Forum Discussion
Manage changes in SP online production lists and workflows
What are the recommendations for handling changes to existing lists in SharePoint online, that are used in production? As a power user, I have access to SharePoint Designer to write workflows. I use InfoPath to add logic and layout to list forms.
I can create a test site in SharePoint online, with identical lists, where I can edit workflows and InfoPath forms there. But then, how do I deploy the changes into the production site without having to manually re-write each change step by step?
In essence:
How can a workflow be associated with another SharePoint online site collection/site/list?
How can an InfoPath list form be associated with another SharePoint online site collection/site/list?
How do you freeze production sites so you can make changes?
How is change managed in sites that are not code "solutions" that have been "deployed"?
There must be others out there doing custom lists, forms and custom workflows, too. How are you doing it?
8 Replies
- Just my two cents here: the answer to your needs is to use the PnP Remote Provisioning stuff that allows to save the structure of a site including workflows (and I assume also InfoPath forms) into a XML file that you can use to create new sites based on this XML file
I've started looking into the PnP stuff. Very interesting. I'm leaning towards the Powershell approach, because I am not a developer and don't work with Visual Studio or .Net and adding that to my learning curve is a bit too much at the moment.
It's a lot to take in. Once I'm ready to test I'll try a site with workflows and InfoPath list forms and report back.
Don't hesitate to ask here any thing you would need...there are some guys at the network using heavily PnP cmdlets
New sites are easy. Nobody is using them yet.
I'm talking about sites that are already in production and have data and are being used every day.
How do I make changes to site structure and/or workflow and/or forms and test them without impacting the user? I create a copy of the site and make my changes and tests there.
But then, how do I get the tested changes back into the production site???
I have a very similar situation where I have built a business application on top of SharePoint 2013 On-Premises which is highly transcational. There's usually 20+ new creates and then 100 changes/modifies across multiple supporting lists daily. I've had to continue to build & enhance this solution, adding new functionality, and provide the new functionality + list schemas along with those changes. For awhile I was doing every other week loads into Production.
I basically had to use ShareGate to manage those changes for me. I would first migrate the content types, and then I would migrate the list but uncheck (very important) the option to migrate the list content. This started out as a very nerve racking experience in the begining but became easier with time. The other option is incredibly manual to make all the changes you do in "non-production" and then recreate in Production. We tried this in the beginning but found it to be very mistake-prone. You'll have much better success with a tool like ShareGate to manage the migrations for you.Hope this helps.
