Importing content from a staging server

In a staged development environment, you use a separate staging iMIS application server to develop and test new RiSE websites, content, and navigation before putting these additions and changes on your production iMIS application server. A staging server must use a different iMIS database than your production server.

To prepare the staging server for first use, after iMIS is installed and properly working with a copy of your production iMIS database, you must export all of your RiSE definition objects from your production server and import them into the staging server. After this point, all new development for your RiSE environment should be performed only on your staging server. After testing your changes, you export the new or changed definition objects from the staging server, then import them into your production server. The objects that you will be exporting and importing are: websites (and subfolders in the website tree that contain websites), navigation items, content folders, content records, content layouts, content types, tags, and tagged list formats.

Note: One special requirement for working with a staged development environment is that your tag hierarchy must always be identical on both servers before you begin exporting and importing other objects. Therefore, any changes you make to the tag hierarchy itself must always be exported and imported first, before any other objects. This requirement means that when you are preparing your staging server for first use, you must import the tag hierarchy from your production server first, before importing everything else.