Simple solution to tie Update Sets to their originating record in Production

[Shane J]

I wanted to offer up what now seems like an obvious answer to the question:  how do I relate my Update Set back to Prod?

In our case, and likely yours, the record that caused you to create the Update Set in the first place won't exist in your sub-prod instances such as Dev or Test (or Staging, whatever).  Exporting them and importing seems like an unnecessary series of steps.

The other fun wrinkle is if you have originating records outside of the Task table, a simple reference field won't work anyway.

So simple solution:

Add an 'Initiating Parent URL' URL type field to your Update Set form/table.

Now any time you create an Update Set, copy the URL of the record that made you create it in the first place, and put it in there.  That URL shouldn't change, and easily gives you access to the 'right' record regardless what environment the Update Set is currently in.  This should make any audits a little easier to swallow.

The other bonus is that you shouldn't have to duplicate details on the Update Set record if they already exist in the originating record.

If anyone has alternate ideas, please share!

[DrewW]

Another option is use data replication for the tables that have the records you would like to relate and then just use a reference field.  More moving parts though.

Second option is to use a naming format that includes the record number and description from the record that caused the work to be done.