behavior when 'overwriting' folder using copy should be merge instead of replace (or present user with an option)

When you copy a folder over another folder with the same name, you are prompted to overwrite or rename. If you overwrite it doesn't simply overwrite the files that exist in both the target and source folders, it replaces the entire content of the target folder. In this case, you will lose files in the target that aren't in the source.

Let’s say I have a folder called SMART AI with these objects:

Data Module 1

Data Set 1

Dashboard 1

Dashboard 2

Dashboard 3

This folder is managed centrally and shared across all our tenants. The Dashboards are sourced from the Data Modules which are sourced from the Data Sets all in the same folder.

Our customer copies this SMART AI folder to their tenant folder so that the DATA SET can be refreshed using their data. Then they and add the following custom dashboards into their SMART AI folder:

Dashboard 4

Dashboard 5

They end up with this in their tenant folder also called Smart AI:

Data Module 1

Data Set 1

Dashboard 1

Dashboard 2

Dashboard 3

Dashboard 4

Dashboard 5

Next, an update is made to Dashboard 1 and Dashboard 3 and customer wants to include these changes in their tenant version. They must copy the whole SMART AI folder in order to retain links to Data Module and Data Set (instead of just copying Dashboard 1 and Dashboard 3). Customer wants to ‘overwrite’ the existing files in their tenant folder leaving their custom objects in place.

First, they copy the SMART AI to a separate tenant subfolder (example SMART AI Staging). This is because they can’t overwrite directly from Main>SMART AI folder because there is no tenant assigned but there is a tenant on the copy in my tenant folder. Once copied to the staging subfolder this now has the same tenant id and they can ‘overwrite’ the original copy. Problem is, this process seems to replace my SMART AI folder instead of simply overwriting the objects within the folder. Dashboard 4 and Dashboard 5 objects disappear once overwrite is completed and all custom work is lost.

In windows, when copying files that already exist in target location you are presented with options to replace all files, skip, or decide file by file. Any other files in target would be unaffected. and when you import a deployment in Cognos over existing content, it doesn't replace everything, it simply overwrites individual files. This would also be the preferred behavior for our scenario.

We have also considered having any tenant customization being stored in a totally separate location from the main SMART AI tenant folder. However, this causes any links to be broken between the Dashboards and Data Modules when SMART AI folder is updated and recopied.

So, we need the ability to overwrite (or merge) files from source without losing other files in target or another methodology to manage this type of change.