Import/Handoff question

[jstarbird]

Vault 5.0.1.18707

This may seem like an odd question but is there someway to have a hybrid of these two methods?
Why I ask is that a Full Import ends up losing so many versions of our files and the Handoff only gives us the latest version and forward to utilize many features of Vault so a Hybrid would fit perfectly. So could I run a Full Import and then do a Handoff but still keep everything that was successfully imported during the Full Import??



Thanks,
J

[lbauer]

If a full import succeeded, you should have everything you need, so you wouldn't need Handoff.

A Handoff after a full VSS Import wouldn't update the repository -- if you did a Handoff, a new directory would be created for the latest version of files.

You could do an import to one repository, to have history handy, and use Handoff for a different repository for a fresh start.

Or, you could try to import the most important VSS projects/databases, then use Handoff for VSS projects/databases where history is less important.

Importing a VSS database can take quite a lot of time, and the SourceSafe Automation Component which we use to communicate with the databaes is sensitive to minor VSS database corruption, so there are often errors in a VSS full import.

[jstarbird]

Linda,
after a full import I don't have everything which is why I asked about this. I tested importing our biggest single project and afterwords ended up with over 12000 failed to import versions on 194 files. I had a couple of files that lost over 800 versions each. While I didn't go through each of the 194 the ones I did look at I was able to see the versions in VSS that the import said it could not import. I do end up with all my files with their latest versions but that isn't enough unfortunately.
We want to get rid of VSS but we need our history. This is coming from our developers who say the regularly go back to extremely old versions of files at times to research a change.

We'll most likely go the route of the Handoff, it's just painful to lose the new added features of Vault that you cannot use with the VSS history and having to continue supporting the VSS server side.

Thanks,
J

[lbauer]

Yes, for some customers, the full import does not work because of VSS limitations. That why we created the Handoff, so that at least you could easily make a transition to Vault while keeping VSS for historic code.

One thing you could do, if you are often using particular VSS versions or labels, would be to Get that version/label, and add it to Vault as a new folder so it's readily available.