Manage GCA Data Across Environments

The Cross Environment Data Management (CEDM) feature in the Government Clause Automation (GCA) solution enables you to export and import configuration data between environments.

Key features and benefits of CEDM:

• Reduces repetitive setup work: Eliminates the need to manually recreate templates, clauses, rules, or questionnaires.
• Saves time: Speeds up implementation and production setup.
• Reduces errors: Minimizes mistakes from manual data entry.
• Maintains consistency: Ensures uniformity across environments.
• Audit tracking: Provides transparency for all changes.

Manage data across environments

CEDM enables you to manage the configuration data across different Government Clause Automation (GCA) environments effectively. Using the CEDM feature, you can transfer data such as clauses, templates, rules, and questionnaires from the source environment to the target environment.

CEDM system behavior

When using the CEDM feature:

• Existing data with matching identifiers is overwritten in the target environment.
• New data identifiers are created as new entries in the target environment.
• Clause texts export in separate batches to manage file sizes.
• New reference data cannot be created using CEDM and must be handled manually or during application deployment.
• Duplicate data blocks both export and import processes.
• All updates appear as separate audit entries.

Data types supported

The following data types are supported for export and import:

• Clauses (with associated text, reference data, and section mapping).
• Templates (with related clauses, clause text, and reference data).
• Rules (with related questionnaires, reference questions, clauses, and reference data).
• Reference data (updates only, no new creation).
• Fill-in recommendations.

Pre-export preparation

1. Take a manual backup of the data in both the source and target environments.
2. Copy the data from the target environment and load it into the source environment to ensure that the source and target are fully synchronized before you make any new changes.

3. Apply your changes to the data in the source environment.

   1. Before updating reference question data, including question text, unmap the question from the questionnaire.
4. Test the source environment.
5. Export the updated data from the source environment.
6. Import the exported data into the target environment without any conflicts.

7. Ensure source and target environments have the same configuration and are on the same GCA and platform version for the export and import to succeed.

   • Note: The target environment and the data must remain unchanged until the process is completed.

Factors to consider when exporting and importing data

1. If any issues occur during the import process, restore the data using the backup taken at the start of the process.

2. Data cleanup:

   1. Ensure there are no duplicates in the supported table data in the source environment.

      1. If duplicate validation errors appear, clean up the data from the database to remove the duplicates.

      2. Retain the latest data

         1. When cleaning up the database, look for the highest Primary Key in the database.
         2. When cleaning up the user interface, look for the most recent last modified date.
      3. Ensure the data you remove does not have any dependencies.
3. Any database change impacts the respective synced records, and you must sync those records.
4. The Reference Data Bundle File that contains the bundle keys must be deployed properly in the target environment.
5. The import process does not support multiple source environments being imported into one target environment. It expects a 1:1 relationship.

Export data

You can select the datasets that you want to export from the source environment. The system automatically includes all the dependencies of the selected datasets for the export. Ensure you have considered all the factors before exporting data from the source environment.

Export data from source environment

To export the data from the source environment:

1. From the Clause Automation site, select > GCA - Cross Environment Data Management.

   

2. From the GCA - Cross Environment Data Management site, click Export Data in the navigation pane.

   

3. Click Export Data.

4. From the Export Data page, select the required datasets using the Which data sets would you like to export? checkboxes adjacent to them.

   

5. Click EXPORT.

An email notification is sent to you with the exported dataset as a ZIP file. Ensure that the ZIP file is not edited before importing it into the target environment.

Import data

In the target environment, you can import the ZIP files that were exported from the source environment.

Import data into target environment

To import the data into the target environment:

1. From the Clause Automation site, select > GCA - Cross Environment Data Management.

   

2. From the GCA - Cross Environment Data Management site, click Import Data in the navigation pane.

   

3. From the Import Data page, click UPLOAD to select the exported file from the source environment.

   

4. Click IMPORT.

You receive an email notification once the import completes in the target environment with a log file attached to the email.

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