Structure of Retain XML

The following screenshot gives you an idea about the structure of the Retain.xml file.

The following tags and their description govern the structure of the Retain.xml file. 

<Retain>

This is the root tag that specifies the operation. No need to change anything within this tag.

<service>

This is the tag to be defined under <retain> tag. You need to define the type of activities (services) of the target environment that you want to retain during deployment of objects. This tag has the following properties: retainNewActivitiestable, and field

retainNewActivites

This property contains the Boolean value - true or false. If the value of this property is true, new activities from the source environment will not be migrated to the target environment. If the value is false, new activities will be migrated to the target environment. If you don't specify this property then it will be treated as true.

table

This property contains the name of the table to restrict data while importing data at the target environment. 

field

This property contains the name of the field of the specified service table whose values you want to retain or override. You can retain or override the value of a specific or a set of fields in an activity by setting the value of the attribute retain to "yes" or "no". Based on the value set, the remaining fields' value will be either retained (in case of “no”) or overridden (in case of "yes”). By default, the value of the retain attribute is "yes".

You can set the value of this this attribute from the GUI (Generate Retain List screen) while doing the migration activity. Follow the steps below to either retain or override a field once you are on the GUI.

  1. Click [+] to expand the service whose fields you want to retain or override. 
  2. Select the check box of the fields that you want to retain or override.

  3. Right-click on the service name and select Select retain value.
  4. Select Yes or No based on what you want to do.