Deleting Definitions
Occasionally you may create definitions in your development environment that you discover you no longer need.
For example, I recently created a URL definition through:
You can put a URL definition into an application designer project using:
But you can't modify it directly through application designer. If you go back to where you create URL definitions you'll find there isn't a way to delete a URL once it has been created (that I know about). I want to remove the URL since it is no longer necessary and I don't want to leave it in my development environment as it may cause confusion. So what do you do?
Well, you can be brave and attempt to work out which PeopleTools table(s) the definition lives in and then delete it from the appropriate table(s). Sure, that will work, but are you sure you deleted from all the relevant tables and that it won't cause other issues?
A better approach is to use the delete flag to export the project to a file, then to re-import the project from file and delete the definition.
Here is how you do this:
Create a project and find the relevant definitions. In the upgrade tab change the action to delete for each definition you want to delete and ensure that the upgrade flag is ticked.
Copy (export) your project to file using:
Next copy (import) your project file back to your database using:
Find your exported project and press select. In the dialog presented, make sure you use the project definition from the database. Why? Because if you use the project definition from the file you may accidentally replace your project definition with an incomplete version (based on what you exported in the first place).
When you choose the definition types to copy, just select the one want to delete in e.g. URL definitions. This is precaution to ensure you don't overwrite/delete anything else. Press Copy.
Check that the definition has been deleted by either checking in PeopleSoft or by using:
Hopefully it is gone (and nothing else that you didn't expect).
One of the real benefits of this approach is that it tracks what was deleted in the appropriate PeopleTools delete record (if there is one). For example, deleted URLs are stored in the record PSURLDEL with the version of the definition that was deleted.
It also ensures that version numbers are maintained so you don't run into issues with your PeopleTools version numbers. Much safer and easier than trying to find and delete the definition from the PeopleTools tables.
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