Steps for Go Live for Webtools moving from Test to Production

Question

Further to the useful checklist in the wiki recently supplied by Bryce can I ask for some minor gaps to be filled ( perhaps by inserting a few additional steps in that document)
I have yet to hit the issues created by a go live implementation but this is only a matter of time...
I am trying to work out what needs  to occur between having :
a) a test B1 database successfully synching to a test WT site and db set up
and
b) the Production B1 database initially synched to the the live WT live WT db ready to accept the first live transactions.
1) Copy WT site from test to live location
2) Change Server config, settings and Tables tabs in Synch Manager click on 'Install Plugin' to add custom fields to Production B1 database
3) ......
I am stuck as to what needs to be done to "reset"  the WT back end db and how one goes about this.
Coupled with this and probably part of the answer is the 'Initialise Synch' button. It would be useful to understand exactly what this does in terms of data  - presumably it is only transactional data - but which tables are affected?
Also if there's anything else that I might have overlooked in terms of potential pitfalls I'd be grateful for advice - the recent posts regarding product trees and images come to mind.
Thanks

Answer 1

First thing is to plan for some downtime in your B1 databases. Nothing more frustrating than having new data come into b1 when you're trying to set this up. So perhaps do this at night or on a weekend when no one is using B1.
Install Plugin operation adds UDF's, edits the stored proc in b1 db, and creates the queue table, PRX_Transaction_Queue
Initialize synch runs upgrade scripts(if applicable), deletes all data that has synched from B1 previously(or would synch from Wt to B1, like a test order created in Wt) and inserts all relevant data into the queue table in B1 db. Also the synchid's are reset. It's pretty much the same list as is displayed on the Settings page of the Synch Manager. Please someone correct me if I'm missing something here!
Pre-requisites:
- Name the Wt db relevant to its position in the environment. B1Webtools is not the greatest name, it's meant to be a jumping off point. Rename your Wt db in the way that you would for B1. ie WebtoolsLive, WebtoolsTest. Makes things easier
Two options:
1) Presuming you have a test Wt db and a test b1 db or even a test Wt db and a production(live) B1 db, you could duplicate the test Wt db and change the synch manager config to point to the B1 live db. Install the "plugin" on the new B1 live db and enter your table mappings. Initialize synch will delete all the data that has synched from B1 test db to Wt db(now live db) and reset the synch id's to zero. These will be populated during the synch. Then Run Synch.
Caveat: This option is fine if your synch takes a "short" period of time. Short being an hour. If you have say 20,000 business partners with 3 years of order history and 300 lines per order... expect several hours.
2) Create a test synch profile and a live synch profile in tandem and update only the live synch profile with data. Also, have two web tools websites but work primarily in the live one. The synch manager will auto synch both profiles every time the service runs(set by you)
When it's go time, copy the live db's over the test db's so you have a test environment exactly matching your live environment.  Now, obviously as soon as new data goes into the live db it's out of synch, but this way you have a test system you can break or use to test upgrades, etc.
As you might guess, there are a number of ways to go with this. It really does depend on a) how comfortable you are with moving data around in SQL and b) what your setup entails.
I think the best thing you can do is make it as simple as possible. Don't overthink things and make sure you have a backup of everything before you start.
Good luck!