Transfer Web Appbuilder app from development to production server

[LucasMurray2]

I have ArcGIS for Server v10.3 with Portal for ArcGIS installed.  They are unfederated so the current workflow is to create a service in ArcGIS for Server, add the service to Portal, and use Web Appbuilder to create the apps. So far, this has been working fairly well on my development server.
However, I’m trying to figure out how to transfer the app to my production server.  I’ve heard it’s possible to transfer only the code of the app and avoid having to install Portal on my prod server.  I’ve figured out how to download the app code.  However, the dev and prod servers have their own data stores so, after transferring the app, I need to redirect the URLs to the prod data store.  After downloading the app code, all I see are
URLs pointing to a Portal address (i.e. no direct links to the service in ArcGIS Server).  Is there a way to update the URLs in the code to point directly to a service in ArcGIS Server or will Web AppBuilder only allow me to use services that are directed through Portal, which would require Portal to be installed on the prod server, as well?

[JakeSkinner · Accepted solution]

Hi Lucas,

The Web AppBuilder's applications are built off of web maps.  For example, the config.json will read the web map's Id:

"map": {
        "3D": false,
        "2D": true,
        "position": {
            "left": 0,
            "top": 40,
            "right": 0,
            "bottom": 0
        },
        "itemId": "b4bb8f185b36462a9a6962448c6a3058",
        "mapOptions": {
            
        }

You would need to create a web map with the ArcGIS Server production URLs.  If you would not want to do this on the Development server, you will need to install Portal on the Production server.

A great utility for copying content between AGOL/Portal accounts is the ArcGIS Online Assistant.

[LucasMurray2]

That makes sense.  Thank you.