LCM and the magic of 7-zip

LCM is a great tool in the EPM world in terms of migrating artifacts from one environment to another, however, it being a real world, we know it is not perfect to the core. Moreover, when it comes to migrating reports from one environment to another, owing to the long, crazy, weird hard-to-remember paths that 

Hyperion is used to, we get those errors while trying to copy the “EXPORT FOLDER IN SOURCE ENVIRONMENT” to “IMPORT FOLDER IN TARGET ENVIRONMENT.” I think you understand what I mean, right, if you are used to LCM and those errors.

This is where 7-zip comes in handy. Windows comes with its very own Win-Zip, however, I am not a huge fan of it. 7-zip is a free tool and, I believe, it works a lot better when it comes to zipping the Hyperion kind-of files.

This is how it can be used in the process of LCM.

When you perform an LCM export in the source environment, a folder is created in the IMPORT-EXPORT folder.

For example, if you have performed an LCM export with the ADMIN account and named the export “REPORT 2013” the following would be the path/file you would be looking for –

\\Server\d$\oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\import_export\admin@Native Directory\REPORT 2013.

Here is the trick now. If you try to copy the folder “REPORT 2013” directly to the target environment, you can get errors, such as “file too long” OR “permission related” etc. This is where you can use 7-zip. As I have already mentioned earlier, it is free to download, and it takes only a minute or so to install it. Zip the “REPORT 2013” folder, and copy the “zipped” folder and paste it to the target IMPORT-EXPORT folder. Now you go to the target server and unzip it, and there you go, you have the files, ready to be imported in the target environment.