• Backing up data
  • General procedure
  • Selecting the data to be backed up
    • Users
    • User profiles
    • Roles
    • Authorisation groups
    • System Files
    • Libraries
    • Translation files
    • Data sources
    • Other
  • Options
• Restoring data
  • Restoring data from an archive
  • Restoring an automatic backup
  • Status of backup items
  • Restoring data models and dependent models
• Migrating database connections and file servers

Backing up data

Data can be backed up manually from the DigDash Configuration module.
Select the items you wish to back up and then generate the backup in the form of a zip file, which you can then use to restore them to the new environment or version.

General procedure

To back up data :

1. From the home page, go to Configuration then Backups Management
2. Click on Backup.
3. In the login box, enter the user's name and password.
   ➡ The Backup page appears.
   The menu on the left allows you to navigate through the different types of items. The list of items corresponding to the selected type is displayed in the central area.
   
4. Select the data to be backed up: see Selecting the data to save below for a detailed description of the items.
5. Click the Download button.
   ➡ The Options window appears.
6. Select the options you want: see the paragraph Options below for more details.
7. Finally, click Download to obtain the backup file (.zip file).

Selecting the data to be backed up

You can choose to select all the data directly by clicking on the Select button in the top left-hand corner, or you can select the items you want to back up in each section.

Users

This section lists the data relating to each user. In particular, it allows you to save the data models, flows and tables for their personal role.
Here you can check the box in front of each user to select all the items corresponding to that user, or select the items one by one.
Similarly, you can check the box in front of an item (for example, Wallets) to select that item for all users.
It is also possible to select all the data in the section by clicking on the Select all results button.

User profiles

This section lists the user profiles. See the paragraph Managing user profiles to find out more about user profiles.

Roles

This section lists the data relating to each role. The user can only see the user assigned to him.
Items are selected in the same way as for users.
It is, however, possible to make a more detailed selection for wallets, dashboards and data models. For these, a counter in brackets indicates the number of items selected / the number of items available. Click on this counter to access the detailed list of items. For example, for a wallet, you can select the Flows one by one.

Authorisation groups

This section lists the definition of authorization groups provided by DigDash or added by the user. Authorisation groups are only stored in LDAP.

System Files

This section lists the system files common to all users and roles ( appdata>/Enterprise Server/ddenterpriseapi/config directory).

Libraries

This section lists the libraries for all the users and roles linked to the various managers. These files may or may not be present depending on the parameters used by the Flows or data models ( appdata>/Enterprise Server/ddenterpriseapi/config directory).
A counter in brackets indicates the number of items selected / the number of items available for each dictionary. You can click on this counter to access the detailed list of elements and select them one by one. You can also view which elements are assigned to a role and which one.

Translation files

This section lists the translation dictionaries containing messages in different languages ( appdata>/Enterprise Server/ddenterpriseapi/config directory).
Each of the following translation files may be accompanied by a file corresponding to the chosen language. For example, the files dm.properties, dm_fr.properties, dm_es.properties are translations of messages corresponding to the English (default), French and Spanish languages.

Data sources

This section lists the data sources contained in the Common Datasources file server.

Other

This section lists other files related to dashboard configuration.

Options

Restoring data

Restoring data from an archive

To restore data from an archive file :

1. From the home page, go to Configuration then Backup Management.
2. Click Restore.
   ➡ The Restore page appears.
3. Click Browse to select the zip file corresponding to the backup you wish to restore.
   
   
   ➡ The Restore page displays the data contained in the backup. They are all selected by default.
   The name of the file and the restore mode (incremental or not) are indicated at the bottom left.
   
4. You can modify the items selected in the same way as for the backup.
   • In the Roles section, an asterisk is added to the counters for wallets, dashboards and data models if the restore is incremental (similarly, in the Libraries section): existing items in the restore environment will be supplemented rather than overwritten by items from the backup.
   • When you click on a counter to display the details of the items, you can see their status in comparison with the items already present in your environment: new, identical, older, etc. See paragraph Status of backup items for more details.
5. Click Restore at the top of the page.
   ➡ A message tells you that the data has been reloaded and prompts you to restart the server.
   In the case of restoring a data model whose structure has been modified, a message is displayed to suggest the automatic update of any dependent data models (Union, Join and Transformer). See the paragraph Restoring data models and dependent models for more details.

Restoring an automatic backup

An automatic backup of your environment is performed before an archive is restored or by the automatic maintenance service environment before files are cleaned. You can restore these backups:

1. On the Restore page, select a backup from the Choose a saved automatic backup drop-down list :
   • regular automatic backups performed by the maintenance service are marked (Automatic);
   • automatic backups performed before restoration are marked (Pre-restoration).
     

2. Click Load.
   ➡ The restore interface is then displayed in the same way as for restoring from an archive file. Proceed in the same way as above for the rest of the restore.

Status of backup items

As mentioned above, when you click on a counter to display the details of the items, you can view their status in comparison with the items already present in your environment.

Items can have the following statuses:

In the case of libraries, you can also view which items are assigned to a role and which.

Restoring data models and dependent models

When restoring data models with structural modifications (addition/removal of dimensions or measures, modification of column names, etc) compared with the current environment, it is possible to automatically update the dependent models (Union, Join or Transformer using the data model). For example, if you restore a data model in which a calculated measure has been added, a join using this model will automatically have this calculated measure available.

When you click on Restore, all the models dependent on the restored models - Union, Join or Transformer - are searched for.
A message listing the dependent models affected by modifications to the restored models is then displayed:

• Click OK to "propagate" the update from the restored models to the dependent models.
  For each model updated, a dependency calculation is performed so that all models are updated (if a transformer uses a model from a union, it will be updated automatically after the union).
  ➡ An information message indicates which models have been successfully updated

• Click Cancel if you want to update the data models manually later.

Migrating database connections and file servers

To make it easier to migrate these elements, you can change their identifiers so that they are identical between the development and production servers.

During the first migration between a development server and a production server :

1. Make a full backup of the development environment.
2. Restore the backup on the production environment.
3. Modify the connection strings to the databases and file servers on the production environment from, respectively, the Database Connection Manager and the File Server Manager in the Studio.

During the following migrations to production environments :

1. Make a selective backup of data: data models, wallets, modified or new dashboards, etc.

2. Restore the backup to the production environment.
3. If changes have been made to the connections or file servers in the development environment, transfer them manually to the production environment.

For new connections or document servers, transfer the identifier used to the development environment:

• To transfer the database connection ID, open Database connection manager in the Studio. Edit the connection you want to change, then click the Edit button to the right of the ID field to change the ID.
  
• To transfer the identifier of a document server, open File server manager in the Studio. Edit the file server you want to change, then click the Edit button to the right of the Identifier field to change the ID.