Tips & Tricks - Synchronizing User Schemas Between Two Portals

This article shows how multiple instances of the same portal (e.g., development, test, and production portals) can be kept at the same configuration level when using an extended schema. When new attributes are created for user objects, they should exist in all portals with identical GUIDs, names, and database field names. To do this, the entire user schema can be exported and imported into the target portals.

If an application (e.g., from a development portal) is exported that contains links to user-defined attributes, any missing attributes will be highlighted when the application is imported into the target portal (e.g., a test portal), or you have the option to map those attributes to attributes in the target portal. However, with this approach, the GUIDs of the attributes differ from one another.

To avoid this, the entire schema can be exported from the source portal (e.g., the development portal) in the "Users" module via the "Schema" menu in the Schema Manager. The schema is saved as an XML file for all object classes in the portal and can be imported into the target portal (e.g., the test portal) using the same method. Schema synchronization should be performed consistently after every change across all relevant portals, ideally starting from the development system, then moving to the test system, and finally to the production system. After the synchronization, the basic requirements for application imports are the same. This allows the import to be carried out smoothly in the destination portal.