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Filtering dependencies

The advantage of transferring dependencies is that the transfer of all items necessary to keep the transfer consistent is automatically ensured. But there are also disadvantages that may cause you to want to filter some or all of these dependencies.

The transfer of dependencies has a number of disadvantages:
  • Content items may be transferred to the destination Content Manager that you do not want to transfer.
  • The transfer of one item may take a long time because of the dependencies that need to be transferred as well.
  • It may be impossible for a non-administrator user to transfer a certain content item because the item has a dependency that this user has no permission to access.

For these reasons, you can filter dependencies—that is, explicitly ensure that certain types of items on which an item depends are not transferred. You should only do this if you know that the dependencies are already present on the destination Content Manager instance, and have not changed on the source instance since they were last transferred. For example, you can choose to transfer a Component on its own if you know that the Schema on which it depends is on the destination Content Manager.

Although filtering dependencies speeds up the transfer process, it can more easily result in an unsuccessful transfer of items. Therefore, use caution when you use dependency filters.

When filtering dependencies, you also run the risk of performing a transfer without incident, but without getting the result you wanted. This is the case if you filter out optional dependencies. For example, say that you migrate a Folder, but filter out its linked Schema. Now suppose that the destination Content Manager containing an older version of the same linked Schema. After transfer, the Folder will have been updated, but it will now have a different (older) linked Schema.

If you explicitly select an item for export, it will always be exported, regardless of dependency filter settings. For example, suppose you exclude Component Templates as dependencies, and you subsequently explicitly select both a Component that requires this Component Template, and that Component Template itself. Because you explicitly selected the Component Template, it will still be exported.