Stat 6.3 - User Guide

Object Archives (Oracle Applications)

Using Stat, developers can take ‘snapshots’ of objects as they exist in a particular environment and archive them indefinitely in the Stat Repository. These object archives are called archive sets, and they can be used to update your environments with the most recent version of objects or, if needed, to roll them back to an earlier version. This effectively makes Stat the “Undo” feature of Oracle Applications.

Once a developer locks the objects that he or she wishes to change, Stat automatically takes a snapshot of those objects before any changes occur. This is called a base archive set. The base archive set is the “pre-change” version of all the objects locked in the CSR. You can use this snapshot, like all archive sets, to restore data objects and file objects to their previous state.

As you make changes to the objects, you can also create interim archive sets. This is effectively backing up your work as you go along.

The ability to create the archive sets that include file objects and/or data objects is activated at the service domain level by your system administrator.

About Archive Sets

Using Stat, developers can take ‘snapshots’ of objects as they exist in a particular environment and archive them indefinitely in the Stat Repository. These object archives are called archive sets, and they can be used to update your environments with the most recent version of objects or, if needed, to roll them back to an earlier version. This effectively makes Stat the “Undo” feature of Oracle Applications.

Once a developer locks the objects that he or she wishes to change, Stat automatically takes a snapshot of those objects before any changes occur. This is called a base archive set. The base archive set is the “pre-change” version of all the objects locked in the CSR. You can use this snapshot, like all archive sets, to restore data objects and file objects to their previous state.

As you make changes to the objects, you can also create interim archive sets. This is effectively backing up your work as you go along.

The ability to create the archive sets that include file objects and/or data objects is activated at the service domain level by your system administrator.

Archive Set Types

You use archive sets to recover objects to environments and migrate completed changes. There are three types of archive sets: Base, Interim, and Final. There is also a fourth type called Merged, which is the result of using the Object Merge Wizard to combine the definition of two versions of the same data object.

You can use any archive set type to restore or migrate objects. Each archive set contains objects that are locked on one CSR, while the CSR itself may contain one or more archive sets, including the base, the final, and all the interim archive sets.

When you create an interim or final archive set, you tell Stat what environment the archives of the objects should come from. For data objects, the archives come from the selected Oracle Applications environment. For file objects, the archives come from either the source file locations defined for the selected environment or from the working directory of the assigned developer.

System administrators define source file locations for each file type and working directories for each developer. Working directories are where users make their changes. When creating an archive set, you can take the file archives either from the environment’s source file locations or from the developer’s working directory.

The base archive set is the most important because it contains the “pre-change” version of all the objects in the CSR. Stat automatically creates the base archive set when you save your CSR after locking objects. The base archive set is created from the Base environment in your migration path. Your system administrator defines which environment is the Base environment for each migration path. Your system administrator also defines each file type's source file locations for the Base environment. It is from these locations that Stat takes the “pre-change” version of the file objects locked in the CSR.

NOTE: If objects are removed from a CSR, those objects are also removed from all the archive sets on that CSR. This keeps the base archive set accurate and up-to-date.

A CSR can contain only one base archive set, which contains all the locked objects. The base archive set is dynamic, meaning that Stat automatically adds to it objects that are locked in the Base environment after the set is initially created. The base archive set continues to grow as Stat issues more locks on objects in the CSR.

You should never delete base archive sets from the system, since they contain objects in their original, “pre-change” state. The moment you request a lock on objects, Stat places a holder in the system for the base set. Before you save the CSR, the status of the base set is In Process. If you do not save the CSR, the objects are not locked and the base archive is not created.

As you make changes to objects, you can save the modified objects in interim archive sets. Interim archive sets contain objects that are currently being modified and can be taken from any environment on your migration path, although by default the source environment is Development. If the archive set contains file objects, the archive of the file objects is taken either from the first source location defined for the specified environment or the developer’s working directory.

You can create an unlimited number of interim archive sets. An interim archive set is also dynamic. Stat can add objects to it after it is created. However, you cannot add or delete objects from an interim archive set once it has been migrated. This is to keep referential integrity intact. If you need to archive an object that is not in one of your interim archive sets, just create a new interim archive set for that object.

An interim archive set can contain some or all the objects associated with a CSR. You create interim sets to save objects after significant changes have been made throughout the development process.

Once your changes are completed and approved, you should create a final archive set. The final archive set is static, and although it is not mandatory that you create one, it is strongly recommended. A CSR can contain only one final archive set, and objects cannot be added to it once it is created. When the final archive set is created, Stat automatically adds to it all objects locked on the CSR.

You can create a final archive set from any environment on the migration path of the CSR. As with interim archive sets, if the final archive set contains file objects, the archive of the file objects is taken either from source locations defined for the particular file types or the developers’ working directories.

Merged archive sets are automatically created by Stat when you use the Object Compare Wizard to combine the definition of two versions of the same data object. Merged archive sets are automatically added to the CSR from which the original versions of the object were selected. A CSR can contain an unlimited number of merged archive sets. For more information on the Object Merge Wizard, see Object Tools and Wizards .

Archive Sets Table

The Archive Sets table shows the archive sets that have been created for a particular CSR. You can create and migrate archive sets whenever this table is displayed.

The Archive Sets button becomes activated whenever you select the CSR node, the All Objects node, or the Migration Path node in the tree view on the left side of the tab page. If you select any object or developer node in the tree structure while the Archive Set table is displayed, the view switches to the Environment Info table and the Archive Sets button becomes dithered. This is because archive set information is not specific to these nodes and cannot be filtered.

To view archive set information by environment, select any of the environment nodes under the Migration Path node. This filters the archive set table to show information about only the archive sets created from that environment.

To sort rows of information in the Archive Set table, click on the column headings.

The archive set table displays the following information:

This is the archive set ID, which Stat automatically generates. Archive sets appear in the order you create them.

This is the source environment from which you copied the objects in the archive set. It must be an environment in the migration path defined for the CSR. A “-w” appears at the end of the environment name if the archive set was taken from the Development environment and it contains files that were taken from the users' working directories rather than the source file locations of the development environment. If it was taken from a VCM repository, a “-v” appears on the end of the environment name.

NOTE: If the base archive set contains file objects, these are copied from the source file locations of the Base environment. Interim archive sets are copied from the Development environment by default.

This is the type of archive set. Options include Base, Interim, and Final.

This is the description you entered when you created the archive set. Descriptions help distinguish between different interim archive sets. Base archive sets always contain the description: “Stat Baseline Set.”

This indicates how many objects the archive set contains. For a base or final archive set, this number is the total number of objects locked on the CSR. An interim archive set may contain less than that number.

This indicates the current status of the archive set. Possible statuses include:

If selected, this indicates one or both of the following:

For more information, see Migration Approvals and Mass Migrations (Oracle Applications) .

This indicates the status of any archive set that you marked as Ready to Migrate. Before you select the target environment(s) for the archive set, the status is N/A. After you select the target environment(s), the status is In Process. Once the archive set has been migrated to all the selected environment(s), the Ready to Migrate check box is unchecked and the status reverts to N/A.

This is the date that the archive set was created.

The archive sets table features the following short cut buttons: