Dependent assets

When you set up an export, you have the option to include or exclude dependent assets in the export file. The dependent assets must exist either in the export file or in the target organization, else the import fails.

You might want to include dependent assets if they do not exist in the target organization. Or, you might want to include dependent assets if you want to replace the dependent assets in the target organization with updated versions from the source organization. If you choose to include dependent assets, the export file includes dependent assets for all of the assets that you include in the export. When you configure the import, you can choose which dependent assets to import.

You might want to exclude an asset's dependent assets if the objects exist in the target organization and you do not want to replace them.

When you import a set of assets, the import fails if you unselect an asset that is a mandatory dependency of another asset. For example, if a managed API depends on a published API, but you unselect the published API during import, the import fails with an error indicating that the required dependent object is missing. To successfully import the assets, you must select all the dependent assets before you proceed with the import.

When you import assets for the first time, all dependencies must be selected for the import to succeed. However, when you import the same assets again in overwrite mode, the dependencies already exist in your target system. In this scenario, you can unselect any of the dependent assets, and the import will still succeed because the required dependencies are already present in your target system.

When you make an asset exportable, API Center automatically makes its related assets exportable. You can view the complete list of all dependencies to see how they are connected.

The following table lists the dependent assets of an exportable asset:

API Center creates all the assets in the File Repository Service (FRS) by default. While all the assets reside in FRS, they are either ready for export or not ready for export. An asset inherits its status from its source when you create it:

For example, if you create a managed API from a published API that is not ready for export, the new managed API is also not ready for export. When you make the managed API ready for export, API Center automatically makes the underlying parent asset and all its dependencies ready for export as well.