package”

 

4) Under category Export Settings in the package Property Editor, set Transport Mode to “Data Only“. This will send all the Translated PCD objects to target system in DATA only mode.

5) Choose Export. The export preview is displayed.

6) Select Transport method as CTS

7) This will add the PCD objects in CTS+ transport order, click on “Start Export”

8) Transport these objects to next landscape system via transport request, this will transport all the PCD objects to the next landscape system.

9) Now to transport the PCD Objects translations, Use the same Transport package as used in step 1 to 8 above.

Select Language Transport on the Static Package Content screen using the dropdown list.

10) Select all the languages to be exported.

11) Under category Export Settings in the package Property Editor, set Transport Mode to “textonly“.

12) Choose Export. The export preview is displayed.

13) Select Transport method as CTS

14) This will add the PCD objects in CTS+ transport order, click on “Start Export”

15) Transport the translations to the next landscape system

Note: There will be two transports for translations, both CTS will contain same PCD objects, First CTS will have Export mode as “Data Only”, Second CTS will have Export mode as “Text Only”, This will ensure that the objects and its translations both are in the target system.

Portal PCD Permissions

Following method should be used to Transport Portal PCD Objects permissions

1)     Initial Transport Method for PCD objects permissions and security zone permissions

The following method is used to set up Portal with initial permissions to make the portal system secure and ready to be used by different groups of users.

Assumptions:

1)  Portal Content Catalog Folder Structure is identical in Source and Target Portal System

2)  All Portal Roles and Groups are created with the same name in Source and Target System

3)  Users are not used while assigning permissions to different portal folders.

Perform these steps for Exporting Permissions from source portal

1. Log on to the portal. http://<host>:<port>/irj/portal
2. In the same browser session, open a new browser window.  Enter the following URL:     http://<host>:<port>/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/com.sap.portal.admin.acleditor.initialPermissionsCreator
3. Depending on the amount of data to be processed, it may take several minutes for the XML file to be created.  
4. When the permissions have been exported, an XML file, with the name initialPermissions.xml, is created on the source portal in the following folder:

  For  UNIX based servers: 

/usr/sap/<SAP J2EE instance name>/JC<instance number>/j2ee/cluster/server0/apps/sap.com/irj/servlet_jsp /irj/root /portalapps/com.sap.portal.admin.acleditor

The XML file contains all ACL objects existing in the source system.

5. Create a CMDB form to Transport these permissions to Target system
6. In Target System, perform these steps for Importing Permissions

               a)     Stop the target portal server (Ex: Quality or production portal server) 

b)    Copy the initialPermissions.xml file you generated on the source system to the following folder on the target system:

UNIX: /usr/sap/<SAP J2EE instance name>/JC<instance number>/j2ee/cluster/server0/apps/sap.com/irj/servlet_jsp/irj/root/WEB-INF/portal/system/xml/acl

7. Restart the portal server on the target system, the permissions will be applied on Target Portal

 

2)     PCD objects permissions in SAP namespace and Customer namespace

This method will be used to Transport permissions to PCD objects Customer folders.

Note: PCD objects permissions assigned to SAP namespace objects cannot be transported using this method, these object permissions needs to be configured manually in each systems.

Assumptions:

1)     Before assigning PCD permissions to all PCD folders in target portal , all the roles and groups used in assigning permissions in source portal needs to be migrated to target portal

2)     PCD permissions should not be assigned to any users, only assigned to different roles and groups

Steps:

1. Choose System Administration –> Transport–> Export.
2. Go to the folder where you want to create a transport package: for e.g.

Portal Content –>Customer–>Transports Packages–> New –> Transport Package with following details 

3. After creation of transport package, keep the package open and right click on PCD objects and choose ‘Add object to Transport Package’.
4. To include dependent objects in the export (for example, all objects in a role, including source objects), go to the package Property Editor and set the value of the Resolve References property, under the category Export Settings, to “Yes”

5. Go to the package Property Editor, under the category Export Settings; configure the Transport Mode property to permissions / Content with permissions as per the requirement as either “acl_only” or “data_and_acl”.

·         ( “acl_only” option will send PCD object permissions only , “data_and_acl” option will send PCD contents with its permissions. ) 

 

6. Select the Transport package and Click on Export–> Select The objects –> Start Export
7. Select Transport method as CTS
8. Select “Transport Requests” hyperlink if you wish to create a new Transport request, else you can select the existing transport order and go to Next step
9. Click on Start Export.
10. The PCD object permissions are now added in a Transport request and can be moved to next landscape systems.

Portal Themes

Following method will be used to transport Portal Themes

1. Choose System Administration –> Portal Display–>Theme Transport–> Choose your theme under Export Theme.

2. Download the theme on developer’s machine as a zip file.

3. In the target System Choose System Administration –> Portal Display–>Theme Transport–> Import theme –> Browse –> Select the theme from developer’s machine and Import.

Portal theme will be imported in the target system

Security Zones Permissions

Security zones permissions defined at System Admin–> Permissions–> Security zones folder are not transportable. These permissions need to be recreated in each landscape portal system manually.

KM Folder Permissions

KM Folder permissions defined at Content Admin–>KM Content–>Tool Box –> Permissions are not transportable. These permissions need to be recreated in each landscape portal system manually.

Master Rule Configuration

Master rule collections are not transportable; they need to be configured manually in each system.

1)     Go to System Administration–> Portal Display –> Desktop and Display Rules.

2)     Navigate to Portal Content–>administrator–>Super Administrators–> Master rule Collection, right click and open the object

3)     In the dropdown select “User”

4)     In operator Select “=”

5)     In Value Input field put “*”

6)     Click on THEN statement

7)     Provide PCD location path of Portal desktop to be assigned in Input field highlighted below.

      8)     Click on Apply button

9)     Click on Save button

Related Content

• How to Set Up and Use the CTS+ in a Portal Environment for SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS 13
• Performing Language Transports
• Creation of an EPA Archive for the Portal Export