Publishing Models

Publication is the process by which a project's models are upserted into production tables.

During publication, models initially imported from production records merge back into those production records, whereas newly created models are inserted into their production tables. For more about importing records, see Importing Territory Models from CRM.

For example, a user imported Territory 101 into Territory Model 101, renamed it Boston 101, and assigned two brand new rules. The Publication process renamed the territory__aln record for Territory 101 into Boston 101 and inserted the two new rules into the account_rule__aln object.

Use

To publish a model: 

  1. Select the Publish option from a modeling project's gear menu. Users are notified of the number of records about to be published.

    Only projects in the Approved lifecycle state can be published.

  2. Select Continue.

Publication cannot be stopped or reversed. Publishing a project upserts all of its child records into their corresponding production tables, and users cannot roll back the upsert. Publishing does not delete production records, but end dates territories and explicit assignments.

Publishing a model overrides any changes made to production records. For example, if the user creates a model and then later renames the production territory Boston 101 to Boston Cardio 101 without also renaming Boston 101 in the model, the production territory's name reverts to Boston 101 when the model is published.

Rule-based assignments will not be pushed to production. Users will need to run the rules post-publication to recreate those assignments.

If all child records under a project are published successfully, the publication process is classified as completed successfully. The project will be marked as Published, and neither the project nor any of this child records can be edited past that point.

However, if an error occurs during publication and some records are not published, the publication process is classified as completed with errors. The project remains Approved, and users must set it back to Draft before editing the errors. The process is not set to Published until all of its records are published successfully.

Project publishing only publishes Account Territory models and Geography Territory models where challenge_status_aln = approved_aln.

Publication and Parent Territories

Territory models can reference both a Model Parent Territory and a Production Parent Territory. Similarly, they can reference both a Model Field Force or a Production Field Force. The same logic applies to both, and the following examples demonstrate what happens during publication:

Example 1

The production Territory Boston 101 was imported into modeling and renamed Boston Cardio 101. In production, Boston 101 is a child of the Boston North Territory. However, a reorganization in the Territory hierarchy made the Territory model Boston Cardio 101 is now the child of a new Territory model, Boston Cardio. Boston Cardio 101 still references Boston North in its parent_production_territory__aln field but now also references Boston Cardio in its parent_territory_model__aln field.

When published, Align creates a corresponding production territory for Boston Cardio. Once the publication reaches Boston Cardio 101, the following changes are made in the production Territory Boston 101: 

  • Boston 101 is renamed to Boston Cardio 101
  • The parent territory is the new production territory created for Boston Cardio

Example 2

The production territory Boston 101 was imported into modeling, where it was renamed to Boston Cardio 101. In production, Boston 101 is a child of the Boston North Territory. However, a reorganization in the Territory hierarchy made the territory model Boston Cardio 101 the child of an existing production territory, Boston South. Boston Cardio 101 now references Boston South in its parent_production_territory__aln field, and its parent_territory_model__aln remains blank.

When published, Align applies the following changes to Boston 101:

  • Boston 101 is renamed Boston Cardio 101
  • The parent territory is the already existing production territory Boston South