You can use InterAction to export Web Client profiles and searches. This creates files in a special format that can then be imported back into InterAction as a normal profile or search. This functionality is useful for several purposes:
- If you have a development/test environment, you can set up a profile or search for testing, then export it and import into your production system.
- If you are creating several similar profiles or searches, you can export one to use like a “template,” then import it as many times as needed.
- Before making extensive changes to an existing profile or search, you can export it as a backup. If you change your mind about your changes, you can easily see your original version.
Note that the file created by exporting profiles is not intended for any use other than importing the items back into InterAction. Editing the exported file outside of InterAction is not supported.
Location for Profile/Search Export and Import Files
When exporting profiles or searches, the files are saved to the Import_Export directory on your Application Server machine. In a typical installation of the Application Server, this is the following:
C:\Program Files\LexisNexis\InterAction\AppServer\iahome\Import_Export
When importing profiles or searches, InterAction looks in this same location. Therefore, if you are exporting from one server and moving to another, you must copy the exported file to the above location.
You cannot change this location for either exporting or importing.
The exported files are always named with the following extensions:
- IAP for profiles.
- IAS for searches.
Matching Folder and Field IDs
Web Client profiles and searches include several references to existing folders and additional fields in InterAction. These references are stored by ID. When you export a profile or a search and then import it back into InterAction, these ID values must match.
For example, assume you created an “Experts” search form that searches a folder called Experts and includes several additional fields from that folder. If you export this search from one InterAction database, the unique IDs for the folder and fields are included. You can only import the search into a database that has the same folder and fields with the same ID values. Any IDs that do not match generate errors. InterAction can still import and create the search form, but the specific criteria items with non-matching IDs are not included.
If you are using export/import with a development environment, you must ensure that the IDs are the same as your production environment. You can do this by creating your test environment using a backup of your production environment. Make sure you set up all the necessary folders and fields in the production environment before creating the backup.
Do NOT run both a production and test/development Application Server against the same production database!
Use Export/Import as a Shortcut When Building Profiles or Searches
You can export Web Client profiles and searches to use as templates when creating new items. This can save time, especially when setting up several similar profiles.
For example, suppose you want a separate “Client” profile for each practice group in your organization – Environmental Client, Banking Client, etc. These profiles all share some common fields, such as the financial fields and client number. They also have some differences.
To save time when setting up the profiles and corresponding searches, you could do the following:
- Create a single “Client” profile and include all of the common fields.
- Export the profile to a file called “Client Profile Template” (for details, see Export a Web Client Profile).
- Import the profile (for details, see Import a Web Client Profile). Since the imported profile has the same name as an existing one, the newly imported version will be named “Client (Duplicate - Date Time)”.
- Edit the Client (Duplicate...) profile and customize it with the practice group-specific changes.
- Change the name to the specific type of client ("Banking Client").
- Change the security to limit the profile to people in the specific practice group.
- Add any group-specific additional fields.
- Save the updated profile.
- Repeat steps 3-4 for each similar profile you want to create.
You can use same basic steps to create a series of similar searches.