Note: This feature is currently in beta, please contact a Benchling representative to opt-in to using this feature while it is in beta. See this article for more about what it means when a release is in beta.
Introduction
Before this release, admins could only compare tenant configurations that were supported in Configuration migration. Now, admins can compare a broader collection of tenant configurations and produce a human-readable Excel sheet that lists out the differences.
This experience has historically been particularly painful because there has not been a systematic way to understand how tenant configurations diverge. It is important to know this information to be sure that config migration has been performed correctly or just to understand how tenant configurations have changed overtime.
How to use tenant comparison
If you'd like to compare Tenant A and Tenant B, you'll want to access the tool from one of the tenants, in this example you'd start in Tenant A and follow the steps below:
- Navigate to the tool by clicking Feature settings then Tools then Tenant comparison
- Export the tenant configuration by clicking the Export package button to download a file containing tenant configuration
- In Tenant B, navigate to the Tenant comparison menu (Feature settings to Tools)
- Upload your exported configuration from Tenant A to Tenant B for comparison in the Upload configuration package area
- Generate the comparison report by clicking Generate Report, which will download an Excel file locally
- Open the downloaded Excel file and review
How to read the tenant comparison report
The downloaded report is named tenant_date_TENANT-COMPARISON-REPORT, and information in the report is organized into tabs, as in the image below.
The following sections describe what information each tab contains:
Cover
Lists the two tenants involved in the comparison, the time of report generation, and user who generated the report.
Summary
Gives a top level view of the file contents. See below for term definitions:
- Type = type of object being compared
- Tenant total = total number of that object in each tenant
- Mapped = number of this object type that has been mapped between tenants (and therefore the number of objects that can be compared/diffed)
- Unmapped = number of this object type for which no mapping could be found (and therefore the number of objects that will not be compared/diffed)
- Identical = number of this object type that were mapped, compared and found to be identical
- Different = number of this object type that were mapped, compared and found to be different
Object
There is a tab for each type of object that is in the tenants being compared. For example, you'll see a tab for Dropdowns, Locations, Registry objects, etc. The columns listed below are populated in each object tab in order from left to right:
- Field = field being compared per row
- Identical = whether the object/attribute in this row is identical to its mapped object/attribute
-
N = differences were found
-
Y = no differences were found
-
- Tenant URL (Source) = value for this object/attribute in the source tenant
- Tenant URL (Target) = value for this object/attribute in the target tenant
- Diffs = the difference found for this object/attribute
Within the report for each object, the items reporting diffs are sorted at the top of each page, followed by items that are identical. Orange shading is used to visually indicate differences:
- Dark orange shading indicates top level objects (eg. dropdowns) that are different
- Light orange shading indicates child objects (eg. dropdown options) that are different
- White shading indicates identical matches
The numbers listed in the 2nd column of each object tab are indices which indicate order. In the example above, 0 under options means the option for this dropdown at the 0th position (ie the first option for the dropdown).
Caveats and limitations
While the tool is in beta, object coverage is limited. The tenant configurations that are in scope during the beta include:
- Storables (Box, Box schema, Location, Location schema)
- Printing (Label template, Printer)
- Schemas (Result schema, Entry schema, Dropdown, Entity schema)
- Tenant settings (Registry, Unit, Unit type)
- MolBio settings (Feature library, Monomer)
- Templates (Entry template, Template collection)
- Groups (User, Team, Organization)
- Projects (Folder, Project)
- Permissions (Policy)
- Apps (Legacy app installation, App installation)
FAQs
What is being compared?
The attributes listed in the Excel report are the only attributes compared for a given object. If a given field is not listed in the report, it is not being compared. Configurations must be mapped before they can be compared. If an object on one tenant isn't mapped to a corresponding object on the other tenant, it won't be included in the comparison.
What tenants does this work between?
Tenants must be on the same code release version for this feature, this means that the tenant comparison report cannot be run between continuous release tenants and Validated Cloud tenants.
While in beta, the tenant comparison report only works on tenants with one organization, this gap will be closed before GA.
Who will have access to the tool?
Once enabled on a tenant, all tenant admins will have access to the tenant comparison report tool.