Who is this article for?

  IT Administrators running App Manager.

This article describes ways to find your existing App Manager instance files.

Part of installing Ideagen Internal Audit is to create a file containing all of the configuration options for that instance of the deployment.  You have one file per instance (e.g. one for Production, one for UAT).

In the install guides we recommend that these are stored in some common location, so that they can be used at a later time by a newer version install set.

For example, in a folder like C:\Ideagen\AppManagerInstances:

This contains the config file for each instance:

After you have set up your instance files, App Manager remembers where they are and loads them when it starts up.

However, it does not know where to find them:

• If you have never run App Manager before.
• Or if you are running App Manager for a new version of the application.

If App Manager does not know where to find the folder then when you run it, you will be asked whether you want to find existing instance files, or create a new one:

Yes:  allows you to find and select your existing folder

Cancel:  creates a new folder in the AppManager folder, and sets that as your save location

The "There are no current instances loaded" message

If you click Cancel, or if you select Yes and then select an empty folder, then App Manager will load and look like this:

Note that the dropdown is blank, and the message "There no current instances loaded" at the footer.  This is because it has found no configuration to load.

Finding existing instance files

Usually, where we see a blank App Manager screen on a system that has already been configured it is because you have opened App Manager as a new user and then clicked Cancel.  This causes App Manager to create a new empty folder, ready for a new configuration.

You can normally find and load an existing configuration by following the process described below.

Find the path to the existing App Manager instance files

• Close App Manager.
• Open File Explorer.
• Navigate to the last-used App Manager folder.
  If you have multiple install sets for the application on your server, then you will need to figure out which was used most recently.  The best way to do that is search the server for AppManager.log, and check the date stamps of those log files.
  
  
• Open AppManager.log in Notepad.
• Go to the end of the file.
• Press CTRL+F and open the File dialog.
• Type AppManager Instances into the Find what box.
• Select Up.

• Click Find Next.
• This will search for the event where App Manager sets the path to the instance files.  At first it will find the latest, incorrect path, but continue to search and you should find the correct one.
  
  
  
  
• Quit Notepad.

If you cannot find the AppManagerInstances folder from AppManager.log

The next best strategy is to use File Explorer to search the server for XML files. 

The names are not standardised, but normally they will have a name like PentanaPRD.xml or VisionPRD.xml.

A configured instance file looks like this:

Launching App Manager and selecting the correct instance folder

Once you have found the folder containing the instance files:

• In File Explorer, go to the App Manager folder, and rename the new/incorrect AppManagerInstances folder (e.g., add an x to the end of the name).  This will cause App Manager to ask the question on launch.
• Run App Manager again.
• Click Yes.
• Navigate to the correct App Manager folder and select.
• You should now find that the text boxes on the screen are populated, but might find that the 'Connected' dot is red not green:
  
  

If that is the case, close App Manager and open it again.

If you are unable to locate the existing instance files

If you cannot find the existing instance file then it will be necessary to create new ones, based on your existing configuration.