MXD - Created for development; move to production

[JeffMaze]

Hello..
   We have a MXD file which we created for our development side of the house.  It's grabbing it's layers from our development SDE server.
   We'd like to move the map file to the production environment which has it's own SDE box.

   Is there an easy way to configure the data sources of all the layers in the development map file to point to the production source so it can be used in the production environment?

   Thanks.. -Jeff

[CherylTrine]

I know this is an old post, but did you find a solution.
I have the same question.

Cheryl

[JeffMaze]

I know this is an old post, but did you find a solution.
I have the same question.

Cheryl

Hello Cheryl,
Yes, we were able to get something working properly for a Development/Production environment.

Both the production and development databases need to be named the same and thus the features classes for both databases are essentially named the same.  SDE_DEV.Roads is different than SDE_PROD.Roads in the eyes of ArcGIS and if you try to change the Data Sources, it won't convert properly and you'd need to edit the production map document to point to the production database feature classes manually.  Where-as SDE.Road is the same on both databases in the eyes of ArcGIS and it's the database connection which is used to select between development and production databases.

If you only have one SQL database server available for testing, install another SQL instance and use that as a production area.  For example, you'd have SDESQLServer as the main SQL instance and then another instance named SDESQLServer/Production as the other instance.

Anyway, when you create a map document file, you'll use the development database connection and it's feature classes to create the map.  Your database connections can be setup and configured from within ArcCatalog.

Once you've finished creating your map document, use ArcCatalog and right-click said map document.  There's a Set Data Source(s) option which you need to select; the set data sources window will open.

The output file name will automatically be set to "Copy_of_" which is nice so you don't accidentally overwrite the good development map file.  You can rename this to something to show you that it's the Production map.

Below this, it'll list the data frames, the current data source and the new data source.

First click on the Select All button.  Then right-click in the blue selected area and select Replace All.  The replace all dialog box will open.  Change the Replace with: box area with the connection name of your production database connection.

For example, the development connection name is Database Connections\SDE_DEV@GISViewer.sde.  You'd change this to Database Connections\SDE_PROD@GISViewer.sde.

Once you've changed this, click on Replace All; this may take a little while to complete depending on how many layers your map document has. This will change the data sources to your production database connection for all data frames.  And since they're named the same by database and feature class name, the conversion will work properly.

Click OK to complete this task, save the new map document and you're done.

Hope this helps.. -Jeff

[CherylTrine]

Wow, that was a fast response!  Thanks, Jeff.  It sounds like this should solve the problem

Cheryl