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Copy

Copying a project produces a duplicate with all features, layers, analysis history, and result sets intact. Use copy to explore alternative configurations without disturbing the source — the workflow of choice for "what if we tried Most Conservative defaults" or "what if we relocated this magazine" experiments. Copy is on the project dashboard's Settings menu (gear icon) → Copy.

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson you should be able to:

  • Copy a project from the dashboard
  • Recognize when copying is preferable to exporting and re-importing
  • Anticipate what a copy carries and what it doesn't

What a copy carries​

A copied project starts as an exact duplicate of the source:

  • All features, attributes, explosives, relationships
  • All layers and their organization
  • Criteria settings, the default attribute preset, and the spatial reference
  • Result sets and drawings
  • Markup, to-do items, notes

What a copy does not carry:

  • Sharing assignments — the copy is private to the user who created it
  • External references that pointed at the source by ID (bookmarked URLs to the source project)

Copy vs export-and-import​

Use copy whenUse export-and-import when
You want a duplicate in the same environmentYou need the project in a different environment (online ↔ desktop, or another org)
The duplicate is for short-term experimentationThe hand-off is durable, cross-environment, or archival
You want analysis history and result sets to come alongYou can re-run analysis in the destination if needed

In practice, copy is the more common operation — it's faster, and it doesn't require a file round-trip.

Naming the copy​

Pick a name that distinguishes the copy from the source. Original — Most Conservative trial is more useful than Copy of Original. Avoid relying on a creation timestamp alone — six weeks later you won't remember which version is which.

After the copy​

The copy is independent of the source. Edits to one do not affect the other. Re-running analysis in the copy does not invalidate or update the source's analysis state.

Common use cases​

  • Alternative attribute presets — copy the source as Most Likely, change the copy to Most Conservative, compare
  • Layout experiments — copy, move several facilities in the copy, compare arc layouts
  • What-if NEW — copy, increase NEW on a PES in the copy, observe how arcs change without modifying the source
  • Pre-major-change backup — copy before a large refactor (relationship-group restructuring, bulk attribute change), so you can compare or roll back
  • COA seed — copy as the starting point for a new course-of-action exploration; capture per-COA result sets within each copy. See Result sets for the result-set side of the COA workflow.

Try it​

Copy a project. Open the copy and toggle a notable attribute on a PES. Run analysis on both projects and confirm the results diverge. Switch back to the source — it should be unchanged.