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Copying Tabs Across Books in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace

Posted by Kathleen Boswell on October 10, 2023

IBM PA Workspace does not provide an out-of-the-box capability of copying an entire page / tab across books or folders. Users can replicate a tab in a particular book and use it as a starting point for a new visualization. If a user wants to move / replicate an existing tab in another book, the only way to do it is to pin each individual object on the page and then re-assemble the page from pins in the new book and adjust all the formatting.

The below approach outlines a way to move a tab into another PAW book by editing the JSON file.

To demonstrate this process, I created two PAW books, one with a single tab named ‘Blue Box’ and the target book with two tabs named ‘Other Shapes’. We will be moving the ‘Box’ tab from the ‘Blue Box’ (source) book to a new tab in the ‘Other Shapes’ book (target). 

NOTE: Use Notepad++ or another tool that allows tracking of the rows in a code block. 

Step 1 

Open the source book, the target book and Notepad++  JSON file content  

Step 2 

Open the source book JSON file by clicking on [Ctrl] [q] [/] all at the same time, make sure your curser is on the actual book page. A screen will appear with the JSON file within it:  

Paste this into a blank tab in Notepad++ 

REPEAT this step for the Target book, assuring that the JSON is on a separate tab in Notepad++ 

Step 3 

In this step we will identify the location of the Tab of our source book and paste it into the JSON of the target book creating our new merged book. 

  • In the source book JSON find the label “items”:[ 
  • The next line will have a curly brace { 
  • Click on the curly brace and the vertical line under it will turn red, make note of this line number (Ex. line 28) 
  • Follow that red line down to where close curly brace is for that block of code (Ex. Line 114)  

  • Copy this block of code INCLUDING the curly braces 
  • Next open the target book tab in Notepad++ 
  • Find the first “items”:[  
  • Follow it down to the end of its block, this is the code for the first tab 
  • Repeat this process to find the end of the second tab 
  • Add a comma after the close curly brace  
  • Click [Enter] to make a new line 
  • Paste in the code source JSON we copied 

Step 4 

In this step we will copy the new JSON code back into PAW and reorder the tabs if desired 

  • Copy the entire target book JSON code from Notepad++ 
  • In the target PAW book open the JSON file by clicking on [Ctrl] [q] [/] all at the same time 
  • If necessary, highlight the entire code block and delete it 
  • Paste in the newly merged code block from Notepad++ and click Update 
  • After the Update is complete the Target book now has the three Tabs and the Tabs can be moved if necessary