Use YAML in Policy Studio

2 minute read

The user experience in Policy Studio with a YAML project is quite similar to that of a XML project. The main differences are related to enviromentalization support.

XML versus YAML in Policy Studio

This section describes the main differences you might encounter when using YAML in Policy Studio.

Environmentalization

There is a significant difference in how enviromentalization is handled in YAML compared to XML. For example:

• In YAML, the same enviromentalized variable can be used across several entities, whilst in XML there is a one-to-one mapping between environmentalized variables and entities.

• In YAML, after you create a new variable using Ctrl+E, you can use the new variable in other filters or resources.

• In Environment Settings there is a YAML Values Settings Tree Item instead of an Environment Settings Tree Item.

• The Jump to configuration link has a slightly different behavior when compared to XML.

• When updating an environmentalized value using values.yaml, or editing the value within the YAML Values Settings Tree Item, the newly updated value is visible from within entities that use the value in question.

• The following image shows the list of available enviromentalized variables after you enter '{' within the chosen field.

  

YAML Values Settings Tree Item

There are slight differences in how the Environment Settings Items are rendered when comparing to XML. The following image shows the differences:

Jump to Configuration

Jump to configuration behaves differently in YAML because of the nature of YAML supporting for the one-to-many mapping for its environmentalized variable.

The following image shows the defined environnement variables in your XML project, where there is a single Jump to configuration link per entity.

The following image shows the difference in YAML, where there is a Jump to configuration link for each field that is environmentalized.

As shown in the following image, if the environmentalized field is referenced by more than one entity, a pop-up dialog is displayed with an option to choose which reference of the environmentalized variable to jump to.

Unsupported functionalities

The following functionalities are not supported in YAML configurations:

• Team development.
• Compare and Merge buttons.
• YAML projects can not be split up into Policy or Environment packages, meaning environment package commands are disabled.