best practices for keeping track of Universe changes

[Former Member]

Hi friends

In my current workplace, there are only a couple of developers who are managing the universe changes ...

But our user base is growing and  I need a better and efficient way to keep track of all the changes I make to the universes and keep my end users informed eventually...

Are there any best practices I could perhaps follow?

cheers

[Former Member]

We operate a "technical change request" db using lotus notes. Maybe you could use an access db or even just a standardised form attached to an email. I think the tool actually used is not important.

So basically we import the universe into designer make the changes required and export the universe back to the server. I then import the universe back into designer and then save the .unv file locally - I think I got into this habit to ensure the object ID of the file was identical to the newest version on the server.

You can then attach this file to your database or email (whatever you choose) and detail the changes that have been made. Date of change, reason for change, new objects created, new tables inserted etc etc. You will also then build up a history of .unv files and could restore from an older version if the worst happened.

I often also take screen shots of new objects created to email to users so they can see which folders they are in.