What was changed in an Update Set?

[johnsgp]

I am working on a system that has had numerous changes performed on it, mostly by people who have left the project and cannot be contacted to explain.   Is it possible to see what they have changed in precise detail?   I can only see a "Compare to Current" option that compares the record concerned to the current state, and in many cases the two states are identical.   I am looking for the sort of precision you would get from a version control system like CVS, Subversion, Perforce, VisualSourceSafe, Git, etc, not the vague information that there was an INSERT_OR_UPDATE on a certain table.

[Anurag Tripathi]

Hi John,

On the items there are all the versions listed below, and there you can compare any two versions, not just the current one.

Just select any 2 versions and click on the dropdown at the bottom, you will get the option to "compare"

[Pradeep Sharma]

Hi John,

You are on right track. As Anurag pointed out, you can do comparison of any two records by selecting it and click compare.

[johnsgp · Accepted solution]

Thanks to Anurag and Pradeep for replying. After reading your replies, I was still confused, but I continued to experiment until I found what I needed.   So now I would like to expand both your answers to be more complete, as I worked this out using your answers as a guide.

The first thing to note is that there isn't a complete one-page comparison for all the changes in the update set (please correct me if I'm wrong) and one has to step through them one-by-one to review them.   For large update sets, especially where the object was changed multiple times along the way, this can be quite painful!   Also it can be confusing when for example you add, then delete, then re-add a table column.

At the bottom of the Update Set form, there should be a Related List called "Customer Updates".   If this is not visible, you have to add it to the form using [Configure | Related Lists] - it is called "Customer Update->Update set".

Now, in the Customer Updates list, click on "Created" date link to open the detail view which shows an XML payload for the change.   At the bottom of this form is a link to "Show Related Record".   Click on it.

This brings up the form of the object you changed.   This form needs to show a Related List called "Versions".   Add it if it doesn't, again using [Configure | Related Lists].

In the Versions list, if you do not see a "Created by" column, add it by clicking on the gear icon at the top-left corner of the list and selecting the column from the slushbucket.   Now you can see your User ID next to your change.   Tick your change and the last change before your change (probably the last and second-last change, but if you made multiple changes, you might find the 'before' state is further down).

Then in the list of "Actions on selected rows", choose "Compare".   This gives a side-by-side comparison showing just the changes.

I had hoped for a consistent, side-by-side comparison of ALL the changes in an update set with one click, but this at least is a helpful medium.

[mackinley]

I found the following useful.

1. After marking update set as `Complete` go to upper environment
2. Navigate to `Remote Instances`/`Update Set Sources`, select the lower env with the update set and click `Retrieve Completed Update Sets`
3. Select your update set from the `Retrieved Update Sets` related list
4. Ensure the Update Set has been previewed and then click `Show All Preview Records` under `Related Links`
5. Select an `Update Set Preview` record and view changes

You still have to click through each file but through here you'll know what changes you'll be applying to the current code base (at least at the time the preview was ran).