What are the best practices for transporting new &/or changed master data and settings (only the necessary ones & only the ones that work!) into production? I have not been able to find a Change/Configuration Management System that will help me track everything. I am concerned about:.
1. the administrative load required to manually track my changes
2. the very real possibility that I may forget to log an important change to configuration/settings
3. the possibility of undoing or otherwise affecting the work of my team members because I was unaware of their changes and requirements
4. not knowing the justification for previous settings. (Why was it set that way and will I break something if I change it?)
From what I understand, we are to export data from TST as a CSV & then import it into PRD. What data? Some of it is new products that need to be loaded into PRD, some of it is corrections to existing data that needs to be changed (because we learned something new or the biz reqs changed), and some of it is garbage because this is my sandbox where I experiment!
I have been told that any new settings will have to be manually set in PRD (can anyone say "rework"?). What if I miss one? I'm constantly trying different approaches in order to arrive at a workable solution. I can easily see myself forgetting to record one OR recording one, reversing it and then forgetting to mark it off the list.
There must be a better way!!!