Use the Repository Manager to copy multiple objects from one repository to another. You can complete the following copy operations:

If you want to archive or share metadata or deploy metadata into production, you can use copy folder to copy an entire folder. If you want to update the metadata in a folder in production, you can replace the folder.

For example, you have a folder called Sales in the development repository. When it is ready for production, you copy the Sales folder into the production repository. After a week in production, you want to make minor changes. You edit the Sales folder in the development repository and test the changes. When the folder is ready for production, you can either copy the folder into the production repository, resulting in two copies of the folder in production, or you can replace the existing Sales folder with the new one. When you replace the folder, you can update the production repository without creating multiple copies of the folder.

If the repository is enabled for versioning, you can also copy the objects in a deployment group from one repository to another. When you copy a deployment group, you can copy objects in a single copy operation from multiple folders in the source repository into multiple folders in the target repository. You can also specify individual objects to copy, rather than the entire contents of a folder.

You can also use different copy operations together. You might use copy folder and copy deployment group together in the repository environment at different stages of the development process.

For example, you have development and production repositories. When you complete initial development for the metadata in a new folder and you are ready to deploy the objects into production, you copy the folder and all of its objects into the production repository.

As development continues, you make changes to a session in the folder. You do not need to copy all of the metadata in the folder to production, so you add the session to a deployment group. When you copy the deployment group, the Copy Deployment Group Wizard creates a new version of the session in the target folder.