New packages

The New Package wizard is used to create a new package, detailing its name, description and contents. The aim of the wizard is not to produce a release or an exported file, but to create the list of components which should be used in releases / files when a release is generated from the package.

It can be initiated using the New Package task in the task list displayed within Release Manager or by pressing the New Package button in the Package Overview.

Stages

The stages involved in creating a package are the following:

• Name –Set the name of the package
• Description –Set the description of the package
• Contents –Set the contents of the package

Name

The prospective name of the package is entered here. The name must be unique amongst the packages.

The name of the package is mandatory – it must be at least one character, and can contain up to a maximum of 255 characters

Description

A description of the package can be entered here – it is purely documentary, and is displayed in the Package Details panel when the package is selected.

It is not mandatory and has no practical length restrictions.

Contents

This is where the components which make up the package are determined. It is split into two panes – the left pane shows all the components in the database and the right pane displays the contents of the package.

Components can be added to the package by locating them in the left pane, and dragging them to the right pane.

Components can be removed from a package by doing the converse – by dragging their entries from the right pane back into the left pane.

Multiple components of the same type can be selected in either pane and dragged to the other pane.

Components are removed from the pane that they are dragged from. For example, if a process P1 is dragged from the environment to the package, it is removed from the environment pane and added to the package pane.

If a process is dragged from a group in the environment into the package, the group is implicitly added to the package too.

If a schedule is added to the package, any dependencies are determined and added at release creation time. For example, if it requires the presence of a specific calendar, that calendar is determined and included at release time, not at package creation time.

Completion

After pressing Next on the contents stage, the wizard creates the package on the database. Once this is done, the wizard can be closed.

If any error occurs, a message is displayed and the user can elect to return to a previous stage, change an aspect of the package and try again.