Customizing › Schema Customization › Schema Designer Tasks › Publish Schema Modifications

Publish Schema Modifications

After you are satisfied with your schema modifications, you can make them available to all users by publishing them. Publishing modified schema is a two step process:

1. Create or update files describing the modified schema to the Object Engine and to CA Service Desk Manager utility programs. The Web Screen Painter creates the following files on the web engine designated by the wsp_webengine option (which defaults to web:local):

   wsp.mods

   Describes all Web Screen Painter-maintained schema changes to the Object Engine.

   wsp_schema.sch

   Describes all Web Screen Painter-maintained tables and columns.

   wsp_index.sch

   Describes DBMS indexes for Web Screen Painter-maintained tables.

   wsp.altercol

   Names new columns created by the Web Screen Painter but not yet defined to the DBMS.

   wsp.altertbl

   Names new tables created by the Web Screen Painter but not yet defined to the DBMS. In addition, the Web Screen Painter distributes the wsp.mods file to all CA Service Desk Manager servers with an Object Engine.

2. Modify the physical DBMS to contain information about the new schema. This step requires bringing down CA Service Desk Manager services and running the pdm_publish script on the primary server.

Important! Step 2 has a significant impact on other users, so you should carefully plan publishing schema changes. We recommend you use CA Service Desk Manager Change Orders to schedule and obtain approval for your planned schema publication.

To begin schema publication, select Save, and Publish from the File menu. This creates the necessary files on CA Service Desk Manager servers, but does not recycle any of them. Thus, the new files have no immediate impact. However, after the files are created, they will be used the next time CA Service Desk Manager services are recycled. Therefore, you should shut down services and run the pdm_publish script on the primary server at your earliest convenience after publishing schema modifications.

After you have completed schema publication with the Web Screen Painter, you cannot make any further changes with the Schema Designer until you have run the pdm_publish script. To run pdm_publish, shut down CA Service Desk Manager services and enter the pdm_publish command at a command prompt.

The pdm_publish command does the following:

• Verifies that there are Web Screen Painter-produced schema modifications to publish by checking for the existence of the required files in the site mods directory.
• Verifies that you have shut down CA Service Desk Manager services.
• Merges all schema files - Web Screen Painter maintained and non-Web Screen Painter maintained - into a single master schema file called ddict.sch.
• Sends the appropriate SQL commands to the DBMS to define the new tables and columns.
• Writes a line to a log file, wsp_schema.log, after each successful DBMS definition of a table or column. In addition to documenting your schema modifications, the log file also serves as a directory to the pdm_publish command itself to allow it to determine which Web Screen Painter-created tables and columns have already been defined to the DBMS. Therefore, you must not move or modify this file.
• Builds the CA Service Desk Manager data dictionary.

These steps normally take only about a minute. After they are complete, you can restart CA Service Desk Manager services and begin using your modified schema. If you have created or modified web forms to use the new schema, you should start the Web Screen Painter and publish your new web forms.