The WebFOCUS Impact Analysis tool in Developer Studio provides the ability to gauge the impact on an application as metadata is refreshed. Metadata can be refreshed for a number of reasons including changes to the data sources, such as:

• Changes in column formats.
• Deletion or addition of columns.
• Changes in column names.

To generate a report of impacted files, the Impact Analysis tool can be launched from any of the following application deployment models:

• Local Projects
• Managed Reporting
• Data Servers

Note that the Impact Analysis tool does not search HTML launch pages.

As a best practice:

• Establish a process to schedule changes to the data sources so applications are not impacted.
• Synchronize changes with WebFOCUS Administrators and/or Developers so they are notified in advance, allowing them to schedule a refresh of the metadata when it has minimal impact to the application usage.
• Create and analyze the Impact Analysis reports and update impacted files appropriately.
• Search the HTML launch pages to gauge impact.