Important Considerations

Familiarize yourself with the following items so that you are aware of their implications.

K2 Designer Security

For workflows designed in K2 Designer, the deploying user subsequently becomes the owner of that process, and will need to enable sharing prior to other users being able to view or edit the process.

K2 smartforms

Environment Fields are cached for K2 smartforms, so wait for the cache to refresh, or manually perform an IIS reset for the fields to apply after a deployment.

If a package contains a custom theme, that theme must exist on the target environment before the package is deployed. If the custom theme does not exist on the target, the View or Form that uses the theme will display a missing reference, and the developer must then rebind the View or Form to an existing theme on the target environment.

Service Instances

When packaging and deploying Oracle, SQL Server, CRM or SharePoint Service Instances, the associated Oracle databases/SQL Databases/Entities/lists and libraries must

1. exist on the target environment, and
2. have the same schema

before attempting to deploy the package.

When using K2 Package and Deployment with SalesForce Service Instances, an associated SalesForce Service Instance must exist on the target environment. You must rebind your packaged Service Instance to the existing Service Instance on the target once the package has been deployed.

When using the PowerShell snapin command to deploy Service Instances and Environment Fields, the generated XML configuration file properties will always default to "UseExisting" and must manually be changed to "Deploy" or "Default".

Custom Service Brokers

When using a custom Service Broker, the broker must be registered on the target environment, using a tool such as BrokerManagement.exe or the SmartObject Service Tester utility.

Security

All packaging and deployment actions take place using the K2 Server Service account. However, all calls to the target server are validated using the users credentials. The user running the deployment tool requires 'Export' rights on the target server. If SmartObject security has been set, then the deployment user requires 'Publish SmartObject' permissions as well. After being granted deployment rights, the user will be able to deploy any packaged artifact to the target server.

SmartObjectData

SmartObjectData allows the packaging of SmartBox data for the given SmartObject within the source K2 environment. Note that this functionality is only available to SmartBox SmartObject data: SmartObject data derived from other sources cannot be packaged at this time.

SmartObjectData is deselected by default so that SmartObject data from one environment is not automatically deployed to a new environment. This is the default behavior in order to prevent deployment packages from becoming oversized (due to the potentially large amount of data stored within a SmartObject). If the data contained within a SmartObject must be packaged, the relevant SmartObject node must be opened and the required SmartObject Data must be manually selected. For further information on this subject, please refer to the Creating a Package topic.

SmartObjectData can only be deployed as part of the parent SmartObject artifact. If a SmartObject definition has already been deployed to the target environment, you will need to configure the deployment action to either overwrite the existing SmartObject definition, or use the existing definition.

Smartbox SmartObjects that do not have the general Create, Read Update, and Delete (CRUD) methods, cannot be packaged with data. All CRUD methods must exist in order for SmartObject data to be packaged. The Data tab in the K2 Package and Deployment Create dialogue page will be blank for SmartObjects that do not have all CRUD methods. Smartbox SmartObjects must also contain at least one unique property, for example, a unique ID key field.

Multiple K2 Servers

If multiple servers are added to the K2 Package and Deployment console, ensure that all the servers are running the same version of K2.

Beta Versions of K2 Package and Deployment

Packages that were created using Beta versions of K2 Package and Deployment are not compatible with this version of Package and Deployment. Those packages must be re-created.