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Member

fretief - 2/15/2010 6:38:33 PM

Content Staging

We have a development; QA and Production environment. We do all our development in the development environment and this includes document types; pages; layouts; back end development and anything else.

We want to then deploy this to QA via the Content Staging module. Our content editors will do the content (text; images; etc) in QA and we will then deploy finally to production.

I need some advise as to how to handle future page layout; webpart; template changes that we want to do in development and deploy to QA without loosing the text; images etc that was captured in QA by the content editors.

It seems to me that Kentico will sync everything on a page and does not have the ability to sync only the layout / template for example and leave the destination text and images in tact.

Would appreciate some advise on this

Kentico Support

kentico_zdenekc - 3/2/2010 12:27:35 PM

RE:Content Staging

Hello,

Content staging distinguishes between global objects and content - documents, etc...
Description of what is synchronized is in DevGuide staging overview article

Staging module logs content changes and object changes separately.
Document types, templates and layouts are global objects. The content (text in editable webparts etc.) is bound with the document and is logged as content change.
Therefore, if you setup logging object changes in your Dev site only, and setup logging of content changes in QA, then it would generally fit your needs.

The content won't be affected after update of page template or layout, unless you change the IDs of the content webparts. Even if you do that, content will be preserved, however you would need to restore the former webpart (with appropriate ID) to get the content back for any usage.

You may want to create some documents (with or without content) in your Dev environment in order to create the content structure... then you would need to enable logging of content changes in Dev env. too, and later synchronize only object changes.

Another option would be Bi-directional staging so that you could modify the layouts etc. with up-to-date content from QA. You can analyse your processes and choose the setup that would fit your needs.

Should you need any additional details, please feel free to ask.

Regards,
Zdenek C.

Member

fretief - 3/2/2010 11:19:49 PM

RE:Content Staging

Thanks - will keep that in mind - Let me ask a further question on content staging...

I created editor users in my Dev environment and synchronized them up to the QA environment via content staging.

But when I try and log into QA as one of those users, I get an error indicating that the user is not an editor. This is easily fixed by going into the user profile and ticking the "is editor" box, but I cannot see the user in the Users screen in QA.

When I try to re-create the user it tells me that it already exists but I cannot see it to edit or change. similarly I cannot add the user to a role as it does not exist in the User's pop-up.

Somewhere it did not synchronize to all tables.

I have re-done the sync a few times but it made no difference - Can you help please?

Member

fretief - 3/8/2010 8:58:32 PM

RE:Content Staging

This problem somehow resolved itself so please ignore the previous post.

I have a further issue with content staging though and would appreciate some help...

I created a new media library on my own installation of kentico and synch'ed that up to dev without any issues.

The next thing I did was allocate permissions under the Security tab of the media library and tried to synch that up to my dev environment - In this case the sync failed with the following error:

Synchronization server error: Exception occurred: [SyncServer.UpdateObject]: Cannot translate columns 'RoleID', import the dependent objects first.

I am unsure what RoleID is referred to as I made no role changes other than giving specific roles access to the media library.

I thought it might be because the roles that I gave permission to the media library in the security tab did not have read permissions on the media library module, but after changing that the error message remains.

Some advise will be appreciated

Thanks

Kentico Support

kentico_zdenekc - 3/19/2010 10:22:00 AM

RE:Content Staging

Hello,

exceptions of this kind may happen when the target parent object doesn't exist, e.g. in import process, when the parent object in target site is missing or has different ID...
For import, there is a setting Do not import objects where parent object is missing, however for staging synchronization, you have to maintain the synchronization steps order.

Could you please compare the CMS_Role tables in the databases of both servers? In case of any differences, it could stand behind the cause.

As for the Object synchronization itself, have you used "Synchronize all" or only ".. selected" ? Synchronize all should avoid problems with target server's parent objects existence.

Any further details are welcome. Optionally you can write us an email to support at kentico.com with some screenshots, event log listings etc...

Thank you in advance.

Regards,
Zdenek C.

Member

fretief - 5/5/2010 7:57:39 PM

RE:Content Staging

Hi,

I think the problem has something to do with the "Site" property linked to an object. I have just synced my QA to production for the first time and although it seems to sync everything, some objects e.g. users and custom tables are not visible in the CMS desk on the production server.

I found that if I go into the Site Manager they are all there, but non of them have their "Site" set. If I manually go and set the "Site" on a user or a custom table for example, then it starts working.

Any idea why this happens and what I can do to resolve without having to manually edit every object?

Appreciate your help

Kentico Support

kentico_zdenekc - 5/25/2010 2:18:53 AM

RE:Content Staging

Hi,

It means that the objects were not assigned to the particular site properly during synchronization...
Have you applied any hotfixes onto the 5.0 version already?
There were some issues with synchronization fixed, so I recommend to apply it first and try the synchronization again. You can get hotfixes here, we recommend to apply the latest one for given version.
If it doesn't help, please send us further details or preferably also the (at least staging) site export package to our support email address.
Thanks.

Regards,
Zdenek


Member	fretief - 6/3/2010 10:07:37 PM RE:Content Staging Hi, We applied all hotfixes except for the last one before 5.5 was released and the behavior was the same - was this fixed in the last hotfix?

Kentico Support

kentico_zdenekc - 6/7/2010 3:36:35 PM

RE:Content Staging

Hi,

The last hotfix package for 5.0 (5.0.19) doesn't contain any bugfixes that would match this issue. (FYI - you can find the listing of fixes in the instructions.pdf within each hotfix package)

The behavior is strange, could you please confirm that a site the objects were assigned to in staging server also exists in the target server and has the same codename?
Thank you in advance.

Regards,
Zdenek


Member	fretief - 6/7/2010 5:18:41 PM RE:Content Staging Hi, yes both sites have the same name and code name

Kentico Support

kentico_zdenekc - 6/9/2010 5:12:07 AM

RE:Content Staging

Hi,

Yet one additional question - were the Users that are not assigned to any site in the target server assigned to that site in staging server (e.g. before synchronization)?

Optionally please write us to our support address so we could arrange receiving site export package for detailed investigation or any details.

Thank you in advance for information.