Copied Down File from Visual Studio Not Matching

[MadCapLaura]

Hello! I hope that you are doing well.

We have had a recurring issue with copied down files from Azure DevOps not matching with the current Answer Center files.
The process for publishing files is to bind the Flare file to the repository and ensure that the most recent iterations of the file are pushed under Source Control. The newly pushed files will then be listed in Azure DevOps to publish to the various pipelines.
How can the copied down file in Azure DevOps not match the live Answer Center when the publishing process requires the file be pushed to Source Control? Is there a way to download the "live" file instead of the older file that was copied down?
Any assistance that you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

Best Regards,
Laura

[doloremipsum]

I'm having a difficult time working out exactly what you mean here... What files are you "copying down" (pulling? downloading?) It sounds like you're pushing your *output* files to Devops to be built into the software, and you're also publishing output to a live answer centre - but why do you need to download these files from Azure?

By which I mean, we can hopefully help you more if you outline your process from source to output

[MadCapLaura]

I'm having a difficult time working out exactly what you mean here... What files are you "copying down" (pulling? downloading?) It sounds like you're pushing your *output* files to Devops to be built into the software, and you're also publishing output to a live answer centre - but why do you need to download these files from Azure?

By which I mean, we can hopefully help you more if you outline your process from source to output

Hello doloremipsum! Thank you very much for your reply, and I apologize if I was not clear! This is a new procedure that I inherited.

By "copying down", I mean the following:
1. I created a folder on my C Drive named Dev
2. I clicked on the Repos icon in Azure DevOps
3. I found the name of the Help file I wanted to download
4. I went to the command line and ran the prompt C:\Users\<MyUserName>cd C:\DEV, pressed Enter, and then ran the prompt git clone. The file copies to my C drive.
This process was done only one time. I then bind the Flare file to the repository. I needed to copy down the files because they were previously worked on by someone else, and I needed to make edits in Flare.

I hope this information is helpful - please let me know if you need clarification! Thanks again!

[doloremipsum]

Ok, so your source files are stored on DevOps, and you publish the output files to the live Answer Centre. So in my mind the process looks like this (please correct me if I'm wrong here):

Source files in DevOps repository
--(Clone to PC)--> Source files on local PC
--(Make updates)--> Updated source files on local PC
--(Push updates to DevOps)--> Updated source files in DevOps repository
///
Updated source files on local PC
--(Build output)-->Output files on local PC
--(Publish output to Answer Centre)-->Output files on live Answer Centre
///
(Are you also publishing the output files to DevOps? I'm not certain about that one.)

So - you think that the source files you've cloned from DevOps are different from the output files on the live Answer Centre? I can think of a couple of reasons:

• Possibly someone has cloned the source files, updated them and published the output to the answer centre without pushing the updated source files to DevOps. This means that the files on their local PC are newer than the files on DevOps, so you're getting an old version. The solution is to find that staff member and beat them over the head until they push their work!
• Alternatively, someone has made changes to the source files and pushed them, but didn't update the output - so the files you've cloned from DevOps are newer than the most recent output. The solution in this case is to update the output.

Important to remember that source files and output files are very different. I'm afraid you won't be able to download your output files and put them straight into Flare, because things like conditions, variables and TOCs no longer exist in the output files.