Property Copy/Delete Concepts and Processes

To access these functions, select Special—Housekeeping—Property Copy/Delete from the eService menu.

With Property Copy/Delete, you can copy or delete any property or properties that you have permission to access. An exceptions report prints after the process completes, listing any issues that may have occurred.

Before using Property Copy/Delete, user permissions for the functions must be granted under System—Security—Users.

With property copy, you can copy a property to the same database or a different one as long as the source and destination databases are on the same server.

Copying to the Same vs. a Different Database

If you are copying to the same database, then the list of properties will appear and you will be given the opportunity to enter a new property ID for each one of them. If you are copying to a different database, then there may be a brief pause as the system does some internal mapping to figure out Employees, Inventory Locations, and Work Order Templates that already exist in the other database. When the tab appears, it will show the properties that you have selected to copy along with their new property IDs, it will default to the same ID, whereas when copying to the same database, they default to blank. This is done because you are likely to keep the same property ID when copying to another database, but you cannot keep the same property ID when copying to the same database. You will also get additional tabs for Employees, Inventory Locations, and Work Order Templates that already exist in the destination database.

About the Properties Tab

On the Properties tab, the word "Yes" appears in the Properties column if the property ID already exists in the database. This field automatically changes when you enter a different property ID. You cannot copy if there are duplicates, or if the ID is left blank, or if you try to give multiple properties the same ID. A warning box will indicate the problem when you press the Process button.

About Other Tabs

The Employee, Inventory Locations, and Work Order Template tabs also show duplicates. However, you can choose to use the same ID / Descriptions if you want to keep the one that is already in the destination database. Be aware that this may cause problems if both items are not truly the same. For instance, if you have an employee with the ID of JDOE whose full name is John Doe and there is already an employee named Jane Doe with the same ID of JDOE, if you elect to keep the same ID, then all of the work orders copied for John Doe will now be assigned to Jane Doe. A similar issue can also occur with the Inventory Locations and the Work Order Templates, wherever they are used. So if they are different, you should consider renaming the ID / Descriptions of the fields to prevent the re-mapping of the data.

Note

These tabs will not show up during the Property Copy process if the destination database does not have any Employees, Inventory Locations and/or Work Order Templates.

About Mapping

You can press Previous to go back to the prior form, if so you will lose any mapping already done. You will be given a warning dialog before proceeding. You can also cancel and return to the eService Dashboard.

The Copy Process

Specifically, the property copy process works this way:

Click Process, and the system will determine if there are any problems that must be resolved before copying. A message dialog box will show up to the first 15 problems, and then indicate that there are more, if applicable.
The property copy process will launch a separate browser window and show a status. Depending upon selections, there may be many steps required to copy all of the information. After closing the window, the property copy process will continue; if you select the Property Copy/Delete tab again, it will automatically re-launch the monitoring window to show current progress.
When the process is finished, the window will display a report showing any problems that may have occurred during the property copy process. A problem early-on may cascade and create more problems. For instance, if the system is unable to copy an employee because a duplicate employee was inserted at the exact same time, then all of the work order detail with that employee's ID on it will also not be copied. Any affected items will be identified on the report.
If the property copy process was unsuccessful, delete the copied properties, fix the errors, and then try again.

eSite Linked Properties

eSite-linked properties should be copied first but this is not required. However, to be able to view work orders related to specific residents of the unit, you must copy the eSite property to the same ID you used for eService. You will receive an error until you do.

Global Items Copied

There are multiple global items that will also be copied during a property copy that will not be deleted if you delete the property. These include the Work Order Types, Items, and Problems, as well as Work Order Templates, Employees, Equipment Types and Conditions, and Inventory Locations. The property copy process will copy the ones that are related in some way to the property. For example, it will copy an employee that doesn't exist in the other database that worked on a Work Order for a property being copied. It will also automatically associate that employee with that property. But when deleting a property, it will delete the association but it will leave the employee.

Property copy process will NOT copy the access rights for any users to that property. This allows you to make the duplicate property available to those users who should be given access without inadvertently giving access to others by default.