Searching the Help
To search for information in the Help, type a word or phrase in the Search box. When you enter a group of words, OR is inferred. You can use Boolean operators to refine your search.
Results returned are case insensitive. However, results ranking takes case into account and assigns higher scores to case matches. Therefore, a search for "cats" followed by a search for "Cats" would return the same number of Help topics, but the order in which the topics are listed would be different.
Words and Phrases
| Search for | Example | Results |
|---|---|---|
| A single word | cat
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Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats". |
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A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase. |
"cat food" (quotation marks) |
Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase. |
Using Boolean Operators
| Search for | Operator | Example |
|---|---|---|
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Two or more words in the same topic |
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| Either word in a topic |
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| Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase |
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| Topics that contain one string and do not contain another | ^ (caret) |
cat ^ mouse
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| A combination of search types | ( ) parentheses |
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Best practices for promoting customizations
The following items are vital in any environment for successful customization of an Service Manager system:
- The process has to be defined and consistently applied.
- All changes have to be done in one system, the development system, and must be thoroughly documented.
- A single unload should contain all records that were customized. In some environments, many developers work on developing customizations. In such environments, a central system should be used to load the individual changes, using revision tracking. That central system can then be used to create the unload.
- All changes must be tested in a central system, the test system, and issues found there must be repaired in the development system.
Have a well defined process
It is important that you have a well defined and documented process for proceeding from development through test into production. A well defined process will promote user satisfaction and prevent delays in the development cycle.
Document all changes
Micro Focus strongly recommends that you document each change made when you tailor the system, regardless of how the promotion will be done.
Part of the development process should include documenting all changes. Changes can be documented in an audit log that is stored outside of Service Manager, such as in an Excel® spreadsheet.
Another possibility is to use Service Manager Change Management for keeping track of all changes done during the development process.
Important: You must keep track of every change done to the development system, so that no change is lost when creating the patch unload.
Create a single unload
After the customizations are completed on the development system, create a single unload to apply to the test system.
Warning: If you create and apply multiple unloads, you increase the possibility that records can be overwritten or lost.
Use a development system
Make all changes in the development system. Making changes in the test system or directly to the production system will cause the systems to become out-of-sync and more difficult to maintain. Applying changes to a system that is out-of-sync with the system on which the changes were based will most likely result in broken functionality.
Use a test system
Use a test system to apply the previously-created unloads and test their functionality. If problems are found during these tests, they can be fixed in the development system where a new unload will be created. Repeat this cycle until the test is successful.
After testing is complete, you can apply the tested unload to the production system. Some companies require training before an unload is released to production. You can apply the tested unload to a training system first, and then to production. The benefit of having a single tested unload is that it can be applied to as many systems as necessary.
Related concepts
Environment configuration
Applying customizations to the production environment
Comparison of the tools to use for promoting customizations
Development auditing
Differential Upgrade utility
Unload script utility
Revision control
Related tasks
