Migrating the Configurations done using tp_block in ARAS Technical Documentation

Hi,

what kind of changes to you have done? Added new properties? Manually redo additional properties would be even worse, cause the id´s doesn´t match and you cannot transfer data that might already exists in your dev database.

From my POV it should be possible to import your tp_block modifications, you just needs a couple of dirty tricks. Can you explain what you have modified?

Yes, I have added new properties like document language, document description, etc. also modified existing properties to make it unique and add sequence for document number.

I would like to know those tricks and also I would like to know is there an in-built functionality to track the changes made to these properties with ARAS through versions/revisions? OR Should I track it offline outside ARAS?

Please suggest.

As you mentioned, tp_block is a default ItemType that already comes with the default installation.

Try this at your own risk and use a test data base for the first try to see if you really get the correct result. When it doesn´t work you may risk your main database. 

You first have to discover, in which Package Definition the ItemType is stored. Than export this package definition with the export tool. Now open the folder and try to find the xml file that represents the tp_block ItemType. Throw everything out of the package definition that is not needed so only the tp_block xml element will remain. You can open the xml with a standard text editor. It should contain your customized properties. Then import the reduced import package to the new database.

ItemTypes do not have a revision, so you cannot track the changes. It´s the only ItemType were I think it´s impossible to use revisions, cause ItemTypes represent real physical tables in the database. You could use the ItemType Definition Report to have a quick overview ItemType before/after modification. 

What is your experience with multilanguage tech docs? I faced a couple of problems to add the translation of the technical documents when using multiple languages in parallel. 

Thanks for your comments and tips. I also need to build equivalent translated document based on the source English document. Since that you mentioned, there are couple of problems you faced, could you please share what are those? I am going to test it and will come back and share my comments here. Thanks again.

Well, you will face a quite fundamental problem when using multilanguage-documents. You cannot translate your content in TechDocs. You basically have to translate the xml outside Innovator. Which lead to the next problem that we do not have an import/export function for doing this.

I have a couple of enhancement requests running to address these issues. I don´t think Aras will consider any of them as long as no big Tier or enough other Aras users ask for this topics. I especially miss a feature that allows us to add the translations directly inside TechDocs. The current approach for editing the xml content includes the high risk that the translator breaks the xml structure and makes translation extreme hard to do.

Write to Aras support to join IR-084823, IR-085171, IR-085172, IR-085174 and IR-085175. They are about Import/Export of translations and rework of the translation functionality in general including the option to specify a document master language and the feature do directly add translations within TechDocs. 

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