What should I be aware of when exporting Permission Policies

Every permission policy has a unique ID. You can have 2 policies with the same name and the system works just fine.

The system checks 2 things during an import:

1. Does a policy with the same ID exist?

If there is an existing policy with the same ID, the system will replace it with the one you import. If there is not, a new one will be created with the exact same ID.

So the ID is not unique after all?

The ID is unique per project. This means that you can create a policy in a test project and export that to other real projects. To update the policy afterwards, all you need to do is update the one in the test project, and export it again to keep every policy in sync.

Be careful when importing policies. When a policy is replaced, the entire set of rules are replaced, not merged. So if you have made custom changes to a policy and import one with the same ID, your changes will be lost.

2. Are the details in the policy compatible with the project you are about to import to?

There are times when a policy may reference certain data that only exist in one project. For example, if you have a rule that allows users to see issues on the drawing "33/F", and you try to import that rule to a different project where there is no such drawing, the system will remove this condition from the rule and import the rest. This may not be what you expect and can result in a difference in permissions.

How to make sure details are kept during an import?

If you want policies to be transferrable, you should avoid referencing project specific details in the rules. A way to achieve that is to use tags instead of the actual data.

In the above example, instead of using drawing "33/F", we can tag the drawings with "Office levels", and reference that in the rule with drawing tags instead. In a different project, you may have a drawing "12/F" which is also tagged "Office levels". If you import the rule with the drawing tags, it will continue to function as expected.

In general, the amount of details kept is as follows:

1. Same company, same project

   All details are kept.

2. Same company, different project

   Project specific details are lost, but company specific details are kept. Things like standard issues and process templates are retained in an import.

3. Different company, different project

   Only tags are kept.