Components management

Your capabilities on that tab, depends on your profile

Profile	User possibilities
Component Developer	Upload new components and new versions of existing components which belongs to their company
Component Publisher	Allow a customer license to use a component
Component User	Activate, upgrade or remove a component from the license
none of the above	you can just see which components are enabled and which versions are added on your iTop

A component is also called an Extension, it's the same thing.

Component Developer

This profile allow you to upload new components or new versions on your components.
Limited to OEM customers and OEM partners.

New component

When uploading a new component, ensure that

you have packaged it in a zip,
that it includes a module.xxxx.php and an extension.xml files.
that it has a version
that its code does not start with combodo- nor itop- so it does not conflict with an existing or future component in the Designer

When uploading a new version of an existing component, on top of the above requirement, ensure that the extension version has increased and that at least one module of the extension has a module version increased.

A created component is automatically owned by the organization of the user who uploaded it

Extension provided by a Customer and uploaded by Combodo are usually moved under the ownership of that customer, so if he becomes OEM, he can manage them

Editing a component

Components which can be managed are limited to those belonging to the user organization

On one of your extensions, you can check which versions are used by customers, by clicking on the pen icon or the component name.

A version is used by a customer as soon as the current revision or a past revision is using it.
As customers can always clone a past revision, such used version cannot be deleted.
For performance reason, providing only the customers using a given component version in their current revision, was not implemented.

Deleting a version

If a version is not used at all, it will be totally deleted. That action cannot be reverted.

If the version is used by at least one customer, then the deletion consists in changing its status to obsolete. Provide a warning message for users using this version

An obsolete version, generates a warning icon targeted to Component User to highlight the fact that they should upgrade that component.
Deleted and obsolete versions are no more proposed in the Modify pop-up to Component User willing to upgrade a component, except if the current version is obsolete, in which case it is still displayed.

Component Publisher

User with this profile can

allow a customer to use a component
remove to a customer the right to use a component (can't be done if extension is in use)

The components which visibility can be enabled or disabled are limited to those belonging to the user organization (or any sub-organizations of the user organization).

Component User

User with this profile can

add components to its iTop, selecting the version they want

upgrade a component, by selecting another version

remove a component from its iTop

Removing a component can generate fatal issues on iTop in some corner cases.
If the component brings a class A under an existing abstract class (for eg. Trigger),
If there are still existing objects of class A in the database before the MTP,
Then, searching for object of the abstract class will fails,
Use DB maintenance tool to fix data inconsistencies

Filtering

The screenshot is made by a user having the 3 profiles: Component Publisher, Component Developer and Component User

Any users

All users having access to the ISTM Designer, can see (and filter) the list of components for their Designer license.

Enabled component versus deployed one
Deployed version versus latest version available

Corner cases

With an iTop product before 2.7.3 included, adding some extensions like IPAM for iTop or Project Management Extended to a license, can be leading to fatal error during the Move To Production. We have added a protection to the Designer, to prevent such cases.

With an iTop product above 2.7.4, no error message anymore as the iTop compiler is handling correctly the auto_select option with dependencies.

But if you upgrade your licence datamodel to 2.7.4+, then add such special extensions relying on auto_select option with dependencies, then connect again to the ITSM Designer with an iTop version older like a 2.7.3 and Change the reference datamodel, then the Move To Production and Move To test will stop with an error message:

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