Exporting and Importing a Project as a Project Template

This topic describes how to export and import a project as a template using the Project Import and Export Codebeamer feature.

Exporting a Project as a Project Template

Prerequisites:

• The user performing the export must have the Project - Admin permission at the project level. Typically, a user with Project Admin project role performs this operation. For more information, see Administering Projects.

To export a project as a project template, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the project to export, and then click Admin > Settings:
   
2. Click Export > Project as Template:
   
3. In the window, select the artifacts to include in the export file:
   
   For details, refer to the following list:
   • Wiki Pages—Exports the wiki pages and the dashboards from the Wiki tab of the project.
   • Reports—Exports the public reports and traceability reports of the project from the Reports tab.
   • Work Items—Exports all items from the trackers selected in the Trackers checkbox.
   • Trackers—Exports the trackers and the tracker configurations of the project, including tracker views and the shared fields used in the trackers.
     • To export all the trackers, leave this checkbox selected.
     • To export specific trackers, clear this checkbox, and then select the trackers using the Select options list.
       Caution: Codebeamer exports only the trackers where the user has the Item - Export permission at the tracker level.
   • Encryption—You can set a password to securely encrypt the exported file. If you set a password, users must enter it to import the project.
4. Click OK. Codebeamer exports the project template in ZIP format.

Importing a Project Template

Prerequisites:

• The user performing the import must have the Create Project permission at the user group level. For more information, see Managing Users and User Groups.

To import a project template, follow these steps:

1. Click the Projects tab.
2. From the Projects context menu, click > New Project.
   Alternatively, click in the toolbar of the project browser.
3. Click Attach a file, and then select the ZIP file of the project exported as a project template.
4. Click Next and provide the following:
   • Name—(Required) Enter a name for the project.
   • Key—Enter an identifier key for the project.
   • Include all Work Items and Documents and Include Wiki pages—We recommend enabling these options.
5. Click Finish to start the project import. The duration of the import depends on the size of the data, and it may take extended time.

The import process may stop because of the Codebeamer default settings for file size and file types. To change these settings, refer to the following points:

- File size—Modify the "uploadFileSizeLimit" in the "interactive" application configuration. For details, see "interactive".
- File type—Modify the "uploads" application configuration. For details, see "uploads".

List of General Restrictions

Importing or exporting a project has the following restrictions:

• Importing projects from templates created with higher codebeamer versions is not supported.
• Only the head revisions of project artifacts and work or configuration items are exported, including comments, attachments, permissions, and associations, but without history.
• Project members are exported, but because users and user groups are not part of the project, they can only be re-imported if users and groups with the same names already exist in the target system upon import.
• Tracker configurations are exported completely, but the tracker inheritance information gets lost, if the template tracker is not part of the project to export.
• References (interwiki links in wiki texts, associations, reference fields) to entities outside the current project are exported, but they can only be imported, if entities with the same name at the same location already exist in the target system upon import. However, reused step references are not included in a cross-project import or export. Absolute URLs or wiki plugin parameters that refer to exported entities might get broken after a re-import.
• TestRun tracker configurations are exported, but TestRuns are not.
• Baselines are not exported, because they refer to historical information.
• Source-code related-data (such as repositories, commits, pull-requests) are not exported.
• Upon import, all imported entities will get new ids and a revision of 1. The owner or submitter of all imported entities is the user that executed the import. The creation or submission date of all entities is the date of the import.
• Caution: During the export or import, all entities to exported or imported, including comments and attachments, are loaded into memory. If there are lots of entities, or if the attachments are large, users might need several GB of free memory, or the export or import fails with an OutOfMemoryException.
• Since codebeamer 21.09 (EMMA), project import does not support applying configurations that were exported from versions earlier than codebeamer 21.09. However, it can be bypassed with an application configuration. For more information, see "projectImport".

Reference Handling Restrictions

Codebeamer users can create reference fields in tracker configurations. The type of the reference can be project, tracker, work item. For example, a user can create a work item field where trackers can be set in field reference filters. User can download this reference list during the import process:

This is a CSV file and it can be downloaded by clicking the here link. It can be opened in Microsoft Excel but users should import it because of the UTF-8 encoding.

Cross Reference CSV File

The CSV file contains three tables. Example of this file:

Cross Reference Table

The cross reference table contains the references to other project artifacts. It has the following columns:

• Reference: the reference to another project artifact.
• Type: the reference type (project, tracker, work item).
• Project: project of reference or empty if it is a project.
• Tracker: tracker of reference or empty if it is a tracker.
• Mapped target: the mapped target reference if it is found or unresolved.
• Path: where we found the refence in the tracker configuration.

Item Table

The item table contains work items that have invalid references to missing artifacts. This means that the artifact is not used in the tracker configuration and it is not in the first cross reference table. The item table has the following columns:

• Reference: the reference to another project artifact.
• Type: the reference type (project, tracker, work item).
• Project: project of reference or empty if it is a project.
• Tracker: tracker of reference or empty if it is a tracker.
• Path: the item where we found the invalid reference.

Field Table

The field table contains fields that have a special computed formula. The formula contains a special function, such as hasSuspectedLink, hasReferringReview, hasUpstreamSuspectedLink. The field table has the following columns:

• Field: the tracker filed where the function is found.
• Function: the special function.