Chapter 8. Repository management

Once you have RationalPlan Project Server up and running you can upload your projects in two ways:

  1. If you already have an older RationalPlan Multi Project .xrp file containing all your projects you can upload it through the use of the web based interface. This make an easier migration to Project Server for those clients that were using files before. Note that Single Project files can not be loaded.

  2. If you have multiple project files either as RationalPlan Single Project .xrp files or as Microsoft Project files (.mpp, .mpt, .xml, .mpx) you can import them into a new RationalPlan Multi Project instance, save them as an .xrp file and then import this file as mentioned at point 1 above from browser.

    Another solution is to connect to the server with RationalPlan Multi Project, then import each of the projects and then save to the server directly without the need to upload anything from browser.

Besides the list of projects, resources, clients, etc. RationalPlan Project Server also uses a versioning mechanism that allows administrators to keep track of all the changes that were made to the server data. More exactly this means that the server keeps a list of repository versions where each version has associated a version number, the user that made the change, the date at which that change was made and a short comment that describes what was changed in that version.

This list of versions is very useful in tracking which user did what and also to always have a point at which to revert in case something goes wrong. Hence it can be used as a time tracking mechanism and as a backup data.

Every operation that is made over the repository is backed up. This means that even if the user makes a mistake one way or another it can safely go back to the previous version to recover all data. You can however delete the entire history if you want but please be aware that in this case all the backup versions will be removed forever.

Another useful function might be the reset of the repository. This will remove all projects, resources, working calendars and clients from the latest version of the repository. These will not be completely removed from the server but rather saved as an older version.