Customization-tracking tools and patch impact management

What are the tools you use to manage your various customizations (Mongoose Forms, IDOs, Reports; SSRS; SQL SPs, Tables, UETs, etc.)?

And how do you use them to assess patch impact?

I need to find a better way to manage all this and need your recommendations.

So far, I've been describing my customizations in an Excel (Google Sheets) file, in which each tab is a Form (at first) or a Customization (when several Forms/IDOs/SPs/etc. are involved).
This system is becoming messy, being live with CSI for one year already; it's not enough now, since:

  • there are too many tabs
  • the same Form may appear in several tabs
  • there's a second admin/developer now
  • I have a growing list of patches awaiting impact assessment and testing (too time-consuming and messy)
  • we're starting Phase 2, adding Factory Track, Multi-Site, QCS, probably Service, etc.; so new modules, new DBs...new problems!

We're using CSI 9.01.01 on-premise.

I've heard of Form Control; I've seen that Source Control tool can be linked to a User, and that Form Scripts can be automatically opened in Visual Studio (2013/2015).

What are the best options:

  • VisualStudio+GitHub for tracking?
  • FormSync, log-only mode for patches and any diff tool to assess patch impact?
  • Anything else? Where does Form Control come into play in all this?
Parents
  • There is new functionality in the Mongoose toolset that allows you to point at a group of forms and objects and it will package all of the pieces of a solution. Additionally any forms that you include it will package up all of its components: The form, Collections, Sub Collections, Tables, Scripts, Validators etc.  All of this gets packaged into a deployable .zip that can be imported into another environment, even moving from on prem to cloud.  Additionally you can also package up data within tables so that you can move information as well.

    If you are interested in this then check out the Deployments form. There are two uses of the form. One that packages by access as and another that is more free form which allows you to package up the elements freely and even script this out so that you can reexport if you need to.

    Hope that helps

    Paul

  • Yeah, except it broke as of the May update. It won't let you import the zip file it creates anymore. Plus it also doesn't capture UETs, Events, Background Task Definitions, DataViews, and a lot of other stuff that developers and power users create as part of an overall enhancement to CSI.

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