Copying Objects

Depending on the catalog customization, the following copy actions may be available in the right-click context menu of a Valuemation catalog.

Copy

• Action 'Copy' opens a copy of the object (for which the action has been called) in the object creation editor (e.g. 'New: System', 'New Person' etc.).
  • A new business key is automatically generated
  • Validity interval is set from the date of the copy action to the default end date
  • From all object relations, only aggregations are copied. Associations do not get copied and corresponding reference catalogs in the new object are empty.

  Modify the copy as needed and save the object.

• Multiselection is not supported, only one object at a time can be copied in this way.
• In some cases, a special copy action wizard may open instead of the 'New:...' editor. For example, calling the copy action on a Plan object (Planning / Calculation Manager) opens an 'Edit: Copy Plan' window in which copying of plan items, distribution network, superior links and subordinated plans can be specified before the copy is created.

• A confirmation dialog 'Deep copy is complete' displays after a successful copy action. The expression 'Deep copy' in the message hints at the fact that the object has been copied together with its aggregations.

Copy To Clipboard

• Action 'Copy to Clipboard' copies one or more objects to the internal Valuemation clipboard and - under certain circumstances - also to the system clipboard. The action behaves slightly differently in the Rich and Web client.

  The action behaviour depends on Valuemation mainparameter 'admin.setting'/'show_clipboard_after_copy'. See points below for more information. Note: if the mainparameter does not exist, it needs to be created using action 'Create object' in the 'Mainparameters' catalog.

• 'Copy to Clipboard' in the Rich and Web client:
  • Rich client:

    When 'show_clipboard_after_copy' is set to False, the selected object(s) get copied only to the application internal clipboard (for copy/paste operations inside Valuemation).

    When 'show_clipboard_after_copy' is set to True, the object(s) get copied to the internal clipboard and also to the system clipboard (for copy/paste operations outside Valuemation, e.g. to MS Excel, see the 'CSV representation' paragraph below.

  • Web client:

    When 'show_clipboard_after_copy' is set to False, the selected object(s) get copied only to the application internal clipboard (same as for the Rich client)

    When 'show_clipboard_after_copy' is set to True, the object(s) get copied to the internal clipboard and a text editor window with the copied content in CSV representation gets opened. From this window the CSV representation can be copied as text into the system clipboard and pasted outside the application.

• The related actions ('Copy to Clipboard', 'Cut' and 'Paste') are in standard Valuemation available in the catalogs of some object types, for instance 'Plan Items'. To other catalogs they can be added by catalog customization.
• Action 'Copy to Clipboard' offers the following advantages:
  • Action support multiselection - multiple objects can be copied simultaneously.
  • Action can be used for copying in referenced catalogs with references to the parent object preserved.
  • Action can be used for pasting data to external applications.

Example Use Case

'Planning/Calculation Manager' in standard Valuemation makes use of 'Copy to Clipboard'. See topic 'Copy to Clipboard (Example)' in the 'Planning/Calculation Manager' help section.

Copy Filter

The 'Paste' action uses the default copy filter. If a special filter is needed, Valuemation workflow 'clipboard_paste' must be copied and the new copy filter specified in the 'clipboardPaste' node. When the 'Clipboard' set of actions is assigned to an M:N relation (which is not the case in Valuemation standard), the paste action behaves in the same way as in 1:N relations, i.e. duplicate objects can be created.