Tip: Editing RapidStart Configuration Package Files

TL;DR

1. Extract the package with 7-Zip
2. Open the extracted file in a VS Code / Notepad++ / text-editor-of-choice
3. Edit the xml as required
4. Use 7-Zip to compress in gzip format

Editing Config Packages

Sometimes you might want to edit a config package file without having to import and export a modified copy from BC. In my case I wanted to remove the Social Listening Setup table from the package. Microsoft have made this table obsolete and BC throws an error if I try to import the package with this table present. (Probably not a bad idea – stopping listening to socials).

Fortunately, a rapidstart file is just a compressed xml file. Extract the rapidstart file with 7-Zip and then open the extracted file in a text editor. The format of the file is pretty straight forward. Each table is represented with an XYZList node where XYZ is the name of the table which the table-level settings followed by one or more XYZ nodes with the data.

Here are two records for the Payment Terms table.

<PaymentTermsList>
  <TableID>3</TableID>
  <PageID>4</PageID>
  <SkipTableTriggers>1</SkipTableTriggers>
  <PaymentTerms>
    <Code PrimaryKey="1" ProcessingOrder="1">10 DAYS</Code>
    <DueDateCalculation ProcessingOrder="2">&lt;10D&gt;</DueDateCalculation>
    <DiscountDateCalculation ProcessingOrder="3">
    </DiscountDateCalculation>
    <Discount ProcessingOrder="4">0</Discount>
    <Description ProcessingOrder="5">Net 10 days</Description>
    <CalcPmtDisconCrMemos ProcessingOrder="6">0</CalcPmtDisconCrMemos>
    <LastModifiedDateTime ProcessingOrder="7">
    </LastModifiedDateTime>
    <Id ProcessingOrder="8">{6BD87497-B233-EB11-8E89-E8FD151D8C93}</Id>
  </PaymentTerms>
  <PaymentTerms>
    <Code>14 DAYS</Code>
    <DueDateCalculation>&lt;14D&gt;</DueDateCalculation>
    <DiscountDateCalculation>
    </DiscountDateCalculation>
    <Discount>0</Discount>
    <Description>Net 14 days</Description>
    <CalcPmtDisconCrMemos>0</CalcPmtDisconCrMemos>
    <LastModifiedDateTime>
    </LastModifiedDateTime>
    <Id>{6DD87497-B233-EB11-8E89-E8FD151D8C93}</Id>
  </PaymentTerms>
</PaymentTermsList>

All I need to do is find the offending Social Listening Setup node in my file and remove it. Here it is:

Once you are finished editing you can use 7-Zip to compress the file again with the gzip method and import.