Object actions quick tips

David te Kloese


Object Actions Menu



Sometimes you'll have to do a few small changes to a Kentico Object. After you've made your changes and tested them you probably want to deploy your changes to an other instance for your customers to test (or immediately to production, this turns out badly once in a while). When you don't use staging you'll most likely find yourself using the Site Export wizard. But if you've just made the changes to a Page Type for instance you're already in the right place for the job. Just hit that few dots and press export.

Display menu for exporting one object

No more lists of objects, no more date range selecting (on the bad side, also no more laughs about that default 'Bad Words' lists). Just one question, file name.. hit the Export button.

Export one object 2


And your done! You'll find your file on the default CMSSiteUtils\Export location or can download it right away.

Export one object 3

Note: the only downside may be you wont be exporting any site information. Just global information


Going to do some heavy changes or just feel the need to keep the current version for a while. You could make an export and keep them somewhere. But Kentico has a nice construction of their own.

Backup will do exactly the same as Export but will store this package in a separate location to prevent accidental deletion.

The backups will be stored in your App_Data\Backup folder. (the folders are generated automatically).

Backup file location

You could also use versioning, but I think this could be useful for a longer period of time. Also you could store these files in a version control tool.


If you want to restore an object you could use the default Kentico Import to import the file, but when you use the restore function for this object it does all the work for you. Just select the file you want to restore and press 'Restore'.

Restore object



Also clone can be found in the actions menu. As the name says this will clone an object. What I particularly like is the option to import into another site (in the same Kentico Instance of course). I mainly use this feature for cloning Email Templates or (Scheduled) Tasks. Don't miss the advanced settings link to show this option.

Clone object to another siteDestroy

When all else fails, when you've created a monster, get rid of it is your only option. But what is the difference with delete you might ask? Well.. when you delete an object it can be restored using the Recycle Bin. When you destroy an object its gone once and for all... Both options will create a 'delete object' task you can select during the default Kentico Export.


Hope this post helps you achieve your object changes in Kentico much faster.