Best practices ESR in Eclipse – Part 3: Release transfer and versioning

This is the third blog in a blog series about new capabilities in ESR in Eclipse. If you want to get an overview of all features that have been shipped with SAP Process Orchestration 7.5 SP02, check out the blog Best practices ESR in Eclipse – Part 1: Overview of new capabilities with 7.5 SP02. In the current blog, I will cover release transfer and features around versioning.

Release transfer

I like to create a new version of the Concur SWCV that I used in my previous blog where I showed the transport capabilities in ESR in Eclipse. Right mouse click within the ESR navigation pane, and select New –> Software Component Version from the context menu.

In the upcoming dialog, you can either import a SWCV from SLD or create a local one. Here, I choose local. In the name of the local SWCV I indicate the new version number. Click on button Finish.

A new SWCV has been created. Next we have to create a Namespace. On the Namespace tab, select button Edit.

This brings up the Namespace editor. Here, we add a new Namespace by selecting button Add and maintaining the Namespace name. The name needs to correspond to the Namespace name in the previous SWCV.

Confirm the upcoming pop-up. Then save and activate your changes.

From the main menu, select entry ESR –> Transfer Design Objects.

In the upcoming dialog, select source and target SWCVs. In the scope section you can either select all active objects or objects from a selected namespace. Here, I chose Selected namespaces. Click on button Next.

On the next screen you see the list of namespaces within the source SWCV. In my case, there is only one. Select the respective namespace, and click on button Preview.

On the Preview screen, you get all objects displayed which will be transferred. Click on button Finish.

Once done, you get a success message displayed as well as the number of objects which have been transferred.

When refreshing the navigation tree, the new SWCV including the transferred objects are displayed.

Version history

Besides supporting different Software Component versions, objects within a SWCV can have different versions themselves. For any ESR object, you can get its history information. Here, I like to know the version history of a message mapping. Select the message mapping, and select entry Version History from the context menu.

A new tab opens showing all versions including version number, the user that has created the version, the date of creation, etc. The last version is the active one.

I like to restore the version 2. Double click on the second version. By the way, as you can see below, for each version the version origin is also displayed, i.e., I can trace back the change list details through which the version came into the ESR.

In the upcoming message mapping editor, in the right upper corner, you find a button to restore the displayed version.

Confirm the upcoming pop-up.

Save and activate your changes.

When refreshing the history pane, you see that a new version has been created.

Version comparison

For messagemapping objects, besides the version history, a version comparison is supported. In our previous example, before restoring a previous version, I like to compare the current version with the previous version. In the History tab, you can select two versions, and select entry Compare with Each Other from the context menu.

A new pane opens where the differences and changes between both versions are highlighted.

In the upper right corner, buttons are provided that support you in browsing through the differences and changes, i.e., show next difference, show previous difference, show next change, show next change.

In the next blog Best practices ESR in Eclipse – Part 4: Content organization, I will cover new features around content organization within the ESR in Eclipse. A list of all blogs in the blog series can be accessed from here Best practices ESR in Eclipse – Part 1: Overview of new capabilities with 7.5 SP02.